Love is in the air

While it’s not as important as, say, the current happiness or otherwise of Mr and Mrs David Beckham, the news of Chuck and Cam’s engagement has some interest. After all, Charles’s ex was the greatest gay icon since Mother Theresa.

It’s part of a broader issue though -“ with Camilla’s sensible ring and Lleyton’s lady’s new rock on the front pages week in, week out, there’s definitely a whiff of something pink in the air.

Ah, romance. It’s so hot right now, with offices busting at the seams full of flowers and chocolates and Valentine’s Day skywriters messing up the beautiful blue sky.

I saw a particularly tight-arse one on Monday morning, it just said Happy V Day, love Mark. What’s the V for, Mark? Vagina? Maybe next time you could cough up in full.

Then there’s the latest romantic fad emanating from the place that dare not speak its name.

Which place? Well, it’s a shopping centre in the eastern suburbs. I got so sick of staff members talking about said unspeakable place they now refer to it in a whispered abbreviated version whenever I’m around.

Said place, let’s call it WBJ, has just started a thing called cereal dating, where would-be lovers put a cereal box in their trolley upside down.

Would-be lovers then stand next to each other -“ possibly making ribald remarks about the cucumbers and melons in each others’ baskets -“ before heading off to have sex in the frozen meat aisle. Or something.

Despite the panting of the PR people behind cereal dating, this is nothing new. As anyone who has read Armistead Maupin’s Tales Of The City knows, uppy or downy banana placement in San Francisco supermarkets was a well-known singles signal back in the 1970s for gays and straights alike.

The only difference back then was there weren’t hordes of curious couples wandering around looking at the desperados checking each other out because they’d read a story about it in the Tele.

Anyway, if the cereal doesn’t get you romance, and the skywriting’s too expensive, you could always buy one of the other purpose-built love devices, like a ticket to speed date on the monorail, or billboard space to advertise yourself.

You could move into a big plastic bubble in a shopping centre or hire a dating agent.

But if it’s just a root you’re after -“ and let’s face it, it probably is -“ you can always do what everyone else is doing. Get a computer and shut up about it.