Happy, uh, Wednesday. Yes, I am told it is a special day but given that the people keenest on informing me also produce chocolates, print cards and run restaurants you'll forgive me for being a little sceptical. Personally I just object to the notion of scheduled romance. It's like betting on every horse in a race — you can, it's just not that fulfilling.

I had previously suspected that my feelings about Mr. Valentine's 24 hours were really a not-very-secretly harboured bitterness about being single, but evidently that is not the case. Fortunately I have found an awesome girlfriend who is (nearly) as cynical as me. Either that or she's just happy that it means we'll probably have dinner together several times this week just on different days. You may see us — we'll be the couple at the secluded table in an uncrowded restaurant sharing some quiet, quality time. So you probably won't actually. Which is kind of the point.

That said I would like to acknowledge how great Kirsten, my girlfriend of fifteen and a half months, actually is and I figure this is the day readers will probably put up with it having been suitably desensitised by the tacky saccharine dross filling every shop in the country (and heaven help those who actually turned on a radio). I love her uncontrollably and anyone who knows me has seen just how good an effect she's had, though since a lot of you have partners yourselves I won't tell you that she's better. But she is*.

For those of you not engaging in dinner-for-twos this evening, I prescribe Voltaire as the antidote to a V-Day alone. He ought to bring a smile to the loneliest of souls — in the past he always has to me.

*Ask her, she'll tell you.