Is Love Dead?

Originally published on Fingertips on 12/02/10

As Valentine’s Day hovers less than 48 hours away the recent spate of news about cheating celebrities might make England look like a nation where love no longer lives. Instead the red heart of romance has been asphyxiated by infidelity, text sex and models, both with and without their clothes on, all of whom are now dancing on its grave and planning an orgy in its bedroom.

Mr England plays away from home

John Terry’s antics have been well documented, and prove that £170,000 a week, being married to your childhood sweetheart and being England captain just aren’t enough to make you happy in 2010.

Happiness comes through getting your friend’s ex-girlfriend pregnant and then arranging for her to have an abortion.

The good news though is that Mr Terry is now in Dubai where, according to the Daily Mail, “he plans to treat his wife to a romantic Valentine’s Day meal on Sunday.”

I’m not sure what the Mail’s, or Terry’s, definition of a romantic meal is, but it’s probably not one where your wife is giving you evils across the table as you plan to fly home the same evening.

Water under the Stamford Bridge
It seems that there’s something in the water at Chelsea as team mate Ashley Cole might have upset his lady wife Cheryl again by either: a) being a very vain and stupid man; or b) being a very vain and stupid man and sending the evidence of this to a topless model.

Just two years after reportedly having a string of one night stands and receiving a six month sex ban from his wife, naked pictures of Ashley have found their way onto a topless model’s phone.

Ashley admits he took the naked pictures of himself – which is no folly, right? I mean this is something we all do from time to time, isn’t it? – but says that his friend sent the model the pictures after Ashley got a better phone and gave his crappy old one away .

Cole told The Sun: “I can’t believe that I gave a phone away that still had stuff on its memory. I thought I had deleted it.”

Whoops. Either way, the model reciprocated in kind and then engaged in text sex across 28 messages with whoever was in possession of the phone.

Plausible story maybe, but not if you’re Cheryl Cole, for whom this might prove to be more than just water under the bridge.

The Bolton Wanderer

Lanky Vernon Kay meanwhile has been taking some tips from his beloved Bolton Wanderers by writing down all his tactics but failing to actually score.

The hyperbolically accented Family Fortunes presenter – sorry, All Star Family Fortunes presenter – is said to have sent “steamy” texts and Twitter messages to what he called “only four or five friends and colleagues,” one of whom was a page three girl.

I know Kay isn’t renowned for his linguistic prowess – not that his four or five friends and colleagues would know, as he apparently never took any of them to bed – but someone should really tell him that we use the word “only” when we are talking about small amounts, or amounts that are less than we expected.

For example: “There is ONLY one thing to say to a celebrity who is daft enough to send raunchy text messages to a woman who is affiliated with a paper that loves exposing celebrities who cheat on their WAGs.”

On the other side of the fence

These are but three incidents that prove little but English tabloid readers’ prurient nature.
No one is reporting that last night Paul Scholes watched a romcom with his wife then went to bed with her at 10.30 and gave her a jolly good seeing to.

Or that Phil Neville called his wife on the way home from training to say that he just loves it when she tickles the backs of his knees.

It was reported however, by the BBC, that the divorce rate in England and Wales has fallen for five years in a row and is now at its lowest rate for 29 years, with only 11.5 divorcees for every 1000 married folk.

The Travel Trade Gazette also posted a report yesterday about long-lasting love within the travel business, which includes the somewhat baffling but charming tale of Polly Davies and Ian Robarts:

“The test before we committed to marriage was travelling together for four months.

“In Indonesia, Ian got dengue fever. We took a small propeller plane to reach a doctor but just after take-off it crashed, with petrol pouring everywhere.

“I ran from the plane with Ian, terrified it could explode. We got married when we got home.”

In amongst the text sex and the celebrity philandering true love lives. It just doesn’t sell newspapers.