As Maggie O'Farrell put it in her Guardian review: "The stories wrap themselves around the wholly disconcerting premise that catastrophes can rear up in anyone's life without warning".
In a disproportionately large number of what could be termed "social catastrophes", alcohol featured hugely – squatting right at the centre of the mayhem in the manner of a smirking dipsomaniac goblin.
Here are five Christmas catastrophes about to wreak havoc on your little grey cells: Researchers believe that as many as a third of the UK population suffer from seasonal affective disorder – severe changes in mood with the onset of winter.
She is understood to have felt the documentary – which accuses the US and other countries of exploiting natural and man-made catastrophes in developing countries to push through free-market reforms from which they stand to gain – would have benefited from more interviews and less narration.
This will no doubt have buoyed Mr Hussein.Waiting for B-dayAs well as obscuring the success of the advance on Baghdad, the televisual drama and individual tragedies have distracted attention from the coalition's other successes, which largely involve the prevention of various widely-predicted catastrophes.
It would help avoid manifold predicted catastrophes to do with climate, weather and the survival prospects of millions of species.
In France, the government-backed Caisse Centrale de Réassurance used to cover only natural catastrophes; now it will take on claims for terrorist attacks that cause more than euro1.5 billion ($1.2 billion) of damage in any year.
Or perhaps austerity might eventually lead to populists that turn away from the euro to hell with the consequences.A euro-zone central banker confesses that he has lately been thinking about historical catastrophes such as the first world war and wondering how the world blundered into them.
Japan remains susceptible not only to geological catastrophes, but geopolitical ones too.
Last year was the second-costliest on record for the industry, because of big natural catastrophes such as the earthquake in Japan.
It also further entrenches Democrats and Republicans in their opposing positions and thus less able to deal with either problem, not to mention any of the various other catastrophes threatening the global economy.A sensible fiscal plan would couple modest near-term stimulus with long-term reforms to entitlement spending and taxes.
