Well, what a gathering. Thank you very much indeed, Dean. I really appreciate that.

I'm very grateful to the University for making this possible. I'm very grateful to the

Strategy and Security Institute. It's a great honor to be part of the

newtonian revolution and I'd also like to thank the international

visitors we have here, my fiance and her parents and my parents all the way

from the certain different parts of the southern hemisphere.

I know they've been enjoying the UK.

I hope that's still true in about an hour's time.

Not many of you will know that I'm actually the proud descendant of a highwayman,

John Small, who was put on a very generous one-way ticket

to the penal colony in 1785 by Her Majesty.

So this is a kind of homecoming.

He was actually from Devon. So this is a kind of homecoming. He's actually from Devon.

So this represents the summit of the gene pool.

So in thinking about uncertainty,

and forgive me in advance of being low brow there's no

alternative but to begin with this guy I want to talk a bit about Donald Rumsfeld

and if you'll bear with me.

Donald Rumsfeld is known for his statements about the unknowns, about uncertainty, about the

radical complexity of things. And he actually had this to say not long after the

war on terror had begun he talked about the ability to adapt will be critical in a world defined by surprise and uncertainty.

The word uncertainty is pervasive in our public life now.

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