The brazilian bikini wax shop (that’s what they do, not where they come from) next to the deli where I go for lunch has got a strangely wilting valentine flower arrangement in the window - a cluster of miserable and tired-looking roses and greenery, interspersed with glitter-covered hearts on sticks, poking out of the foliage, like antennae.

When I was eight I had a pair of heart-shaped deeley boppers, covered in red glitter and attached to a head-squeezingly tight alice-band. I wore them everywhere, for a short time.

I quickly realised that when I walked with a certain lolloping, bouncing gait, the red hearts would oscillate and bash together rhythmically with a series of satisfying polystyrene thwaps above my head.

thwap - thwap - thwap - thwap - thwap - thwap - thwap

…as I wandered down the street.

The unfortunate biproduct of this amusing activity, however, was that the red polystyrene hearts quickly shed their glittery covering through the constant thwaping together. This meant that I ended up with red glitter all over my hair and sticking to my scalp, which combined to give the not altogether unpleasant appearance that I had red spangly dandruff, which shimmered down whenever I moved my head vigourously.

I wish I still had them. It’s much harder to get away with wearing heart-shaped deeley boppers when you’re practically thirty, though.

And the spangly dandruff would clash with my suit.