Sicko.

I don't know about you, but i'm getting sick of all this talk about swine flu. Having a part time job in a doctors surgery probably isn't the best way to get around this problem but the media's handling of the sitch is also making me re think my chosen career path somewhat.

If we believed what the media had told us as a collective then by 2010 we would all catch swine flu, the emergency services wouldn't be able to cope so the service sector would shut down causing us all to die and the world to end. Truthfully, swine flu is no worse than 'normal' flu and the number of fatalities are of a similar rate.

But is the reason for this scare mongering as straight forward as it appears? Hasn't it almost masked talk of the recession? And aren't certain industries benefitting financially from it, from producing the tami flu medication to setting up a national helpline providing hundreds of jobs just as employment rates hit an all time low...

It seems strange that something should come along at about this time which is as newsworthy as a global recession. Pandemic predictions have faded in and out of the media over the years with bird flu and mad cow disease (it's those bloody animals fault i say!) but never have they made such an impact as this.

Perhaps this moral panic will end in a couple of months but another distraction will hit our front pages. Yet again the government have manipulated the public by puppeting the tabloids to distract us from the real problems which exist in our society. If that's the best you can do Gordon, then you might as well stand down now.

So, if you start to feel a bit head achey, have a cough or cold, then don't panic. Perhaps use the time quarentined in bed to think about the real problems we are facing right now, problems which have been cleverly masked by some Mexican pigs.

I ♥ U?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the concept of 'love'. Probably the most dramatic and intense of all the human emotions, i find it hard to get my average sized brain around it. What exactly is it? It certainly makes people act in the most unnerving of ways and do things i'm sure they wouldn't normally do if they weren't under the influence, so to speak.

Christians believe that there are four different kinds of love, like the way you love your family even if secretly you think some members are knobs. Or sexual love where you are purely attracted to someone in well, a purely sexual manner, i.e. they're fit but you find them immensly boring so a relationship is out of the question.

Nostalgia also seems to come hand in hand with 'love' or perhaps more with romance. Her; all curls, rouge and lace. Him; tall, dark and chiselled. Lots of passionate kissing on black and white film reel. Ahhhh makes me swoon just thinking about it.

But how do we fall in and out of love? I haven't had a boyfriend yet which at some stage i haven't thought "Right, this is it Laura, he's the one" and told my friends i'll be getting married and they can be bridesmaids, usually resulting in knowing looks of sympathy at my naiivity. One minute you're in love and everything is in sky HD, just a little bit brighter than usual and you become part of a 'twosome' who do everything together, forever name dropping to dissaproving single friends who secretly can't wait for you to break up so they can have the old, fun you back. The next minute you hate him. Everything about him makes you feel sick and you never want to see him again, until you see him with another girl and your insides turn to jelly, your heart stabbed with a safety pin and the like. Just me then? I doubt it, i've seen enough rom-coms to know i'm not alone.

And why is telling your partner that you love them the most important part of any new-ish relationship? Slip it in too soon and you're clingy, leave it too long and you have committment issues. It's a minefield out there. If i had a £1 for all the people i've told on nights out that i love them, yes that i actually love them, after a few jd and cokes and having just met them, i would be a millionaire by now. Perhaps a slight exaggeration...maybe i'd have a tenner but whatever, the point is why have we built this 'love' up to be some kind of make or break word in our relationship vocab. How do we even know what love actually is? It's not like anyone has ever sat us down and said "look, one day you will meet someone and when you think about the fact that they might be with someone else one day you'll feel as though you've been kicked in the face. That, my friend, is what we call love". Maybe someone should be appointed this job in light of the credit crunch, just to avoid confusion. Look at me saving the economy and helping you love sick lot out there.

All i know is that without love, even if it is pretend because we're never sure what it actually is, the world would be a pretty boring and un-lovely place and we wouldn't want that.

If you have read this lengthy rant then i love you :).








No seriously, i actually do...