Pete Writes: I go too far ►

◄ My review: The Hot Puppies - How Come You Don't Hold Me No More

It has been brought to my attention that Valentine's Day is just around the corner, as if we didn't have enough to worry about. Like many festivals, St Valentine's Day is designed to make the vast majority of people feel bad about themselves. The unattached are made to feel like unlovable scab-ridden outcasts; those of us lucky to have a partner are whipped into a lather of terror at the prospect of having to top whatever it was that they did last year, lest they be unceremoniously dumped for not making with the flowers and chocolates. It's as bad as fucking Christmas, maybe even a shade worse. Don't play along, kids. They can't get you if you don't play along.

But many of you may want to make some kind of special gesture on this entirely artificial holiday so I'm here to help you. First, a quick history lesson: Valentine's Day honours St Valentine of Padua, patron saint of hysterical feelings of rejection, genital sores and unwise phone calls. The unfortunate holy man was martyred by the Romans in the third century after they caught him attempting to impregnate chickens on the road to Venice in the name of his Lord. In a typically inventive move the Romans decided that he should be castrated by a mob of laughing women who had previously refused to go out for a drink with him, and that his poor withered member should be made into earrings for the Emperor of the time. But what of today? What if you're a young single chap trying to snaffle up that special lady? Or an established boyfriend trying a last-ditch attempt to stop your girl from leaving you for a career as a saggy-snatched cock slut? Worry not, my stout lads: Dr Pete is here to make it all OK.

So you've found your ideal lady. Maybe you saw her on the bus, in a pub or through a pair of high-powered binoculars. You've most likely taken the first step, namely using your camera phone to try and film up her skirt while she was distracted by a passing balloon or kitten. The next step — fantasising about weeping into her soft white thighs whilst rubbing yourself to a sticky and furtive climax — should happen naturally. Now for stage three; finding out vital information that will help you with your wooing.

This is the fun part. Follow her home. Go through her bins. Discover what pubs and clubs she frequents. Find her family, friends, pets and workmates. At this point a disguise might come in handy; we don't want to spoil the surprise, after all!

← here's a suggestion.

Many people — women's groups, the police — would call this stalking behaviour, but not me. I call it due diligence. You need to know what you're signing up for. It's possible that you may start to notice things about her that you don't particularly approve of, disagreeable quirks of personality and the like. The best course of action is to filter these out. Pretending that they don't exist leaves you free to fill in these gaps with stuff that you make up yourself, stuff more conducive to a happy and fulfilling 'relationship'. For example, she might have gone and got herself a job; obviously we don't want that, so why not just tweak things so that she becomes the kind of girl who would be happy to spend her remaining days staying at home not talking to anyone else ever again. That way nobody gets hurt.

Now that you've got the measure of the lucky girl/boy/neuter/blood relative it's time to think about the gift. This is, of course, the most important part of a flagrantly materialistic 'festival' such as this one. Unfortunately, most of us lack the monetary resources to able to afford Faberge eggs, Tiffany dildos and similar. A wilting bunch of flowers purchased in haste from a nearby petrol station is traditional but lacks a certain something. Luckily Valentine's Day is an occasion where it is permissible to provide a hand made gift; if anything women prefer it that way because of 'love', the trusting ovary-bearing fools. So be creative. Unleash your inner self. Let it out of the dank subconscious basement where it has been so cruelly chained to rampage freely through the world at large. You need to let her know the real you; a controversial proposal, I know, and completely inimical to the established laws of gash-hunting which state that under no circumstances should the lady ever discover the awful truth about your personality.

At this point it's a good idea to spend some time considering which finger you could most easily live without, in case an emergency present is needed at any point. While you do that you can shop for your main present; single bullets, precious animal bones and surveillance photographs of her in her bedroom are generally welcome. Now it's time to start working on the card.

It's up to you to decide whether you prefer uneven typeface hacked from newspapers or your own blood as a writing medium. Both have their pros and cons. If you go for blood the police will be able to identify your DNA — the upside is that in that case you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and you can go that extra mile and have a wank into the card.

IMPORTANT NOTE: girls like pink fluffy cards that feature huggable teddy bears with eerie dead eyes that haunt your dreams/waking moments and eventually start appearing in the faces of people on the street, causing you to freak out in Gregg's when the crone behind the counter suddenly develops a set of giant glistening cow eyes with huge slimy lashes. Difficult, I know, but we're all just going to have to learn to live with it.

Now all you have to do is break into her house and leave both present and card pinned to the wall with your biggest and best hunting knife. You may notice, in the course of your usual covert surveillance of her property, an increasing amount of police activity happening around her. You're now at a very delicate stage of the courtship known as the 'ongoing investigation'. I advise caution. Long distance relationships are tricky, especially when one of you is in Broadmoor, locked in a room with one very small window. What you need to do is lie low and let the fuss die down; when your hidden microphones pick up a policeman saying the words 'harmless crank' you know you're back on track. You, sir, are ready to make your approach.

'Really? Why so soon?' you gasp. But calm down. Breathe deep. All you have to do is march over to her and tell her how you feel, with a minimum of gibbering and twitching if at all possible. After all your diligent preparation she will most definitely be ready for you, and very receptive to your advances. Probably. How bad can it be? Ok... very bad. Really very bad indeed. But look on the bright side: if, whilst in the dock, they press you for the reason why — why, in God's sweet name — you did it, then you have the ultimate get-out clause readily to hand. You can claim that some bloke off the internet told you to. ♥

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