The story of the brilliant physicist Hugh Everett's tapes on the existence of parallel universes turning up in the basement of his rock star son's flat intrigued me.

Mark Everett is the lead singer with the US band The Eels but his dad demonstrated the existence of parallel 'multiverses' in his work on quantum mechanics in the 1950s.

* Click here to read more John Battle's Commons Comments columns.

At the time, Hugh Everett's proofs were ignored – today scientists regard them as of key importance.

And last week, in Parliament, and with the media 'commentariat', was a real experience of parallel universes.

As I spelt out in the Commons chamber, for all the talk about Northern Rock, no one had lost their home or a penny of their savings.

Moreover, even in the case of the disappearing discs with Child Benefit records, no one has yet lost any money from their bank account, and even if they did, in any event regulations have already been put in place to protect bank accounts against computer fraud.

The banks guarantee your account against any loss. As is often the case – and losing
confidential records is serious – fear of the possibilities of crime far outreach the cases of actual crime.

What is just being woken up to is the amount of private information already in the private business world of banks, supermarkets, insurance companies and chain stores – all regularly sourcing junk brochures through our doors, offering loans and cash on the basis of our 'consumer profile'.

It took one computer whizz just 11 seconds to tell me my mother's maiden that I might use as a bank password (I don't!).

What has changed in the last few years is that we now have search engines able to comb through information quickly.

In the past there was just too much information to handle – today it can easily and quickly broken down into 'usable' and significantly 'sellable' packages.

In the new cyber world we are certainly not safe. Even what we delete can be retrieved.

Learning to lock up our computers is now essential – given our readiness to give away bits of personal data.

Already most of us have handed out much of our 'identity' to the market place.

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While this is certainly a massive challenge for our society, this week I'm focusing on what we can deal with that really affects everyday lives: new measures to tackle the shortage of affordable homes to rent (Tuesday), trying to get in at Prime Minister's Questions on the need for more further education and training in West Leeds (Wednesday), and new youth
services (Thursday).

Just another week.