According to this piece in The Telegraph, early Romans used to celebrate Lupercalia, a fertility festival, around this time of year. Thought to be an early precursor to the modern St Valentine’s Day, young male Romans would strip naked and then whip the bottoms of young women with strips of dog hide.
It’s an unconventional and eye-catching tactic for wooing a partner but, outside of social circles in which a large proportion of people were educated in private schools, it’s hard to see it being all that successful in the 21st century. Instead, giving cards, flowers and chocolates has become the expected way to romance your loved ones although in the mid-Eighties the diamond industry did try to promote St Valentine’s Day as being the ideal date on which to give a sparkler to your belle.
Unsurprisingly, rather than going bankrupt for a diamond, most people prefer to go out for a romantic meal on Valentine’s Day. Here at 5pm, we’ve gathered all of our member restaurants Valentine’s offers into one easy to consult spot here. We can’t guarantee the romance but we can guarantee that it will be a lot less painful for your credit card than a trip to your local diamond dealer.
The 5pm team are all dyed in the wool romantics who can make hearts melt with just a few words of carefully chosen poetry but we still chuckled at the anti-romance stance at Glasgow’s West brewery and bar. They are promising the ‘most unromantic meal of the year’ with a selection of foods which are messy to eat, highly spiced and served without a red rose in sight.