h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We think you have a tenuous grasp of the concept of the butterfly effect, if not the raw physics. Put simply, a little old lady withdraws her pension from an account in Cheam and brings down Morgan Freeman. Chaos to you. But to the external observer perfectly predictable given the exact and known value of all influential variables.

Only in this case there was no butterfly flapping its wings in the Andean foothills. And the little old lady was as apocryphal as Mrs O'Leary's cow or Isaac Newton's free-falling apple.

Instead, in Switzerland, we had a thitherto unprecedented collection of the world's geekiest geeks assembled together accelerating protons around an electromagnetic tube with a view to recreating the conditions when the universe began. And as sure as Earth is the third rock from the Sun, big bangs generate uncertainty. Lack of confidence follows.

The timelines are eerily coincident. The collider came on line on 10 September 2008. Five days later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. And now we prepare to witness meltdown in Iceland. Icelandic insolvency will precipitate collapse of the British High Street, West Ham United and Gordon f*c*i*g Ramsay – the end of civilization as we know it.

Gordon Ramsey? What have you got against him - I can see the logic of the rest of the train of thought (oh well, maybe not quite West Ham United, but that's because I have no grasp of the footballing world)?

No doubt the events encapsulate the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Not forgetting 9/11 could it be that the month of September gives rise to exceptional circumstances. My wife was born in this month and subsequently gave birth to our eldest son on her birthday. This coupled with the fact that our wedding anniversary falls in this fateful month thereby giving rise to a serious run on the bank.

Guy Ritchie's birthday is Sept 10th. Kind of proves it, dunnit?

(and AB's eldest son must be one sad b*st*rd, I reckon)