Here's a Flashed-up version of on an old playground game that we used to play at primary school. Back then it was really embarrassing because when you're nine years old, boys and girls ARE ENEMIES. Now, many years later, it's just a bit of fun; after all the opposite sex isn't so bad, really, when you think about it.

Anyway, The Love Calculator is based on simple mathematics. For those of you without a Flash 5+ plug-in, it works thus:

• Take two names, and write them down.
• Count and write down how many times the letters l, o, v, e and s occur in both names. In the case of Tony Blair and George W Bush, the numbers would be 1 ,2 ,0 ,2 ,1.
• Step through these five numbers adding the current digit to the number on its right, ie. 1+2, 2+0, 0+2, 2+1. This would yield 3, 2, 2, 3.
  
  By the way, if you get any double-digit numbers, they're broken up into two single digits, so 10 would become 1, 0.
• Repeat step 3 with the new number until the resulting number has only two digits: that's the percentage of how much the two people love each other!

Note that there are some combinations which can't be reduced down into two digits, and get stuck in an infinite loop: The Love Calculator can spot these, and I'd recommend that anybody doing this on paper to stop after the 100th calculation as you've probably found one too!

Oh, and please don't actually use The Love Calculator as a reason for attempting to start or deny a relationship. Surely nobody's that daft, but if you are, you're responsible for any decisions you make, not me, you muppet!

Here are some unusually unsurprising results; maybe there's some truth to the maths...

• Tony Blair loves George W Bush: 99%
• George W Bush loves Oil and War: 99%
• George W Bush loves Beer and Pretzels: Infinite loop!
• George W Bush loves Osama Bin Laden: 25%
• George W Bush loves Saddam Hussein: 27%
• Stuart Wilson loves Michelle Bass (topical one for Big Brother 5 fans): 92%

Flash 5. Finished: 14/02/2003
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