I had no idea that Valentine’s Day dated back so far. I’ve just been doing some research and St Valentine was probably buried around 270 AD. There are, of course, many myths and legends associated with him and the day, but it’s certainly been a factor since the Middle Ages as a day to put romance top of the agenda. Apparently roughly 145 million cards are sent worldwide, making it second only to Christmas as a highpoint for Hallmark and their ilk. I’ve always rather admired those wonderfully creative homemade ones, that can ending up looking frightfully naff, but generally portray the message to their recipient more effectively than the even more naff shop-supplied model.
I’ve always been a sucker for cards. A few years ago, Alison (my wife) and I went quite a long way down the road of starting a card shop. I rather regret now that we didn’t do it. We were advised that they were going out of fashion, that Moonpig (an online design-it-yourself operation) and Jacqui Lawson (electronic cards) would take over the card world and that anyway people just sent emails now and the day of the card was dead. There’s a beautiful purveyor of cards called Maythers on Milson Street in Bath. I was in there yesterday and the place was humming. The tills were rattling so hard I was fearful they would overheat and implode. I have a hunch that they may not be on their last legs after all. There’s still something rather magical about the beautifully hand-written card plopping down on the doormat and what better way this week to express your heartfelt longing for a spouse or partner or even unsuspecting admiree than crafting a few well chosen sentences expressing your deep and long-lasting affection? Or you could just put an arrow through a heart and say “I love you”.
There was a report out today that suggests that we’re at our happiest in life aged sixteen and then again at seventy. That leaves an awful lot of years in between to feel miserable. My memory is that sixteen was actually a rather confusing and troubled age. I loved the twenty five to thirty five decade. Why on earth would you be happy at seventy? Most people are starting to get distinctly decrepit, nothing works the way it used to or should and the papers are full of people popping their clogs of your age or younger. The chances are that at seventy you’ll be dead in less time than it has taken your sixteen year old son to realise that he’s supposed to be super happy. Who on earth dreams up these reports and why? It must be somebody at the BBC who’s concerned that there won’t be any news other than Brexit for the foreseeable future, so let’s do some detailed research that will create deep and meaningful headlines so that we can get Alistair Campbell and his sixteen year old daughter onto PM for some deep and meaningful questions that will all be answered, “So”….etc. It’s driving me bonkers. I love listening to talk radio, but every interviewee from politician to chief executive of a worthy charity starts every answer “So”. What’s wrong with you people!! So “so” must now be added to “like” and “you know” as cues for hurling rotten tomatoes at the transistor and if that fails, hurling the transistor in the bin.
How did I start with romantic February and end up with ranting at the radio? A dozen red roses are on their way…..
ADayInTheStrifeOf 