I got a Valentine’s Card once. I cannot remember the exact year but I think it might have been around 1937.
Since then my doormat has been graced with a small mountain of bills, a cascade of unwanted mail-order catalogues and the occasional muddy footprint. But I harbour no grudges and, as the day of luuuurrve and romance fast approaches, let me take this brief opportunity to extend my warmest wishes to all those gaily courting couples of the world. May the aim of cupid’s arrow be straight and true and may it pierce the fluttering heart of paramours everywhere. For what is life but to love, as some philosopher once said. Or should have said.
Forgive the mawkishness but I have been driven to such sentimentalities as a reaction to the rather less enchanting message that is being broadcast from people who, purportedly, are rather more caring than I am:
A hard-hitting advertising campaign to warn young people about the dangers of unsafe sex has been unveiled by the Government.
The campaign, launched in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, features cartoon images of realistic looking Valentine’s cards, with powerful messages about the risks of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
One features a sunset scene of a couple on the beach with the poem: “Oh Valentine, since you came to me you’re always in my thoughts. I’ll never forget the night we met and you gave me genital warts.”
Another shows a pink teddy bear in obvious pain, with the message: “I love you so much it hurts… when I pee.”
Such a bunch of twinkle-eyed, slushy romantics, are they not?
Health Minister Melanie Johnson said it was “vital” to tackle this boom in sexually transmitted diseases and improve sexual health.
“This campaign is aimed at targeting those most at risk by using thought-provoking imagery and direct language.
“The Sex Lottery campaign is targeted specifically at sexually active 18 to 30-year-olds, and has already achieved significant behaviour change.’
At Christmas it’s the dangers of overeating, overdrinking and faulty electrical goods. In the summer it’s skin cancer, sunstroke and cornea-damage. Now, the season of romance invokes finger-wagging and tut-tutting about STD’s. I think what the Department of Dour Presbyterian School Ma’ams is trying to tell us is that life is a bitch, no good will come of it, pleasure is sin and we will all be jolly well sorry we ever started.
While the theological analogy is tempting, it is probably too deep. The real problem lies in there being far too many many state bureaucrats with far too much time on their hands and way too much of our money burning a hole in their pockets. But I do wonder if these people actually mean what they say? I mean, is all this sanctimonious hectoring just a way of bailing out the huge waves of cash that HM Treasury has flooded them with in recent years? Or do people like Melanie Johnson really see the world only in terms of the demons waiting to pounce with malice aforethought on the unsuspecting life-reveller? Are these apparent neuroses just convenient rubrics or is this, in fact, the true face of our political classes that we are seeing, genital-warts and all?
I would like to think that it is the former but, increasingly, I suspect the latter. I really do think that our entire ruling class is deep in the grip of some paralysing psychosis that has turned them into medieval peasants, muttering incantations and kissing toads to protect themselves from the Dark Faeries That Dwell In The Woods.
Generally speaking, the world is a dangerous and worrisome place for defeated and exhausted people.
