Panicology

Hugh Aldersey-Williams · Simon Briscoe

feb 2008 · Penguin UK

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What exactly are your chances of being struck by a meteorite?
Think you're having less sex than the French?
How high will sea levels actually rise?

We live in an increasingly uncertain world. There's so much to worry about it is often hard to know what to really panic about. But stay calm! For Panicology is the perfect answer to the conundrums and questions that bedevil modern life. Putting a lit match to the lies, headlines and statistical twaddle that seeks to frighten us, it explores 40 reasons for worry: from binge-drinking to Frankenstein foods, bird flu to alien abductions - and explores what, if any, effect they will have on your life.

Why worry in ignorance when you can be a happy, informed sceptic?

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Simon and Hugh met at the age of six, united in fear of Dr Who and by a concern that a diet of tinned pears and chocolate custard must be too enjoyable to be healthy. Hugh won a scholarship to read Natural Sciences at St John's College, Cambridge. Simon didn't - but, armed with a social sciences degree, has held proper jobs in the civil service, investment banking and at the Financial Times. Hugh is a writer and curator, and the author of a number of books on architecture and design and science, the most recent being Findings: Hidden Stories in First-Hand Accounts of Scientific Discovery. Simon's books include Interpreting the Economy and Britain in Numbers. They are married, but not to each other, and have three children, two of whom are siblings. Simon watches house prices rising in London. Hugh watches the sea level rising in Norfolk.