I always go to ground at this time of year. But now that Valentine’s Day has been and gone it’s time to put my head out once more. Have you any idea what it’s like being an 86-year-old virgin, let alone being the last one of your kind left on earth. It’s not nice, especially when St Valentine gets everyone talking about love.

You’ll be interested to learn that I did receive a Valentine’s card this year in the form of an email. But as I opened it up, I already knew it had to be someone’s idea of a practical joke. Sure enough, embedded in the missive was a link to video of Galapagos tortoises having sexual relations. It was painful viewing. And reading. The “Comments & Responses” posted by you humans were frankly inane. What about this, for example: “the noise that the guy turtle makes sounds like an old wheezing man…i bet u he was pissed that u were filming his humiliation.”

While I was on the site, I found several related videos and made myself watch them to see what I’ve been missing. After all, I spent the first 50 years of my life completely alone, so never witnessed tortoises mating. And still today, as I approach my 87th birthday, not once have I seen what’s involved. The Española tortoises in the next pen from mine here at the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos are just out of sight, although I do occasionally hear plaintive moans coming from their enclosure. Having seen these videos I now know what goes into these soulful sounds.

Talking of Valentine’s Day, it’s desperate the way science journals press release the occasion, news outlets run with this garbage and brain-dead readers wolf it down. At least it gives researchers a chance to get some coverage, I suppose. Right now, in coffee rooms the world over, scientists will be sitting down, pencils in hand, thinking up a nice juicy piece of Valentine’s research that can be completed in time for next year.

And what do we learn? To give a flavour of how little, here’s a quick run-down of Valentine-pegged research spun out across the internet: From some social scientist at Purdue University, we learn that “chronic television watching, can affect how people communicate in relationships or even keep people from making friends." A “love expert” at Texas Tech University’s Office of Communications and Marketing pronounces that “Valentine’s Day is not a predictor of relationship longevity or satisfaction.” The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery takes the opportunity to remind everyone that snoring can lead to the demise of a relationship.

Thankfully, of course, there were some intelligent and original takes on V-Day, such as the Nature feature on how married scientists handle long-distance and close-up relationships. And, of course, there was the Editor’s Weekly from First Science. It is here that I learn about PAB, which stands for Professional and Busy and “describes a growing group of young people who are focussed on their careers and don’t feel compelled to spend time finding a partner.” With my ambassadorial duties here in the Galapagos, this acronym suits me nicely. It also keeps my mind from the knowledge that there’s little hope of finding a mate anyhow.