If music be the food of love, travel on

Every day should be romantic, but life isn't like that. That's why we have Valentine's Day. Next Sunday, people all over the world will show their love for each other with cards and flowers. Love is big business. The US Greeting Card Association says that one billion valentines are sent each year. But not everyone likes this commercialization of romance. Saudi Arabia's religious police banned the sale of all Valentine's Day items in 2008. This immediately created a huge black market for red roses.

"If music be the food of love, play on," Duke Orsino says in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. So with music and food in mind, we're going to look for some Valentine's Day love now in Dublin, New York, Edinburgh, Valletta and London.

Dublin: Start the Valentine's weekend on Friday night with a singing session in the Button Factory. The star of the show is Eddi Reader. Listen now to her beautiful version of "Aye Waukin-O", a traditional song about two lovers separated from each other.

"Summer's a pleasant time:
Flowers of every colour.
Water runs down the heugh [cliff],
And I long for my true lover."