Artificial intelligence: This year marks the first time in all the years that Pricewatch has been alive and writing Valentine-themed pieces for this newspaper that we have seen AI deployed to help people write their loved-up messages. We’re not one bit happy about it. The flowers.ie website is just one such operation that has deployed the technology to offer customers inspiration.
We had a go and this is what it came back with when we asked it to write something from Mary to Joe: “As I sit down to write this message, my heart is filled with love and longing for you. I can’t help but think about the moments we’ve shared together and how each one has only deepened my love for you.
“You are the one who makes my heart skip a beat, who makes me feel alive and loved. I am grateful for every second we spend together, for every kiss, every touch, every word we exchange.
“On this special occasion, I want to remind you that you mean everything to me. You are my best friend, my confidant, my soul mate. I am blessed to have you in my life and I promise to cherish and love you forever.”
St Valentine’s Day: A-Z of all things romantic, overpriced and good value on February 14th
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Now, we know that the flowers.ie folk mean well but, hand on heart, we can’t think of anything less romantic than getting a bot to write our love notes. Is nothing sacred any more?
Before you know it, there will be some giant multinational company to deploy teams of unhappy hacks to write saccharine messages on cards which we will then buy for a fiver a pop. Perish the thought.
Bouquets: The cost of a dozen red roses can vary wildly and never more so than at this time of year. For instance, the aforementioned flowers.ie is selling a “premium Valentine’s hatbox, filled with lush red roses, [that] exudes elegance and romance. With its timeless appeal and luxurious presentation, it transforms a simple bouquet into an unforgettable Valentine’s gift”. And the price? Just under €150. It is dear for sure, but it does look excellent.
A fairly high-end bouquet from flowersdirect.ie delivered on February 14th, meanwhile, will cost €82.95. At the other end of the scale you will find Lidl and Aldi who will be selling roses for a range of prices with the most impressive looking bouquet from the former priced at €49.99.
There will also be bargain bouquets in the other supermarkets too – the key is to get in early so you don’t end up with a bedraggled bunch. Petrol forecourt flowers cost much less but, really, nothing says “you’re not the one for me” more clearly than forecourt flowers.
Cards: We send loads of them but why? The tradition of sending Valentine’s cards goes right back to the 15th century, when they were referred to as “amorous addresses”. The daddy of it all is said to be Charles, Duke of Orléans, who was captured by the English during the Battle of Agincourt. While kicking his heels in the clink, he spent his days writing romantic verses or amorous addresses to his wife. The practice slowly spread throughout Europe and eventually reached the US, morphing into Valentine’s Day cards.
Dinner: This is key to the big day for many, but it doesn’t come cheap. While a romantic meal for two in Ireland obviously depends on where you go, there is a pretty good chance you will end up paying in excess of €80 a head including wine and maybe a glass of champagne.
And the worst thing about it is that many restaurants shoehorn in as many tables as they possible can in for the day and prepare special menus – where the only thing that is really special is the price. That can mean the cost of an uncomfortable dinner out jumps by around a third. Now, we know that restaurants are having a hard time of it, but even so you might consider dining in on Friday.
Early risers: If you want to create the impression that you’re super-romantic before dawn’s early light then source yourself some heart-shaped cookie cutters – any kitchen utensils shop or TK Maxx will have you covered. Use the cutter to make heart-shaped eggs and some class of themed pancake and cut some toast into Xs and you are good to go for a tenner.
[ Irishman's Diary: Dublin tradition of leaving prayers at St Valentine's shrine ]
Given that it is Friday you might have treated yourself to a long weekend and a lie-in (people with young children, look away now) and if you have then you could buy a cheap bottle of cava and some freshly squeezed orange juice to make it all the more special.
Flowers: If you wake up to roses on Friday they will most likely have been on quite a journey before they reached you. Chances are they will have come from Kenya or Tanzania where they are grown in huge quantities. They are cut and transported in refrigerated trucks to airports before being flown – equally chilled – to Amsterdam, where they sold at auction to wholesalers before being distributed to independent florists and retail chains and eventually delivered to your door.
And speaking of florists, it is hard not to have sympathy for them this week. They will be run ragged. A normal-sized flower shop might sell a couple of hundred roses on a normal day, and then 5,000 on February 14th. They have a reasonable defence of the prices they charge, too. The cost of roses climbs globally at this time of year because huge demand puts huge pressure on every link in the international flower chain. African growers hire and pay extra staff, freight companies pay premiums, prices on international markets spike and florists have to pay overtime to staff. And then we – the consumers – end up paying a higher price than we might like.
Grand Prix: We’re not talking about the races but the roses of the same name. Not all roses are equal you see and these are considered by many to be the most extravagant and as a result the most romantic. That is why you will pay at least 20 per cent more for a dozen of them this week than at other less-loved-up times of the year.
How much?: Every couple are different and have a different view of Valentine’s Day, but we can maybe get a sense of how much the day will cost here by looking elsewhere. In the US, people spend the guts of $6 billion (€5.6 billion) on Valentine’s Day, so if we to extrapolate levels of Irish spending based on that number, it will cost Irish consumers around €50 million, with the average couple spending in excess of €300.
Inked: Might you consider getting a tattoo to mark – literally – the day? It is a bold move for sure, but when it comes to enduring gifts the name of your beloved indelibly marked on your flesh is hard to top. You’d want to be sure they’re a keeper, though.
Jewellery: You might think this is the most popular present, at least for those with a few bob, but at least – according to most surveys we have read – it is a long way behind chocolates and lingerie in the gift stakes. It is a fair way ahead of a tattoo, mind you.
