venta

Yesterday prezzybox.com, who are usually quite sensible and useful people, sent me an email advertising their range of "personalised gifts" for Christmas.

Top of their list was a Personalised Me To You Book (in the category "Romance", in case you aren't getting the picture).

"This Me to You personalised book is the perfect way to show someone special how much you care. Each page has a romantic quote or a picture of Tatty Teddy. It is sure to make someone smile."

Now, I like pictures of raggedy grey teddy bears as much - or even slightly more - than is healthy in someone over the age of eight. However, if someone gave me one of these books I think they would find it rammed somewhere extremely unexpected.

By buying someone this personalised gift, I'm showing exactly how much I care. Just enough to type my and their names into some boxes, add my personal message of up to one hundred characters, and click a button. You could get 40% more caring into a tweet, and that is surely the least romantic form of communication ever.

I usually save this rant up for Valentine's Day, but off-the-peg romance is an oxymoron. Occasionally - very occasionally - you might find a card, or a poem, which so exactly expresses the sentiment you want to convey that you can't possibly better it yourself. But, realistically, it isn't going to happen very often.

If you want to give someone a cutesome book of bears and romantic quotes, buy a book of bears and scrawl your own quotations onto it. Possible pausing with the marker pen to add hats/moustaches/glasses/bondage gear/gruesome injuries to the bears, to taste. I'd do this. Most people I know would, I think, do this in preference to expressing their love in one hundred characters of plastic conformity.

However the sales of one-size-fits-all hearts-and-flowers romance, peaking around mid-February, suggest this is not the norm. Generic romance is a crime. Do not accept it. Demand a genuine expression from your suitor.