Bumping a new story in an old blog.

For all of the uproar over terrorists - and the lives that were taken on 9/11 and 7/7 - it amazes me how briskly news of the Burmese cyclone passes on deaf ears. 22,000 dead and 41,000 still missing. Those are shocking numbers and while I'm sure we'll be reminded of them for a few days to come , how long until Burma goes forgotten in favour of more politically explosive headlines?

The real tragedies of the world are the ones which get buried to the bottom of the fifth page where nobody even reads about them. It bothers me that such an event like 9/11 can create a firestorm of public emotion, that Madeleine McCann can bring a nation to tears, while the most terrible natural disaster is met with dumbfounded bliss and shrugs of "eh, Burma's off the holiday map this year then".

I've been pretty outspoken in the past about my utter dislike for sympathetic selection in the media, and this is no different. I find it hard to fathom how Paul Gascoigne found his way on to one newspaper front page when a death toll is rising by the thousands every hour. And unlike so many other leading stories - your terrorist attacks, for example - this is a situation where public exposure should be at the maximum to encourage as many emergency donations as possible.

Still, perfect timing for Gordon Brown, eh?

The Labour party has become a sore joke in power. So, as a good citizen of London, I took it upon myself to vote for a joke that's actually funny. Boris Johnson, take a bow.

I don't know about you, but the sheer sight of his blonde mop wrestling with the wind as he cycles towards City Hall is enough to fill me with dread - and in a way that lacks logic - comfort. I've realised that voting for politicians is like choosing the poison that you can recover from. And while I fully expect Boris Johnson to run London in to the ground, it's going to be one of those epic spirals that I wouldn't be paid to vote Ken to miss.

If his diplomacy is anything like his football tackle, we're in for a real treat.

I've been meaning to post to this blog for a while now, but it's amazing how you suddenly become a lot more selective with your thoughts once you've settled in to a relationship. I'm a little frustrated with myself for closing the book so to speak. But as much as I'd love to reel off the rollercoaster of emotions that I've been feeling, I have to take some responsibility for what gets published to an open window.

I will say, though, that I'm very happy and probably a little bitter that others must have doubted my motives when I got involved in the first place - even if they'd never dream of saying it to my face.

It's very easy to build up a picture book fantasy of how you think your friends' private lives should pan out. And we all do it. But holding them accountable when they take a different path is hardly the way friends are supposed to act. I don't like to feel the doubts that I haven't read the script of my own love life, as written in somebody else's all too vivid imagination.

I make my own decisions and if I don't feel passionately for a girl, I don't get involved in a relationship with her. It's as simple as that. Rattling on about love, happy futures and the names of the first grandkids simply wouldn't be my style.

But people who fictionalize their own private lives with indecision should be the last to look down on friends when they find something that they think is worth fighting for. I guess I'm just having my patience tested by judgmental people in general.

I had an almighty hangover when my last relationship caved in. Time and distance took its toll on me and I found it very hard to trust, even harder to be trusted. I've waited a long time to put myself on the line like that again. I don't know whether this is the start of something long-term, and I'm not naive enough to claim otherwise. But I do care very much and I'm starting to reclaim some of the nicer things about myself that I could swear once existed before things went wrong.