Benjamin Evans - Author

'All this fuss about Swine Flu - it's absurd!' For some there can be no argument with this view. In the last few months Swine Flu has taken over the news broadcasts, NHS phone lines and virtually the entire Daily Mail output, and all for what? A relatively low risk condition, that can be cured with one simple dose of medication, and that most of us have a minimal chance of contracting in the first place. Now in this blog I am not going to consider whether this reaction is merited or not, but why it has come about in the first place. Why is there this sensationalism? Why do so may panic at the onsite of every new virus, as if it might one step from Armageddon . Is this a good thing or a bad thing? How would we cope with a plague today? The first point I would like to make, is that the above statement is absolutely right. The reaction to Swine Flu is absurd, but purely in a philosophical way. The absurd I refer to is that of Kierkegaard and Camus , of our search for self i

How it makes of your face a stone that aches to weep, of your heart a fist, clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice that can throw no six. How it takes the breath away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin, makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static, of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this - politics - to your education education education; shouts this - Politics! - to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS Carol Anne Duffy's right isn't she? Politics. Surely it is the most depressing most gob-smackingly awful part of our social framework, one that if you look at long enough, you feel your soul empty from inside of you, and you

Its literary awards season all over again. Time for the great and the good of high culture to take off their mauve sweaters and sandals and stagger down the aisle and be lauded and applauded amongst the cameras and bright lights. Writing is a dark, lonely business. As rabbits in the highlights go, these are less your Bigwigs and more your Flopsy-Wopsies. Nobody likes award ceremonies do they? Not the judges , the recipients , even the viewers. Not even the publishing houses , now the promise of a vast increase in sales for victory is as debatable as the presenter's opinions on the great literary words of the evening. In fact it makes you wonder what the point is of winning at all, or even turning up in the first place. Trust me, if I was comfortable standing in front of a crowd of hundreds, without even considering the...about one million watching on TV, then I wouldn't be an author. When you think about it, winning the Booker Prize , for example, is the antithesis of why any