Recent Posts

On my blog i have it where it checked to see which category you’re in and lists posts from that category under Recent Posts.

<li><h2>
<?php
if ((!is_home()) & (!in_category(8)) & (!in_category(1))) {
_e('Recently Answered'); ?></h2>

<ul>
<?php $categoryvariable=$cat; // assign the variable as current category
$query= 'showposts=5&cat=' . $categoryvariable. '&orderby=date&order=ASC'; // concatenate the query
query_posts($query); // run the query
?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<li><a>"><?php the_title() ?> </a> </li>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
</ul>
</li>
<?php } ?>

The conditions I’m trying to make are that if you’re not on your home page in categories 8 or 1, display Recently Posted Posts From the category you are viewing. But when I select a specific post ie. http://**/wordpress/?p=9 it displays new posts from every category. It only does this on specific posts pages. How can I fix this?

PS: How the heck do you use the Markup to format code on this bloody forum?