I saw this report in the paper so I've cut and pasted it here. See what you think.
Big Bang threatens Doomsday for House Prices
Euro scientists will today switch on an untested nuclear gizmo which could destroy the British property market. If plans to recreate the Big Bang are successful, mini black holes could ripple outwards from the Swiss countryside consuming everything in their path. These dangerous atomic experiments are the biggest threat to British house prices since World War 2, it was revealed today. And yet Gordon Brown does nothing.
"It's a national disgrace," said Harvey Mitchell of the English Estate Agents Alliance. "Here we are in the middle of the biggest mortgage slump in recent memory, and continental physicists threaten the very bricks and mortar on which our inheritances are founded. People just won't want to buy houses this morning in case they vanish by lunchtime, and it's all the fault of those pesky Euroboffins."
Property meltdown is on the cards because of the imminent launch in Geneva of the Large Hadron Collider. Think of the LHC as a giant underground railway for sub-atomic particles, but without any trains. This £4.5 billion project is designed to speed up atoms until they mutate into planet-eating strangelets, or even explode. But critics fear that tiny black holes could accumulate and start to devour the Swiss countryside, before munching their way across Europe and threatening the UK across the English Channel.
Gennifer Mitchell, of Parents Against Prejudice, said: "Once again it's home owners in London and the South East who are bearing the brunt of property price uncertainty. First time buyers aren't interested in buying homes close to the epicentre of EuroArmageddon. Instead they're switching their interest to properties in Scotland, Northern Ireland or even (for heaven's sake) Wales. And who can blame them? Not even the Chancellor's shameless stamp duty bribes can prop up the Home Counties housing market this morning."
One of the scientists responsible for the LHC project, DrBrianCox, turns out to have direct links to disgraced ex-PM Tony Blair. Atom smasher Brian used to be the drummer in 90s pop group D:Ream, whose single Things Can Only Get Better was used by spin doctors to invoke false expectations of New Labour optimism. Now Dr Cox risks destroying your home, your beautiful garden and even your unborn grandchildren, and all in just a billionth of a second.
"I'm tremendously angry," said Kenneth Mitchell, 87, of Putney Heath. "I fought in the war to protect my family and to provide a future for all right thinking Englishmen. Now we face a far more deadly foreign threat, and I may no longer be able to pass on my lovely bungalow to future generations. I don't understand how all this physics stuff works, obviously, but I am very fearful and extremely outraged."
Life in credit crunch Britain has already become unbearable, with families who bought property this year now waist deep in hundreds of pounds of negative equity. It's even worse for long-standing home owners, who've seen the quintupling in value of their greatest asset reduced to mere quadrupling over recent months. Now the misplaced curiosity of ignorant scientists threatens to unleash a 100% inheritance tax on the UK housing market. And not one of them seems to care.
"There really is absolutely nothing to worry about," said Professor Hans Mitchell. "Any micro black holes we might create will be considerably tinier than an electron. Magnetic monopoles and heavy ion whirlpools are nothing but figments of an over-active imagination. And we have more to fear from global warming than from rampaging strangelets. The world will not end this morning, and that's a scientific certainty."
Opinion in the British suburbs remains unconvinced. So we still recommend that you defend your property to the last, and maybe take out some urgent home insurance. Lock the front door, construct a blast shelter under the stairs, whitewash your windows and prepare for the worst. And if we turn out to be correct and the universe is indeed devoured by an all-consuming vacuum bubble, trust us, we'll be back here tomorrow to say 'We told you so'.
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I saw this report in the paper so I've cut and pasted it here.
