Immy: There’s a strong probability that most of you reading this will develop a disinclination towards me and my pro-valentine’s day gushing but I genuinely love it.

We all love to complain about the overpriced chocolates and cards, the queues outside Oxford’s finest eateries (i.e. the cheapest meal you can get away with without resorting to Hassan’s), and the PDA overkill, but I’d just like to say to all you cynics out there: look away. Just go away. Stop complaining about not being able to go out to dinner because of the surplus of couples and tables-for-two in every restaurant  you might want to visit. Why is it that no one ever goes out to dinner in term-time and then suddenly, on Valentine’s day, you’re all moaning about not being able to get a table? If you don’t want to buy chocolates and cards, then don’t. But don’t rain on our parade just because you don’t have anyone to love. The PDAs I can’t explain away as easily, but if you’ve ever lived in a student house with no locks on the bedroom doors, chances are you’ve been in more awkward situations.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to idealise the day for you. It’ll probably be pretty normal, there’ll be no fireworks or candles, long walks on the beach and sunsets, and aside from a more-than-average level of pink and red in shop front windows, you might not even notice. You’ll stick to your usual routine: lectures, library, lunch. Even the alliteration’s depressing. That is, if you’re single.

If you do happen to be in a relationship, then it’ll probably be the same, with one key difference: lectures, library, lunch…love. Even the alliteration’s magical. That half a chocolate bar he left you, the way she touches your hand when you say hello, the look of longing in both of your eyes when you part, they all have that special extra something when it’s Valentine’s day.

Valentine’s Day is a day to really make the most of being with someone.  You know that feeling you normally get when you come up behind your boyfriend and give him a massive hug but all of his friends look disapproving?  The social stigma attached to Public Displays of Affection doesn’t apply on Valentines Day.  Rather than just hugging your boyfriend on Valentines Day why not start passionately making out with him, regardless of whether he’s mid-speech or not.  Hell, it’s Valentine’s Day, live a little and have sex in a public location of your choice.  

Spending Valentine’s Day together with your other half is an experience only beaten by managing to skip the Park End/Shark End/FUBAR/Lava Ignite queue on a particularly busy Wednesday.  All day you can glory in being together, why not get up early for a breakfast together?  Go to each other’s lectures just so that you can hold hands?  Curl up together for a night in watching P.S. I Love You or The Notebook and talking about how your love is even stronger than theirs?  The best thing is that it’s in February, so sharing a bed with someone isn’t the endurance contest that it is by Trinity and actually, if you’re doing it right, normally pretty pleasurable.

People who don’t like Valentine’s Day, who can’t share the love and joy that the rest of us feel, have something wrong with them.  It’s a very well known, but still technically unproven, scientific fact.  If you’re single Valentine’s Day doesn’t so much represent a day of depression as an opportunity to strike.  Everyone who is single on Valentine’s Day is acutely aware of the fact that they will probably die alone and unloved. As such everybody’s looking to hook up.  That hot Blues Rugby guy who never returns your calls?  Drop him a text on Valentine’s Day and he’ll be round before you’ve even pulled up those suspenders.  

If you don’t fancy remedying your single status this Valentines Day, it’s impossible to argue that Valentine’s Day represents anything other than one of the best opportunities to wallow each year.  Nobody can judge you for consuming over four litres of Haagen Daaz, with some Ben and Jerries thrown in for variety, while watching more chick flicks than journal articles you’ve read so far this year.  This presents a prime opportunity to pity yourself, knowing that tomorrow you can continue on your life as normal with all that existential angst out of your system, having been replaced with a slighter larger waistline and indigestion, along with an inability to watch Hugh Grant films.

*The views in this article do not necessarily match those of the writer.

Matt: It’s that time of the year again.  One of the most polarising days of the year, normally dependent on whether you’re spending it with a loved one or sobbing into a tub of ice cream while you comfort eat through Notting Hill.  I’m personally not a fan.  Given the amount of anguish it causes, Valentine’s Day just seems a bit unnecessary.

