IT depends on your point of view, of course, but February marks the most sugar coated, saccharine-sweet time of the year. And you either embrace it with all the ardour of a loved-up paramour or treat it rather like Ebenezer did Christmas.

On the greetings card front, forget twee Bambi-deer frolicking in the snow, and cherubic angels sweetly blowing their trumpets being the big yearly money spinner, especially now that people are balking at sending out Christmas cards and offering up round-robin Facebook greetings instead.

Valentine’s Day is now the day of the year that has greetings card moguls spinning in paroxysms of pleasure, and it’s absolutely nothing to do with getting it together with their loved one, and absolutely everything to do with money.

For across the world in less than two weeks’ time well over a billion cards will be winging their way to capture hearts on the one hand and create a giant global guessing game in the other. I can’t really see the point of sending a card to someone who hasn’t a clue who it’s from, can you?

It’s not just the cards though is it? In America more than 200 million roses are produced for Valentine’s Day, and in the UK some estimates reckon we spend about £880 million on the day itself, whether it be on roses, chocolates, dinners for two or hotel rooms.

In Yorkshire, blokes are apparently more inclined to buy roses for ‘our lass’ (it’s easy, innit? Don’t have to think of summat…) but they should beware. There is, apparently, a hidden etiquette to buying red roses, which will more than likely end up with lasses throwing them back in the face of the lads if they get it wrong.

Did you know, for example, that on a first date a single rose symbolises love at first sight? Giving two supposedly represents mutual love and affection, three roses is a ‘traditional’ one month anniversary gift, giving six is a sign of infatuation, sending nine says ‘we’ll be together forever’ while a dozen shouts ‘be mine!’

If you forget to send roses in the first place, send 15 because that means you’re sorry. Appearing at the door with a bouquet of two dozen says ‘I’m yours’, handing over three dozen signifies that you’re head over heels in love, and if you want to express a love that knows no bounds send a whopping bunch of 50.

And while you’re at it, pass the sick bag…

Meanwhile, on the food front, chefs up and down the land have been shaking their heads trying to work up Valentine’s Day menus that are a bit different from last year. You don’t always want to be eating scallops, followed by steak and finishing off with a heart-shaped chocolate mousse every Valentine’s Day do you?

The fact that it falls on a Saturday this year is, I bet, sending restaurant and hotel owners into a flat spin. For Saturdays are invariably the best nights of the week for hosting lots of groups of people spending lots of money.

But this year, I reckon they’ll be cursing as they scrat around in basements hunting out far too many tables for two that they haven’t got. For let’s face it, two people gazing dreamily into each other’s eyes who clearly can’t wait to finish their dinner before stumbling to their hotel room to rip each other’s clothes off are hardly going to be spending the same amount of dosh on piles of booze that a rowdy group of friends would are they?

Talking of hotel rooms, spare a thought for housekeeping staff the world over on February 15, if you please. You can see why they dread the morning after the night before can’t you? Because that’s when they’re faced with room after room strewn with rose petals, chocolate smeared into the carpet, bath oil clagging up the shower, and whipped cream on every surface, not to mention the unmentionables on the sheets…

And they’ve got an average of 15 minutes per room to clear it all up - tough call that… So will we be heading out for a cosy Valentine’s Dinner for two come the big day? The last time we did that, the waitress dropped our chateaubriand on the floor rather than our plates, so no, we won’t.

Instead we’re hosting a pop up supper club five course dinner for anyone who fancies it, with a great big sharing platter of 24 hour roasted pork shoulder, oodles of lovely Yorkshire grub and not a red rose, heart-shaped dessert or chocolate in sight…