No need for a calendar to work out what the date is today. I can feel it in the air. Pearl like grit. It is palpable. London is a festival of love.

It's like a cloud of endorphins blew in on the West Wind, and like a sandstorm as fine and delicate as a bridal veil, covered every couple in a mush of bliss.

For civilians like me, it's been amazing (and for many, either unpalatable or depressing) to see countless couples of all ages, wrapped tightly in champagne bubbles of contentment, cooing and billing like lovestruck doves; visibly quivering hearts; eyeball to eyeball deep stares' the occasional flash of shallowly concealed passion; oestrogen and testosterone hand in hand on the High Street.

Nine months hence, a mini maternity boom

London's been as much a living image of schmalz as it has been a brew of lip-smacking euphoria. At Angel station this evening, there was a harpist plucking away. Could even Richard Curtis dream up an association like that. Then when I changed at Bank Station, the platforms oozed and throbbed with the the sound of a busking Spanish guitarist.

Some days, I'm living on the Frontline, other days, it's Disneyland. London - the chameleon city.