Here we go again. Bloody Valentine's Day.

How I loathe and despise this contrived piece of extraneous marketing. It has no redeeming feature. Let's face it, Valentine's Day is plopped just when the Christmas rush and the New Year sales are over and consumerism has fallen into a bit of a back hole.

A good spot for a marketing niche, eh.

A good time to put inflated prices on lots of nasty fluffy toys. I am not alone in my anti-Valentine sentiments. I know lots of people who call it Hallmark Day, in honor of the card company which was first cab off the commercial rank on St Valentine's day. Of course, these days we could call it Tawdry Balloon Day, since balloon people have puffed themselves right into the act. What a con - large sums of money for trapped bits of air! Who wants a balloon? What possible use are balloons? They are awkward, environmentally dubious and completely pointless. What is the message, I wonder, intended in sending people useless air pockets as a love token? If one thinks about it too hard, it starts to look rather insulting.

Then again, these bits of kitsch Valentine gimmickry are targeted at the young suckers, the same people who buy jesters hats for vast amounts at the Royal Show, sport them all night and then realise they are stuck with a useless jester's hat.

Then there's the idea of giving sexy lingerie, which I always thought to be a bit on the sleazy sexist side. Flowers are always nice, but then again, Valentine's Day even cheapens flowers (while making them more expensive). Just think of all those poor hothouse long-stemmed red roses which turn their heads down in despair after a day, unless they are ruthlessly propped up with wire. They're the flower world equivalent of battery chooks. If you must send flowers, then for heaven's sake send charity flowers so that the expense serves some good!

Last but not least are the lollies. Lollies sparsely packed in heart-shaped boxes. Heart-shaped lollies. Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate! Most of it is rotten, lousy compound chocolate. Let's face it, chocolate is not a treat unless it is Haighs or Belgian.

The very idea that people should have to have a day on which to express love is an anathema to me. Love is for every day. You don't, or shouldn't, need just one day a year for it. And for every one person whose ego or emotions are gratified by Valentines, there are hundreds who feel hurt or rejected because they receive nothing. For many, it is a day of acute loneliness. There are women who pin huge hopes on Valentines, sad women conditioned by Mills & Boon expectations, whose fragile self-respect takes huge dents on each Valentine's Day on which they are not recognised. For others, there is even humiliation. People can be cruel and office St. Valentine pranks against geeky workers are something of a tradition - a despicable one.

No, you can keep St Valentine's Day. Or perhaps we should have kept it as I hear they did in Victorian times when insulting cards were all the go. "Happy Valentine's Day you talent-free piece of wasted space - may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits!" How about it Hallmark?

Subverting the higher human qualities into marketing operations on the premise that bigger gifts mean more love is akin to the gypsy challenge that you don't love your children if you don't cross a gypsy's palm with money. It's a form of blackmail. The assertion is that love has to have a material manifestation. Big things show big love.

But love is invisible. Love is shown in gestures, thoughtfulness, awareness of others. If one must acknowledge this artifice of romance, then go out for a meal, share a classy bottle of Lehmann, write a poem, take home a mango, leave a love note inside the fridge, put rose petals in the bed...but don't be suckered into a culturally-imported marketplace.

Someone once asked me what was the best Valentine present I had ever received. I responded that I received it daily in the form of that first morning coffee kindly made and tenderly delivered to my not-a-morning-person self by my sweet partner. Kindnesses such as these are the stuff of love. Valentine's Day is an extravagant way of cheapening it.