It’s not even just about being alone on Valentine’s Day that causes me to hate it, I’ve spent plenty of other Valentines Day’s in the company of the fairer sex that have caused me just as much discomfort.  A particular low occurred last year.Having been tipped off by a well meaning, but unfortunately for me misguided, friend that a girl I had been ‘seeing’ for a while was expecting something for Valentine’s Day, I set off to Sainsbury’s to purchase some of the finest chocolates I could find.  I arrived at hers with some Guylian’s Sea Shells that had been reduced by 50% – maybe not the finest chocolates but we’re living in times of austerity – and we settled down to watch a film.  Halfway through, with the perfect moment still eluding me, I whipped out my gift to be met with complete silence.  Turns out she wasn’t really ‘a Valentine’s Day sort of person’.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Valentine’s Day alone was enough to restore the British economy’s growth as anyone shopping for anything vaguely related to Valentine’s Day seems to lose all notion of a fair price.  Boxes of chocolates, half of which nobody in the world will ever eat because they’re flavours such as ‘Pistachio Cream’, are sold for ten pounds.  Cards that will take longer to choose than the time they stay out of the bin/drawer are sold for four pounds.  Set menus (easily the worst culprit) featuring a small piece of pork/chicken/beef/dog and some ice cream are only 25 pounds (you’re paying for the ‘ambience’).  I’m pretty sure that McDonald’s would have a set menu for the night if they thought they could get away with it.  I’m even more sure that people would pay for it.

If you are unfortunate enough to be alone on Valentine’s Day my advice is to call Nightline to be on the safe side.  The day is so hyped up, with couples discussing their plans weeks in advance and comparing what they are going to do, that you almost fool yourself into thinking that you want the day to arrive just so that it’ll hurry up being over.  Then it does and you immediately regret it.  Public Displays of Affection take place left, right and centre with the entire world seemingly in couples: couples sitting outside the Rad Cam, couples in hall, couples sharing desks at the library and couples comforting each other through their respective essay crises. It’s as if all of the single people have rushed out to find someone, anyone, to cuddle in the middle of the road just so people know that they are not, in fact, alone.  My advice is to put on some music to distract yourself from the world around you.  I find Slipknot normally does the trick.  

While music may be good to distract yourself, the mediums of film and TV are equally as obsessed by Valentine’s Day.  What is worse is that no great cultural piece has ever emerged from Valentine’s Day (unless you count the film Valentine’s Day, in which case I don’t think you quite understand culture, or film, or the word ‘great’).  Instead we’re treated to the standard and predictable tale of a singleton who seems unlovable but eventually finds love. This scenario could exactly be described as mood-lifting unless you consider yourself a masochist. If that’s the case, then you won’t be needing a DVD today, head straight to the cinema for some seriously depressing couple time.

Alternatively, ask a coupled-up friend what their plans are. The look on their face as they describe how they’re just ‘going to have a night in, because they don’t need to do anything special now – their love is so cemented they’re just happy to be together doing nothing’, is enough to make you feel more nauseous than the morning after a particularly heavy crewdate.  
What’s worse is that no matter how hard you’ve prepared for Valentine’s Day, whether you’ve made reservations or detailed plans, you’re always left that little disappointed.  That’s because it’s been hyped out of all proportion, presented as a day to celebrate ever lasting love that you have to shoehorn your own situation into. So this year, cancel that table at GBK and just have a laugh with your friends.  I’ll see you at Camera, I’ll be the one without the other half…

In joint first place for my first crush were Ritchie Neville from 5ive and Nick Baker (although Ben from A1 was a close third).  While Neville had that dashing boy-band thing going on, Baker was pure bad boy – if you count bad boy as knee deep in bugs, scrabbling through mud and flirting with Michaela Strachan in her yellow cagoule as  well as you could on early afternoon CBBC. Even today, Baker’s probably got the only face that would make me sit through an hour of the creepiest, and most shuddersome, crawlies in the world.

Baker’s interest in nature started young; as a boy he was often found ‘crawling around the patio’ stuffing jam jars with all the bugs and spiders and frogs he could lay his hands on. Fortunately, for the 10 year old me, his parents didn’t stamp out his curiosity, although ‘they didn’t actively encourage it. But, they did move out of an estate where I spent the first couple of years of my life, and moved into the countryside to give me the kind of upbringing that they didn’t have.’

