I suppose, as a married woman with the advantage of having an almost identical brother-in-law as back-up, should my husband sadly get run over by a bus, I should not be reading lonely hearts advertisements. Indeed, I would go so far as to say it would be unfair and unkind of me to do so, like sitting in a nice warm car with a flask of soup watching a tramp trying to sleep in a hedge; or being God, and standing next to someone having a crisis of faith, and sniggering.

But then, for the love of Harry, you cannot help but think that these people might need a gently guiding hand from someone with tangible qualifications in pulling. Have you read the lonely hearts lately? It is like pressing your ear to the ground and listening to the conversation of moles: baffling, alien chitty-chat hindered by the constraints of space — 20 words including a PO box address, usually — and the prevalence of worms.

There is a lot of worm out there. Simply showing you Nick, 38, who asks “Don’t you deserve to be loved for ever by this very kind, intelligent, tolerant, understanding and generous man?” in this week’s Time Out should demonstrate that. Some wormery is more codified, however: the initially unobtrusive appearance of “the rich tapestry of life”, for instance. For those who have not been round the block a few times, the phrase “rich tapestry of life” would probably suggest someone who is, well, rich, and into tapestry and life. William the Conqueror, perhaps. In my experience, however, “the rich tapestry of life” is a phrase used as a blanket term for smuggling in looted religious artefacts from Burma, hunting down poor people on horses, gluttony, book-burning and buggery. When used in conjunction with the phrase “lives life to the full”, you can probably add drink-driving, tax evasion and sitting on the front porch with a quart of whisky, shouting out the names of ex-girlfriends whilst shooting rocks with an air rifle.

Of course, as the Bee Gees so wisely said, “It’s only words/And words are all I have/To take your heart away.” The idea of alerting your lifelong love to your existence with only 20 words is absurd: the washing instructions on my titty top from Warehouse come in at 22, and I doubt we will still be together in the new year. But already constricted by space, the lovelorn do themselves no favours by sticking rigidly to the traditional lexicon of the lonely heart, a language so stultified and formulaic that it makes The Queen’s Speech sound like William S. Burroughs, drunkenly falling out of a building, trying to say every word in the world before he dies.

More than 70 per cent of lonely hearts specify their interest in “eating out, staying in, nights on the town, country walks, good wine, film, intelligent conversation” and, if you’re very unlucky, “cuddles by the fireside”. In, out, town, country, food, wine, film, chat: yes. Add “not be ill”, “not be embroiled in wartime atrocities” and “not lose all money in worldwide share plunge, and have to sell my children for soup”, and you have pretty much covered what everyone in the world would consider a list of life’s happier things. But you see what I am saying here, that these are things everyone in the world considers pleasant. You will not, therefore, have to put them in your advertisement. Frankly, the only pastimes that need to be flagged up in advance are jazz and serious intent to raise the dead; everything else should be easily covered within love’s elastic embrace.

Personally I would not use the word “cuddle”: it is the phrase of choice in dramas for children to reveal that they have been interfered with (“Uncle Harry gave me a bad cuddle in the shed”). For broadly similar reasons I would avoid “assertive” (murderer), “crazy!” (weepy lady with bedful of bears in top hats and dresses), and “would prefer Chinese/Japanese lady” (I am very, very short). And I will tell you now, men: any woman who advertises herself “size 8-10” means “until six weeks after we marry, when I’ll move my other four stone in, along with ALL MY ISSUES”.

The most pitiless of all phrases, however, is “GSOH”. Aside from the fact that I thought this meant “gas central heating” until I was 18, having to tell someone that you have a good sense of humour — that you are amusing — is like having to tell someone that you are beautiful, or treading on their toes. If you are, it should be apparent to them. They, in fact, should be telling you. For the majority of profoundly humourless advertisements, the addition of “GSOH” is like finding a slipper-shaped present under the Christmas tree, hopefully, but ultimately incorrectly, labelled “bicycle”. Or, more pertinently, rolling up for your first date to find your potential husband punctuates every woeful joke with “I am so funneee”. And the only loveable person ever to do that was Fozzie Bear.

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