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<\/p>\nLast Saturday was St Valentine’s Day. My French calendar also informs me that it was also the day for St Cyrille and St Methode (is this a takeover bid for John Wesley?)\u00a0 but I’ll pass on them.\u00a0 Traditionally St Valentine’s day has become a great merchandising opportunity in which large hearts fill the windows of shops and the pockets of shop-keepers.<\/p>\n
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Reclaim Love<\/em>, now in its sixth year, sets in opposition to the commercialisation of this festival of love.\u00a0 Everything is free – including several hundred free t-shirts, free hugs, free food, music and being together and enjoying each other’s company.<\/p>\n Love comes free and it is the greatest force in the world is the message behind this annual festival organised by – who else – Venus.\u00a0\u00a0 And it’s an event that is spreading around the world, with Reclaim Love events this year in countries including Iceland, Finland, Spain, Italy, India, Pakistan, Australia and elsewhere.<\/p>\n At 3pm, Venus organises everyone present to hold hands to form a large circle around the whole area, rushing herself to join it and send out a message of love to the world.<\/p>\n And then the partying continues under the statue of Eros.<\/p>\n More about the event and more pictures on My London Diary<\/a>, where you can also see pictures from some previous years –\u00a0 2005<\/a>, 2006<\/a>, 2007<\/a> and 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Saturday was St Valentine’s Day. My French calendar also informs me that it was also the day for St Cyrille and St Methode (is this a takeover bid for John Wesley?)\u00a0 but I’ll pass on them.\u00a0 Traditionally St Valentine’s day has become a great merchandising opportunity in which large hearts fill the windows of … Continue reading Reclaim Love<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\u00a9](\"http:\/\/mylondondiary.co.uk\/2009\/02\/14\/20090214-d0252.jpg\" "\\"\u00a9")
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