Leigh Sales - Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens after the Worst Day of Your Life

INTRODUCTION: STARING AT THE SUN

Murdoch, I., The Sovereignty of Good , Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, London.

ONE: THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ME

Personal interview, L. Hope with the author, Sydney, January 2017. 2000

The account of what happened to Louisa immediately before and during the siege is drawn from both her interview with the author and five statements she provided to the police, all of which were tendered as evidence at the inquest: transcript of initial interview by NSW Police with Louisa Hope, 16 December 2014; audio statement with Louisa Hope, NSW Police, 23 December 2014; additional statement by Louisa Hope to NSW Police, 17 January 2015; additional statement 2 by Louisa Hope to NSW Police, 27 January 2015; audio statement 2 with Louisa Hope, NSW Police, 12 May 2015.

Several books and articles were invaluable in aiding my understanding of chance, destiny and probability including:

Belkin, L., The Odds of That, New York Times Magazine , 11 August 2002, New York, retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/magazine/11COINCIDENCE.html?pagewanted=all

Bernstein, P., Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk , John Wiley & Sons, 1998, Brisbane.

Gilbert, D., Stumbling on Happiness, Harper Press, 2006, London.

Kaplan, E. & Kaplan, M., Chances Are: Adventures in Probability , Penguin, 2006, London.

Leigh, A., The Luck of Politics , Black Inc., 2015, Melbourne.

Rosenthal, J., Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities , Joseph Henry Press, 2006, Washington.

Bernstein, op. cit.

Kaplan & Kaplan, op. cit.

My explanation of the brains preference for certainty and predictability, as well as its chemistry, draws on research discussed in Belkin, op. cit., and in the following books and articles:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200910/hunger-certainty

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2016/02/21/the-psychological-need-for-certainty-goddidit/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-addicted-to-inform/

:

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10996

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2016/03/29/uncertainty-about-the-future-is-more-stressful-than-knowing-that-the-future-is-going-to-suck/#55c13894646a

Blastland, M., & Spiegelhalter, D., The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger , Profile Books, 2013, London, p 75; Kaplan & Kaplan, op. cit., p 83.

King, B., & Plimmer, M., Beyond Coincidence , Allen & Unwin, 2003, Sydney. (Page 26 of this work in particular refers to the common belief that coincidence suggests there is more to life than random chance.)

A couple of examples can be found in these news articles (accessed 5 March 2017):

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/lindt-siege-i-should-have-been-inside-the-lindt-cafe-that-day-reveals-maria-twomey/news-story/877e42652e1ea13865dec6cb29322b1b

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/lindt-cafe-siege-how-martin-place-siege-horror-unfolded-before-me/news-story/631b0562dd5793660b0932d878faa929

(accessed 21 May 2017)

I relied on several books to come to an understanding of the Law of Large Numbers, including: Kaplan & Kaplan, op. cit.; Rosenthal, op. cit.; and Leigh, op. cit.

King & Plimmer, op. cit., p 43.

The discussion about dread risk and evolutionary biology are informed by: Gigerenzer, G., Calculated Risks , Simon & Schuster, 2002 , Sydney (particularly p 237); Ripley, A., The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why , Random House, 2008, London (particularly p 33); Slovic, P., & Weber, E.U., Perception of Risk Posed by Extreme Events, Risk Management Strategies in an Uncertain World , n.d., pp 121.

Ripley, op. cit., p 49.

ibid., p 34.

Blastland & Spiegelhalter, op. cit., p 56.

. To work out the odds, the population figure is divided by the figure for heart-disease deaths, giving one in 1164.

The Australian population in 2014 was 23,490,700. Two hostages died in the Lindt Caf siege. To calculate the odds, the population figure is divided by the number of hostage deaths, giving one in nearly 12 million.

Bernstein, op. cit.

My understanding of black swans and how organisations think about them was informed by:

Albin, G.F., When Black Swans Arent: On Better Recognition, Assessment and Forecasting of Large Scale, Large Impact and Rare Event Change, Risk Management and Insurance Review , (1), 2013, pp 123

Makridakis, S., & Taleb, N., Living in a World of Low Levels of Predictability, International Journal of Forecasting , (4), 2009, pp 840844 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2009.05.008

Masys, A.J., Black Swans to Grey Swans: Revealing the Uncertainty, Disaster Prevention and Management , (3), 2012, pp 320335 http://doi.org/10.1108/09653561211234507