Lonely wallets column

It's no surprise that lonely hearts ads started with the birth of mass-market pamphlets and newspapers, once the people had started to read in numbers.

It's more of a shock to discover the ads were placed in search of money first, with love second.

Valentine's Day has no chance of avoiding being a commercial exercise: a triumph of hope over experience, of dressing mutton, and of making silk purses out of anything to hand.