This morning, if your front doormat was not ankle-deep in Cupid's white envelopes like a drifting Arctic snowfall, do not despair, writes George Frew.

There are some people from whom you would not want a Valentine card if your love life depended on it. Take my word for it - I should know.

Down the years, I've had Valentine Day cards from the sexy, the stupid and the psychotic, from brazen hussies, blushing virgins and barmy women grown-up enough to know better. I know, I know - the sender of the card is supposed to be a secret, but unless you're someone like David Ginola or Mel Gibson, it's usually not too difficult to work out who licked the stamp and penned the words within.

Especially if you get a card from someone like daft Denise. You didn't need the reasoning powers of Sherlock Holmes to work out that Denise had sent this Valentine. She signed it. And put "Guess who?" after her name. Denise was (and still is, as far as I know) a lovely girl; thick tresses the colour of a raven's wing, a figure to cause a riot on any building site in the land, a doll's face and big green eyes that glittered like emeralds in Asprey's window. But she was not, I have to admit, the brightest slate on the roof. Mind you, she tried, bless her. I took her out after I'd received her Valentine card, flattered by her interest. It was soon obvious that she wasn't about to flatten me with her intellect.Mozart was on the stereo when she arrived at the flat. "Ah," she said brightly, "the music from the Batchelor's soup advert." Baffled and wrong-footed, I asked her if she was aware that Wolfgang Amadeus was, in addition to being arguably the greatest composer who ever lived (just ask Batchelors soups), also a terrific billiards player. A dim flicker of understanding crossed her face as the thought registered. And that would have been that, had I not chanced to call at her family home to pick her up for our next date. Her dad answered the door. He was a fine figure of a man. Actually, he was a fine figure of about six men - a huge, hulking behemoth clutching a copy of the Daily Mirror and sartorially arrayed in a pair of demob-suit trousers and a grimy string vest.

He regarded me with a stony stare. "You'll be the boyfriend, then," he said.

I agreed that this was so and he invited me to step inside. Now, this is a big man we are talking about. Had he so wished, he could have picked me up like a rag doll and chucked me out of the window. Then he added, in a voice that sounded like an approaching avalanche: "I know my Denise wasn't at the front of the queue when the brainpower was being handed out, but I won't have her being mocked. People who mock her make me angry - very, very angry. People like you, for instance," he said, stabbing a finger the size of a stonemason's chisel in my direction.

Staying as calm as a man who has just discovered that his trousers have spontaneously combusted, I assured him truthfully that I had never, ever mocked his darling daughter. He gazed at me with the eyes of a shark. "Did you or did you not kid her on that Beethoven was - what was it? - a terrific snooker player?"

For one horrifying second, I was tempted to burst out laughing aloud at the absurdity of it. Instead, I took a deep breath and said, "Mozart." "I told her Mozart was a brilliant billiards player. And it's true, he was," I added hurriedly. Denise's dad fixed me with a narrow smile. "Well," he said, "that's all right, then."

That was the first and last Valentine I ever received from dear Denise. Our fling was a short-lived thing - she just done my head in, one way and another. Eventually, I grew tired of her asking me questions like: "Will the confederates win the election?" and "Do you think that Britain will join the black market?"

There is only so much of this sort of stuff you can take. But it was another Valentine card admirer of mine, Gabrielle, who took the biscuit.

Gabby was a strapping blonde fraulein in Britain on some sort of work exchange programme.

Time and again, I'd try and get her to laugh at my jests. But when it came to the punchline, she'd frown, throw out her robust chest and announce: "George. Zis is not making sense." Patiently, I'd try and explain that it was a joke, it wasn't meant to be sensible. "Ach! You British," she'd hiss, contemptuously.

Jokes of a practical nature would probably have driven her to invading Poland. Romance never stood a chance. But I should have known - even her Valentine card had looked like a message of condolence.

So there you are. If the postman didn't ring once, never mind twice this morning, count your blessings. You're a Valentine-free zone - so be grateful.

Story date: Monday 14 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.