After finishing a degree at Exeter, Baker smiled his way onto our TV screens in The Really Wild Show. But hasn’t he completely gone against the traditional adage of avoiding working with children and animals? ‘That saying was definitely a saying dreamt up by someone who had worked with children and animals and realised it’s the best job in the world! They want to create a false sense that it’s a terrible way to work and keep it all for themselves.   Working with children and animals is one of the most exciting things you can do: if you want a nice, stable existence then don’t do it. Young people are inspiring because they’ve not been tainted and suppressed and fed with all the pressures of the adult world, and as a consequence they keep you young, they fire you up, they see the world as it really is. For me that’s really exciting, and the natural world is exciting in a different way. It is so fundamental to our everyday being; we cannot live without it even though we think we can. We are just another species on this planet.’

Baker’s gained his credentials at university, but with a successful career as a presenter scouring the globe to bring more maligned creatures to our TV screens, does Baker still see himself foremost as an academic? ‘I work as a field biologist, that’s how I started and the TV stuff was an accident. I’m not a Bear Grylls type explorer, not at all. I can’t stand the bloke. Actually, as a bloke he’s probably alright, but I hate the kind of TV that represents. Even though it’s controversial and freaks people out, I find anybody who can make so-called “educational television” by biting the heads off snakes is playing a cheap trick. It’s nasty and as broadcaster you have a massive responsibility for what you put out.

‘I’m sort of between the two. I’m a failed academic in the sense that I got bored during my finals and wandered off the path a little. I’m back with the university I started with and I’m an honorary research fellow with Exeter university and also a lecturer in the public understanding of science so I’ve kind of gone full circle. I am academic in the sense that I love my subject and I’m an absolute nerd because it’s the details. I’m very much into science and I speak that language, but I’m also part of the real world and I can translate that language.  Joe Public doesn’t engage with a lot of research that is going on and I guess I like looking into that; I like translating science language into a language people can understand and it just increase the outreach of scientific research. Without scientific popularists whether on radio or the internet or TV, that stuff would just remain stuck in journals where it doesn’t have a great lot of use except to other scientists so really, I’m getting it out there. It just increases the chance of someone having another great idea.’

Baker’s next big passion and an idea he’d love to see on the telly soon is bio-mimicry. ‘I believe nature is the salvation of human kind in the sense that if we’re clever and steal our ideas from it, that will be the answer. I’m talking about biomimetics really, the science of bio-mimicry. Applying a lot of principles from nature to our business and manufacturing industries. At the moment I’m just a great believer in what bio-mimicry has for us as a species. I’m really pushing for a TV series on the subject, unfortunately the word bio-mimicry leaves commissioners cold and it’s a really difficult one to get across because as a subject it’s very diverse. Bio-mimicry is basically taking human problems, like generating energy or self-cleaning windows or the exhaust of a car, it’s taking all those sorts of issues and looking at how nature might deal with it or does deal with those sorts of problems.  

‘Ultimately, we are humans, governed by the laws of nature, and other species are able to come up with solutions from nature that are practically 100% efficient whereas humans use a very old way of dealing with their manufacturing which is a process called heat-beat–treat. As in, we heat up materials, we then bend and beat them and contort them into various kinds of shape, and then we treat them with chemicals to keep them that way. It’s 97% inefficient, so if we can change our manufacturing processes in line with how nature does it we’re on a winner, and all the other issues we have will get solved.’

Conservation has been a large part of Baker’s life since his university days. After finishing his degree he returned to set up the ‘Bug Club’, a society which promotes the study of entomology among the younger generation; a support group, if you will, for the kids and teenagers who spend their days traipsing the countryside for insects to the disdain of their wearisome parents.

While Baker spends his spare time at the moment working with the RSPB looking for the Ring Ouzel on Dartmoor, he’s acutely aware that conservation is not top of everyone’s list, but he argues that it should be. ‘Without doubt humans are the biggest threat to our planet. We are facing the sixth great extinction phase; species are vanishing from this planet faster than they have ever done before. We’ve had extinction phases in the past but this is the quickest one that’s occurring. It’s us. It’s our fault. The biggest issue we have that even technology can’t solve however, is overpopulation.  We need to wise up and look at the bigger picture and use our collective intelligence. We’ve got to break out this human condition that we are selfish, short-sighted monkeys who want to survive. We need to stop ourselves doing the inevitable and somehow take control of the situation.’

