Shall We Get Together?

I'm sitting in a cafe near Highbury and Islington station thinking to myself that I should probably put my glasses on to avoid a tremendous headache. I appear to be in a terrific family run cafe and am cursing my efficiency in bringing a packed lunch as it's making me feel wrong about ordering some spaghetti. I'm craving more spaghetti today after eating an enormous plate of it at 11pm last night after my housemate left me a mouthwatering pan of it.

But these are all domestic details, enough about me - how are you? What have you been up to lately? It's so long since I've seen you... in fact, have we even met?

It's difficult to know what to blog about today... let's face it, the world is a mess. I sat on the tube last night and looked at a very clearly illustrated diagram of the incredibly dangerous situation at Fukushima... I looked at the Fukushima 50 who are risking their lives to keep the plant stable, I looked at the people digging their dead relatives out of the rubble. Then, I turned the page and looked at the burning tents in Pearl Square... I read a brief note to a soldier killed recently in Afghanistan, and I heard about Prince William's trip to Christchurch.

Then I got home and ate spag bol and checked my Facebook, applied for a few gigs and went to bed. The immediacy of my life and the mind-numbingly trivial things I do in a day just couldn't override the atrocities and disasters going on all over the world.

Is this what the end of the world will be like? I always thought, when the disasters starting building and everything seemed to be gravitating towards a chaos that spelled doom, the world would know... and we'd all do something to get ready for it. But, there's some really, really dangerous stuff going on and nobody's given up their jobs and said - perhaps it's time to change for good.

What's it going to take to make us wake up, if it isn't earthquakes, tsunamis and threat nuclear of nuclear radiation and explosions - on top of escalating wars and massacres... what will it take?

The best the UK can do is Comic Relief? A night of having to provide people with top notch comedy to make them donate...? Isn't that odd? Do we really need something in return to make us give? What on earth has caused this programming?

Because, in a few minutes I'll close my laptop, head up to Barnet and go into a meeting. I'll work hard in the meeting and become a part of the mass hypocrisy I'm talking about here. I won't even watch Comic Relief tomorrow - not because I look down on it (I think it's an admirable cause) but because I have a gig of my own. Which is more important to me.

How quickly everything you thought you knew about yourself or about man kind, fails to be true when examined or put in to practise.

Laura, would you ever put work above family?
No, never.
So you still live near enough to your family to stay close and you prioritise social events with them above your career...?
Well, no.

Laura, what's more important - world peace or eating chocolate?
World peace.
How much have you spent on chocolate in the last month compared to how much you've contributed to aid for overseas conflict?
Right... I'm sensing a pattern.


Is this what makes the human race great? The fact that we can be so single minded... the fact that continuation of your own lifestyle seems to come above all else for most people? Is this what's kept us going? It's a curiously shameful self-preservation tactic, if not a successful one.

I suppose I don't really have anywhere to go with this... it's just a general musing on people and the way we are and the way we deal with disaster and problems. It's probably an entirely necessary state of affairs, without which we would be permanently alarmed at the sky falling on our heads.

But, when it does dawn on me that the world is about to end and I'm still dressed in a suit, in London, holding a laptop... I think I'm going to be fleetingly sad.