My partner lives in Brighton. For those of you accustomed to the blustery Northern coast, I have to tell you; Brighton is infinitely cooler than Leeds. Beach parties, vegetarians galore, friendly people and Snooper’s Paradise are just a handful of reasons. However, other than really expensive pints, there is another major downside to this utopia-on-sea. In case you didn’t know already I’m afraid I’m going to have to break the news to you. Brighton is not in my bed. I wish Brighton was in my bed. If it was, I could close the door to my cold room in Leeds, get under the covers and find a boy, a beach and barbeque-flavoured Linda McCartney sausages nestled amongst the cotton…
…Oh right! So, it’s Valentines Day coming up. This comes as great news for capitalists, unimaginative boyfriends/girlfriends and CATS. The rest of us sigh with indifference and go about our lives. Or do we? A friend of the Chris Dixon house has reported that in the Union there was a workshop for people to make their own V-Day cards. At a cost of £3.50 you could presumably spend the afternoon with other artistically-challenged students and cut’n’paste together. If that’s not romance, I don’t know what is. I have a problem with this (does this surprise you?) for several reasons. First of all, the cost. £3.50? If you are going to make a cheap card, why not do what I do for my ever-so-lucky friends and cut up old copies of the New Statesman and stick onto scrap paper. Nothing says I love you like George Bush’s head on a dog’s body. It will inevitably be smeared with grease from the fried tofu sandwich I was almost certainly consuming while constructing, but it’s part of the charm. Secondly, what exactly are the qualifications of the host of this event? Surely the reason that you have opted for the home made card approach is because you thought it would be more personal than the selection of “Hey, Luv, get yer tits out!” cards available at the local newsagents. How exactly are you going to tap into this personalised creativity with some geezer wearing a brown sack turned zen-pyjama outfit breathing down your neck. “Feel the love, feel the passion…” He oozes as he massages your temples. Your pritt stick and plastic scissors pause mid-air. The door is just out of your grasp.
According to Mori four times as many men as women feel pressurised by their partner into giving a card or gift on Valentines Day and a third of women are indifferent to the day. We have created this mess ourselves! The men feel panicked into splashing out because they think the women care, but actually the women don’t really give a toss. And those who do care only care because the media and the card companies and the four-times-as-many men make them think they should. Or are they just stating indifference because it is increasingly fashionable to be anti-valentines day? If we are not careful we will end up like our wacky American cousins who are expected to spend $13.70 billion on Valentines Day this year. What on earth could they possibly be buying?
It’s familiar ground to argue that you don’t really need a calendar to tell you when you love someone. If you are not telling them or letting it show on most days then why exactly are you bothering? Orchestrated ‘love day’ is about as appealing as arriving home to find John Prescott reclining naked on your sofa. It will never be clean again. Organised love seems too much like organised fun. How often do you sit around with your mates saying, “Let’s have fun at exactly 8pm on Thursday night”? Organised fun makes me think of days at school when you were allowed to play bingo in French as a treat (um, why exactly am I here? I may be thirteen but I’m not stupid…), or when a sports teacher was off sick so they teamed you up to play rounders with boys who fail to grasp the concept of playing for fun. You miss the ball and the next thing you know you’re twenty and still talking about it. Oh.
HHeH
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