Baker’s been working hard, then, to bring the secrets of the natural world to the country. With his current Weird Creatures tour (‘I’m sticking up for the evolutionary underdogs. I’m telling people the back stories, all the ones I never got to talk about on telly, all the trials and tribulations of making the Weird Creatures programme’) and a TV show on biomimetics, if he can convince commissioners to make it. Baker’s continuing on his mission to make people look twice at nature, something he calls his ‘life’s obsession’.

For an entomologist, does he ever find a little etymological mix-up leaves him blushing, I wonder? ‘All the flipping time! Everyone gets muddled up between naturist and naturalist! You speak to someone about David Attenbourgh and you can bet someone will call him Richard Attenbourgh, and you can bet someone will say naturist. People can’t work out which way to go. Similar words, but very different occupations. I’m definitely a naturalist though.’
Shame.

I am not going to try to convince you that there is anything remotely acceptable about commercialised paraphernalia, overpriced menus, awkwardly tentative PDAs and saccharine film releases. So, how can I possibly explain my affinity for the festal instigator of these atrocities? As far as I’m concerned, Valentine’s isn’t a day for honeyed, lovestruck couples. Instead, it offers perfect conditions, under the cover of anonymity, to spark intrigue and approach the inapproachable.

For those of you who already self-identify as romantics in the adventurous, fanciful sense of the word, you have no excuse; the anonymity that comes with the traditional valentine is the ideal invitation (if you need one, that is) to make mischief. February 14^th is the day you can justify all manner of whimsical scribbles and nameless tokens of affection…to anyone. Oxford even has a discrete system in place; with their public visibility in Porters’ Lodges, pigeonholes add a delicious dimension of intrigue, while being able to accommodate more than just a card if need be. To be on the safe side of absolute secrecy, beware the internal mail (your college may be stamped on the envelope) and if personal delivery seems too risky, coerce a cupid, because honestly, what good friend wouldn’t help you out in the name of a little fascination?

If you’re worried this is all talk and no trousers, let me share some of my highlights; my valentines have featured Cloak Room Guy, Jericho Café Boy, Cravat Boy and The Johnny Depp Grad, messages written on napkins, pink ukuleles, scrawls on manuscript paper (a not-so-­subtle attempt to hint my identity) and of course, the classic, charmingly kitsch failsafe of a single, foil-wrapped chocolate heart. You are welcome to cringe on my behalf (though you might reconsider if I disclosed details of the success rate), but I have always believed this approach to be far more desirable than a reliance on Dutch courage coupled with one of Oxford’s less-refined night time establishments, with their disadvantages of being public, rarely memorable and, well, grimy. Challenging Oxford courtship etiquette in this way leaves one feeling empowered, delightfully devious and is guaranteed to put a spring in your step.

Still not persuaded? What if I were to tell you that you biologically need Valentine’s Day? At this time of year, your body will appreciate the adrenaline rush that accompanies impulsive pidgery as much as the object of your affection will value the frisson of its tantalising mystery; an excellent symbiosis to counter dull weather and the lethargy that comes with it. The cerebral exercise of crafting a suggestive missive is as entertaining for author and reader and must be the tonic to the impending fifth week blues.

If you are still sceptical about Valentine’s, this week should be about getting in touch with your inner Latin American; certain Latin American countries know February 14^th as ‘Día del Amor y la Amistad’ or ‘Día del Cariño’, Day of Love and Friendship, or Affection Day and if you were to find yourself in Mexico or Puerto Rico on Tuesday, you might come across people performing small acts of appreciation for their friends. It might seem a little unconventional, but with a calendrical glut of family-oriented festivals, why not put one aside for friendship? How often do you take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary people who, without blood-related obligation or the commitment of romantic entanglement, still, unflaggingly, put up with you? Playing the friendship card on Valentine’s Day is neither a cop out nor an anti-Valentine’s statement but a crystallisation of the ethos of the day, displaying an appreciation for the presence of an individual in your life, strangers, sidekicks and soul mates alike.