Entry 1:

First of all, Sarah, I see it is Valentine's Day. I know this because somebody out there in cyberspace has been bombarding me for days with offers of Valentine songs and poems to e-mail to people. I listened to one or two of the songs, and they were hideous and rather creepy. The only Valentine song anybody knows is "My Funny Valentine" from the Rodgers and Hart musical Babes in Arms, but I find that creepy, too. I'm a great admirer of Rodgers and Hart, but that is their worst song ever--ghastly words, ghastly tune, and always mawkishly sung. I don't understand why it is so popular. For that matter, I don't understand why Valentine's Day itself is so popular. Today's papers are full of it. The Daily Mail devotes seven pages to a Valentine special that consists mainly of advice on seduction techniques. "How To Be a Sex Kitten at Any Age" is the title of one feature, which wisely ends with advice on how to handle rejection. (It suggests you practice this by going for a walk and smiling at every passerby. This gets you used to being ignored.)

I notice that this Valentine special is entirely addressed to women. I was brought up to think that only men or boys sent Valentine cards, but that isn't so at all, judging from the Valentine's Day messages in the classified sections of the newspapers. Just as many are from women as from men (though you can't always tell, as in "Ickle Pooky loves Big Pooky" in today's London Times). It may be that women have come to regard Valentine's Day as the one time in the year when it is acceptable for them to be the first to declare their love. Is that right? In her column in the Daily Telegraph, Susannah Herbert writes as if sending Valentine cards and gifts is still an exclusively male thing, and she doesn't like it. "Flowers and loving speeches given on February 14 automatically mean less than they would if offered on any other day," she points out, adding that "no woman can forgive a fellow who imagines this lets him off the hook." Yet the wretched tradition thrives, perhaps because people long to go public once a year about the sexual urges they brood about every other day.

How it all started is another matter. According to the Roman Martyrology, two St. Valentines were martyred in Italy on the same February day in the third century A.D., though they could possibly have been the same person. In any event, neither is reputed to have been in the least romantic. Their (or his) association with the love industry seems to be because birds are traditionally supposed to pair on February 14. Chaucer encouraged this link when he wrote in his "Assembly of Fowls": "For this was on St. Valentine's Day/ When ev'ry fowl cometh to choose her mate." Anyway, I am happy that not a single church in England has been dedicated to St. Valentine. Nevertheless, I would be interested to know what kind of day you have been having. Did you receive any cards? Did Robert make you a special breakfast? Have there been jolly japes in the London office of the New York Times? I sit alone and forgotten in my Hammersmith basement.