A man-made catastrophe of biblical proportions. Inescapable. Viciously, latching upon your organs, ripping your sanity into indescribable shreds. Embarrassingly unavoidable, a painful scourge upon humanity. Rigorous with its blitz into society. Disinterested in your feeble protestations. You asked for it! You invited the repugnant disease over your threshold! You consciously allowed it’s vampiric strain into your bloodline, seeping through your contaminated pores, bleeding you dry of money, time and without any hesitation your rationality. This is undividedly your wrongdoing but there is a grotesque safety in numbers, there are so many commonplace individuals infected by the relentless virus, so many people with wrenched emotions, wracked brains and flummoxed thoughts.

Yes, gloomily Valentines Day is upon us, perpetually drenching us with a shower of hackneyed commercialised amour. Annually, sneaking onto the shelves of your local Tesco, with everything from heart-shaped fishcakes to drooping bargain-bucket roses, with even the cute Andrex puppy getting in on the act, aaaah the cute little bastard presents us with a pink heart emblazoned toilet paper. How appropriate!! Obviously a cynical metaphor for fabricated love, or simply forward thinking following an objectionable VD fishcake dinner, washed down with VD champagne and rich VD heart-shaped truffles.

Personally, I’m a magnificent fan of VD. If anything can possess the power to entirely cajole the nation into eating heart-shaped, haddock fishcakes that have a cheesy melting middle, finding love whilst going to the toilet and making someone feel extra special on one particular day, as the entire country reshapes itself into a big red throbbing heart of love, then what’s not to like about it. Its pure unadulterated genius and most importantly it resurrects, in many cases (where dullards haven’t resorted to an ‘E-Card’ and p.s the ‘E’ stands for ‘Excruciatingly-dull’), the softness and individuality of finding a pen and reminding ourselves to write again and even rarer, finding a big, red throbbing postbox to post the card into.

Naturally, VD brings with it yet another big, red throbbing distraction, losing hours & days to planning, executing and potential gloating knowing your partner is thinking of you whilst they visit the bathroom, making good use of Andrex’s contribution to love. I’m convinced Priest Valentinus is overwhelmed to be recognised in such a glorious manner, his sacrifices during third-century Rome thoroughly justified. Emperor Claudius outlawed marriage for young men, knowing a spouse was a distraction to his soldiers as they fought for the Roman Empire. A reasonable level-headed assertion. Of course, Priest Valentinus found the Emperor’s decree objectionable and secretly performed marriages for young lovers. It was only a matter of time before the Priest’s treachery was discovered and Claudius ordered his execution. Naturally, Priest Valentinus sprung to a throbbing pedestal and became a martyr, not just for warring soldiers and their partners but for cash-registers the world over and even motivating little fluffy bounding puppies to celebrate his martyrdom.

The throbbing (and yes, I will shamelessly, continue inserting this beautiful onomatopeia wherever I can), distraction is the poor sods who clearly and candidly for 364 days of the year bleat and bleat and bleat, about their utter abhorrence towards commercialised loving and then ceremoniously fret as Priest Valentinus’s legacy swings by again, about the consequences of not buying heart-decorated toilet paper for their lover to wipe their bottoms with. The (billion-dollar industry), question, always being ‘are you brave enough to do, say, buy (or wipe), nothing in celebration of Mr Lover-man Priest’. I think not, as you artlessly scuttle around your local Tesco and discover that anything that can be eaten, sprayed, fingered, squeezed, anointed, rogered, drunk or allowed to unblushingly throb has been contorted into a heart shape or dyed blood red. The agony of choice, as you eye-up what throbbing treats are filling up your fellow shoppers’ baskets, whilst grumbling about the cost of VD.

Embrace the distraction of VD, let it acrimoniously defile the truest definition of love as you drown in a sea of heart-shaped contraptions and think of cute labradors whilst sat on the toilet, as they gayly leap and bound in synchronicity with your throbbing heart. After all, one day out of 365 is surely better than none at all, we wouldn’t want Priest Valentinus’s death to have been in vain.

Happy VD

Love VD