A bleak Valentine

MUSIC can generally be relied upon to proffer wisdom when you are most in need.

Bob Marley taught us to get up and stand up for our rights. The Sex Pistols taught us to kick out against the system.

The Smiths taught us to avoid being cheerful at all costs, lest we enrol ourselves for Eurovision 2007 in a moment of delusional cheer, and The Osmonds showed how good teeth sometimes happen to bad people.

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Currently I'm seeking solace in The Long Blondes' song Once and Never Again, which contains the following nugget of lyrical enlightenment: "19, you're only 19 for God's sakes, oh uou don't need a boyfriend."

Which is a comfort, as I'm due a birthday on Monday.

After which I will have just over a fortnight to stock up on supplies (probably Bridget Jones DVDs, Germaine Greer's back catalogue and a keg of Lambrini), dig a trench and go into hiding before Valentine's Day descends and the world sells its soul to Clintons (cards for either occasion c/o the Worthing Herald, if you insist).

Actually, if I may take a quick detour down cynicism avenue '“ what is it about February?

A month of sludge, which was meant to be snow, and pancakes which were meant to be on a plate rather than being scraped off the ceiling fan, that makes otherwise rational people think the correct way to tell someone they love them is with a frosted glass plaque?

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You know the ones that declare "World's Fittest Girlfriend", or similar touching sentiment, followed by a little poem pilfered from the rejected compositions of Stock, Aitken and Waterman's later years, and maybe a Purple Ronnie cartoon.

That or a bear holding an "I wuv you" heart, the purpose of which, I can only presume, is to give the poor wuved one something to watch the dog tear apart when the relationship dies a death a few weeks later.

Which it inevitably will, the guilty party having proved they know nothing about their beau, and consider them generic enough to be pleased with a patchwork teddy. Here endeth the rant.

What The Long Blondes have failed to excuse me from, unfortunately, is reading my course texts, or vacuuming my room, or doing my washing before it gets to a stage where I pretend food stains are artistic embellishment.

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All things you'd think not having a surplus boyfriend would free up time for me to do, but, alas, it seems not.

The first point on this list is the most desperate, as I realised in a discussion with my tutor the other day that went like this:

Nice Tutor: "So, Lauren, have you finished reading Bleak House?"

Terrible Student: "Um."

Nice Tutor: "How far have you got, exactly?"

Terrible, Lying Student: "Er, nearly the end.

Nice, Doubtful Tutor: "Well, what's happening in the bit you're up to?"

Terrible, Lying Student: "Ah. Well, it's'¦y'know'¦bleak."

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Nice, Exasperated Tutor: "Well to be even halfway, you must have got past the part where Esther gets disfigured."

Terrible, Lying Student: "Esther gets disfigured? No way!"

Nice Tutor: "I thought as much."

Of course, I once read a Harry Potter of the same size (and intellectual weight, as far as my treacherous English student psyche is concerned) in a day and a half.

But that was back in my days of 15-year-old productivity, when I was unhampered by the burden of being supposedly carefree.

It's a nothing age 19, you see. Nobody expects anything of you, gives you any new distractions and nobody (a theory I'll be testing come Monday) cares enough to buy you anything other than bath salts.

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In effect, it's a valley-like void between the big mountains of 18 and 20, like the comfy Travelodge you stay in on your way from home to Scotland. Or somewhere else cold and rocky.

Dreading one's birthday is in itself, I suppose, a sign that your youthful days are numbered.

Ditto the day you realise the characters in Clueless, who always seemed the ultimate in teen spirit, are actually meant to be four years younger than you.

But as Alicia Silverstone's miniskirted alter-ego would have said, and in the spirit of 19-year-old ambivalence: "Whateverrr".

I'm off to listen to The Smiths and think about Valentine's Day.

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