On February 14 1998, the ballerina Deborah Bull wrote in her diary: “I rush down to the front door to check the post”. The results were disappointing. “No deluge of Valentine cards”, she noted, adding hopefully, “unless they had all gone to the Opera House”. Six years later, in 2004, Oona King MP spent Valentine’s Day in a rather different way: “I’m sitting on a runway in Saudi Arabia. I’m not supposed to be here. Bangladesh Airlines – Biman – took a wrong turn …”