Knock-off bubbles: Sparkles in a glass are considered a must by many on Valentine’s Day, but does it have to be champagne? It is the most traditional drink with which to celebrate the big day, but prosecco is much cheaper. Cava is good value too. For our money the best option is crémant. This sparkling wine comes from a region close to Champagne in France so tastes almost identical, but costs a lot less.
Lupercalia: Luper who now? Impress your dearest this Friday with a fun anecdote about where it all comes from. The most plausible origin story for Valentine’s Day is to be found in the Roman feast of Lupercalia. The bloody Romans weren’t gone on the cards or flowers or chocolates or romance and were more into the killing of dogs and goats and whipping women with bloody hides.
The day – of dread for many women we suspect – would dawn with Roman priests sacrificing a goat or a dog. They would then use strips of the animals' hides dipped in blood to whip women to boost their fertility. After that bachelors would pick the names of mates from clay urns. And then whip them with bloody hides. Actually, now that we read that, it actually might be an anecdote to save for another time and not something to share when you are staring into your loved one’s candlelit eyes as the weekend begins.
Make it last: There has never been a more photographed generation in human history, but almost all the images we have of ourselves and our loved ones live forever on our phones. Spend a few minutes today going through your roll for the best shots of your heart’s desire, then have a collage printed out and framed. You’ll easily get it done before the end of the week if you act fast. It will cost you around €30 and be something that lasts forever.
Notions: It is easy to have them before any big day, but notions can see you put yourself under a whole lot of unnecessary pressure, By our reckoning, the thought you put into Valentine’s Day matters a whole lot more than the money you spend.
Online orders: Having said that, there is still time to shop with hundreds of fabulous Irish creators for that special present but make sure to keep it local. That way you are less likely to be left disappointed by late arrivals and you will be supporting businesses in your community.
Post: Many people will be watching for it with eager expectation on Friday. More than one billion Valentine cards will be exchanged all over the world this week at a cumulative cost of €2 billion, give or take, with about 350,000 trees chopped down to make all the cards. Is it worth it? We are not going to be the judge of that.
Question-popping: If you think Valentine’s Day is the most popular day for people to pop the question, you’re wrong. It is actually Christmas Day, but Valentine’s Day does come second. If that is your plan this Friday best of luck.
Please do think long and hard about it and whatever you do don’t pop the question in a restaurant where there is the remotest chance someone else will be planning the same thing. If they beat you to the punch then you might be left looking foolish. And do you really want to get down on one knee when you have to share the love with a whole lot of others?
There is also a risk you will add to the tension in the room with others wondering why they weren’t proposed to. We don’t want to say it is a terrible idea, but it is a terrible idea.
Rip-off: Is Valentine’s Day a rip-off? That is a question that many will find themselves asking this week. On the surface, it certainly doesn’t look like good value for money and when the cost of the flowers, the gift, the chocolates, the dinner out and the taxi home are totted up, many people will find the whole palaver costing them many hundreds of euro. But does that make it a rip-off? Restaurants are not forcing people through their doors at gunpoint, nor are the florists of Ireland making people buy their stock.
Scams: Lonely people looking for love are being exploited by criminals on social media with a spike likely in the days ahead as scam artists seek to exploit the heightened sense of isolation some people might feel.
Treats: Valentine’s Day had little or no link at all with food until the fairly unromantic-sounding conversation lozenges were invented by Joseph Dobson more than 100 years ago. Previously he had made a killing selling funeral biscuits. His lozenges were basically sweet treats with slightly flirty messages on them.
Chocolate only became associated with romance when the canny Richard Cadbury noticed he could sell a lot more of his chocolates in February if he decorated the boxes with love motifs. His idea was that recipients could hang on to the boxes and use them to hide their secret love.
U or You: There are a lot of folk for whom Valentine’s Day is annoying, upsetting or both and there are many who will be happy enough simply ignore it. If you do find it upsetting try to do something for yourself on the day and enjoy not having to spend a whole lot of cash on someone else.
Valentine: So, who was he? “Who were they?” might be a better question. There are three Valentines who get a mention in early martyrologies. There was a priest from Rome, a bishop of the Italian town of Terni and another Valentine who died violently in Africa. The Terni bishop is widely regarded as our Valentine and the one credited with secretly marrying Roman soldiers to stop them being shipped off to war by Emperor Claudius II.
Whoever the Valentine was who gave us all the mid-February madness, he doesn’t deserve the credit at all. All the credit should go to birds. February 14th was chosen in medieval times to be the day for lovers because it held to be the spring day when birds chose their mate.
Where’s Vally?: There are several churches across Europe that have bits of the man himself, including one that is very close to home. The relics of St Valentine can be found in Rome, Terni, Vienna, Prague, Glasgow and Dublin.
And how did they end up here? Well, Pope Gregory XVI was impressed in 1853 by the oratorical skills of a visiting Irish Carmelite called John Spratt and gave him some of Valentine’s blood and body parts as a gift – because nothing says “good job” quite like some bones and blood. The Irish priest brought them back to his church on Dublin’s Whitefriar Street where they lie still. They will be placed on the high altar for veneration on Friday morning.
X X X: The kisses, you understand, not the X-rated marker because there is no better day for them.
Yolo: Rather than make the day about dinner, make it about the day. If you can, take the day – or maybe only the afternoon – off and have a date day. Valentine’s Day lunches are cheaper and more chilled than their evening counterparts. After than there are all manner of fun and cheap things to do from the free museums and strolls on beaches to not-so-free but lovely visits to Dublin Zoo. You might want to wait until the weather picture becomes cleared before making your plans though.
Zen: Always a good way to be, but particularly on a day like Valentine’s Day when the rest of the world – unlike other big occasions such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day is global – is losing its marbles.
