If You Are Stuck For Valentine Gift Idea's This Year...

Valentines Day is only a few weeks away and many couples thoughts are turning to what they can do to show their other half how much they mean to them but if roses, chocolates and cuddly toys just don't cut it anymore, there is website where for £100, you can get necklaces, pendants, bracelets, rings, earrings and keychains made from...well let's just say that Monica Lewinski's blue dress after THAT Oval Room trip would have been perfect.
The Amanda Booth Trinkets business began making trinkets from ashes before expanding their business to include the process of breastmilk trinkets and have now taken the next step and launched Jizzy Jewellery, turning human semen into forever trinkets.
The website explains it could be to mark your fertility journey, a vasectomy gift or just to show someone how much they are loved and advises that you must provide your own samples, obviously.
Amanda explains how she tried out the process of turning semen into jewellery by trying it out on a sample from her husband first of all and when she found it worked, she began taking orders.
She then went on to explain: 'It doesn’t make the office the most fun to be in when it’s drying as it’s not the nicest smell...' at which point i stopped reading and really hoped that hubby will turn up with a box of Black Magic, Daffodils and a card again this year.

What Is Love?

It was 1984 and Foreigner pondered in ballad form on the thought 'I want to know what love is'.
Not sure if anybody gave them a satisfactory answer, defining 'love' is tough enough without having the additional worry about neon green leg warmers and where your 'Choose Life' t-shirt was but the 80's always was a time fashion gave up on.
Poets and songwriters have had a go at explaining it without much success so maybe a neuroscientist is a better person to ask which is what i did, asking her 'What is Love?'

Apparently it's when the opiod system in the brain releases chemicals and hormones that produce feelings of pleasure, namely adrenaline, norepinephrine and dopamine.
Blood flow increases to the nucleus accumbens in the brain which lowers levels of the brain chemical serotonin and finally the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin permeate the brain and create feelings of well-being and security.

There you then Foreigner, that's exactly what love is so good luck finding something to rhyme with nucleus accumbens and oxytocin.

Loveland

Eros was always the more famous of Aphrodite's children in Greek mythology and he can be seen standing in Piccadilly Circus with his bow in his hand ready to shoot an arrow through the heart of lovers but as shooting your partner with an arrow is not considered romantic anymore, you could always get a letter from the most romantic place in the World, Loveland.
In the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, the town of Loveland has been gearing up for it's busiest period of the year as an expected 300,000 letters to be stamped with the Loveland postcode and forwarded to far flung parts of the World are expected to land in the Colorado Town's postal room.
For two weeks every year, Loveland volunteers stamp and redecorate hundreds of thousands of letters from all corners of the globe, so that lovers can present the objects of their desires with letters postmarked in the land of love.
The Loveland re-mailing programme started up 70 years ago, when a postmaster began re-addressing all mail with the slogan, 'From The Sweetheart City' and the famous town name.
For a fortnight the Town with a population of 51,000 people, becomes the Love Capital of The World with shops playing nothing but love ballads, pubs selling pink beer and the cake shops bake everything pink and heart shaped while every lamp-post displays a heart-shaped sign bearing a lover's message.
The Loveland Website advises that this year they have an Ice and Fire Party planned for the 14th February which could make for a very short party, just hope it is far away from the Post Office else some very soggy Valentine Cards could be dropping onto doormats this year.

Valentine's Heart

Everywhere you look the last week there have been heart shaped offerings on display, on cards, in shop windows, moulded in chocolate but although i have never actually seen a real human heart, the ones i have seen in pictures are nothing like heart shaped.
There are a few theories how the heart shape got it's shape ranging from the shape of the female genitals to the shape of a mans testicles. It could have come from the shape of the tips of cupids arrows as painted by renaissance painters or just as easily have been based on the shape of a backside but i once heard the best explanation that i have always gone with, the shape made by two people kissing.
The chests pressed together, noses touching and the two people forming a perfect Valentine heart of space between them. Far better than the idea of an arse.

Wrong Saint

Every year my husband asks me if i want some flowers for Valentines Day and i reply something along the lines of not wanting anything, it all being a commercial adventure to rip off people and we don't need a special day to show how much we love one another.
Of course if i don't get a card and flowers he will be sleeping on the coach until Boxing Day and scouring the internet for a doctor that could re-attach his testicles but the Church are now saying that St Valentine isn't the saint of love at all, that's Saint Raphael.
'Over the years St Valentine has come incorrectly to be associated with finding love' the Catholics Church explained 'He is the patron saint for those who have already found their soulmate, Saint Raphael is the saint for those looking for love'.
Clare Ward, spokeswoman for the Catholic Enquiry Office, the official body providing information on all things Catholic said 'while the distinction between the saints has always been clear within the Church it has, over the years, been blurred outside'.
The Mrs Ward obviously went mad and said 'There is a lot of evidence to suggest that young people who have tapped into prayer groups have found partners. Those who have exhausted traditional routes like online dating should try spiritual networks. Why not come along to a prayer group, it could be your lucky night.'
Yep, obviously been sniffing the incense again but there you have it, don't pray to Saint Valentine, pray to Saint Raphael and if you want a night of passion and a cup of tea with a game of bingo afterwards head down to the local Catholic Church.

Valentine Songs

Paul Simon may have told us slip out the back jack or hop on the bus gus and another 48 other ways to leave your lover but there have been countless other songs telling us ways to let them know that we are going to be staying around.
With Valentines Day looming we are going to be bombarded with lists of the greatest love songs to snuggle up on the sofa to. Most are the usual fare as one Greatest Every Love Song's Cd mingles into another one so i present here my Top 10 Love songs that make my little heart go pitter patter.

10 'You're Still the One' Shania Twain. Very sappy but i like it.
9. 'Wonderful World' Sam Cooke. He may not know anything about History or Geography but he has a great voice and this is just a happy, floaty song.
8. 'Wonderful tonight' Eric Clapton. Another sappy one but it is one of those rare love songs that isn't about the first flushes of love.
7. 'Without You' Harry Nillson. The ultimate loved and lost song. Copied by everyone and his dog but this version remains 'the one' thanks to the haunting piano intro and Nillson's lamentable vocals.
6. 'Will You' Hazel O Connor. 'And I'm feeling all fingers and thumbs, I spill my tea, oh silly me!' she sings and sums up perfectly everything about the start of a relationship. Also, contains one of the greatest sax solos ever.
5.'Sweet Child O' Mine'Guns N' Roses. It begins with Slash, has a magnifenct Slash solo in the middle and ends with the maestro but in between is Axl Rose going on about his baby's blue eyes and pretty smile. Not the greatest lyrics ever written but it shows that great love songs do not have to be ballads and can contain arse kicking guitar solos. By Slash preferably.
4. 'Time Of You Life' Green Day. Many interpretations of this song but to me it is all about not having any doubts in a relationship and ending up regretting what could of been.
3.'I Will Always Love You' Whitney Houston. A rare case of the copy being so much better than the original. The part where the drum beat is followed by a split second of silence and then, out of thin air Whitneys superb vocals chime 'And I-I-I-I-I...' blow me away with a tingling spine everytime.
2. 'God Only Knows' The Beach Boys. Hard to imagine any love song starting with "I may not always love you' but after acknowledging the heart's fickle nature, it goes on to show the sometimes frightening, fearsome and all encompassing power of love.
1. 'Only You' The Platters. Performed by one of the greatest voices ever to flow through a microphone. Lyrics don't come much more heartlfelt than the opening line "Only You, can make all this world seem right'.