Romance is dead... and they buried it in Scotland!
WE’RE now on a countdown to Valentine’s Day. This is the first you’re hearing it? Good luck with your next marriage, because V-Day is like an annual exam, a test of whether you are committed enough to spend £50 on flowers that on any other day of the year would cost you £20.
Singletons should take heart: you may anticipate Valentine’s Day the way turkeys look forward to Christmas but this is not the time to check your deodorant and wonder if you are abnormal, unusual or unlovable.
You are fine – and what’s more, you are entitled to ignore the least romantic day of the year.
Let’s not forget, the original St Valentine was clubbed to death, and his remains lie in Glasgow’s Blessed St John Duns Scotus. In other words, Scotland is where they buried romance.
The real meaning of February 14 is buying things, which is a minefield. Couples massages, candlelit dinners, nights out dancing, and posh underwear – unless you have known each other less than a year, the reality is this ‘just us’ stuff has the allure of tiling the bathroom.
(Top tip: if you are seriously popping the question this month, throw in ‘and I will get a professional to tile the bathroom’ if you want to be hugged till your stomach meets your backbone).
DON’T make the rookie error of assuming that buying perfume ensures that love is in the air either, not while Yves Saint Laurent is flogging a fragrance called Trench.
Trench has no romantic connotations at all. Either it’s a coat worn by someone who couldn’t find their favourite donkey jacket, or it’s a putrid hellhole filled with terrified squaddies.
Or it’s that bit in the Irish Sea filed with old munitions, so we can’t build a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland. Also, it rhymes with ‘stench’.
This year brings fresh peril for the unwary. A well-known brand of fitness tracker is offering a discounted watch and wristband as an ‘ideal’ Valentine’s Day gift. The idea that your loved one needs to shape up and workout is not just discourteous, it is misguided.
Take Bear Grylls: Mr Outdoors is fit, strong and cheerful, which may be excellent Future Husband qualities but he also spends his time demonstrating how to survive in the jungle by eating ants, or swigging something unthinkable squeezed from camel dung.
Don’t you dread what Bear’s idea of a romantic weekend away would consist of?
Maybe it would be abseiling down a cliff called The Cliff of Death. Either way, a bottle of fizz and a takeaway in front of Grand Designs on TV probably wouldn’t cut it.
When it comes to true love, I’m pretty firm in believing it is the person prepared to clean out the non-stick frying pan after you’ve made scrambled eggs. Whatever that stuff at the bottom of the pan is, should be used to glue Teflon to comets.
And if you feel compelled to do something next week, you could do worse than avail yourself of the Valentine’s Day offer spotted in our very own city of Valentine.
‘Valentine’s Day special offer,’ says a poster in the window of a bar. ‘Pint of lager and cheese toastie £4.99. Show her you don’t care.’