Winter Olympics Valentine's Day Special

Just six days till Valentine's! Sochi is already underway! Mid-February brings a cascade of events designed to bring us together. Sort of. With many many ceteris paribus clauses and laws against promoting things. Valentine's day is nasty.

Prequel: How not to treat a computer

The absence of Best of the Web: Week 3 can be explained as a case study in the danger of hot liquids and technology. While typing away and keeping myself just on the healthy side of a fatal caffeine dose, my essay chose to delete itself and I automatically banged the table out of frustration. Of course if you do try and bang the table, and the part of the table you choose happens to have a laptop aloft, it is very likely you will cause a large dent to form in your keyboard, into which you will then watch tea slowly pour. Take heed.

1. The curse of Sochi

#Sochiproblems OMG.

What began as an attempt to offer a serious web-based opposition to brutal oppression laws became an exercise in twitter photo sharing and hashtagging in approximately six minutes.

Of course, the Olympics is not about politics, and isn't really about the sports. Instead it's about a Russian army choir singing the hits of the day.

Sochi has an interesting predecessor. In May 2009, Eurovision came to Moscow. Terrified of its potential implications, the Moscow police were sure to crack down on a gay rally (while ironically, as winner Alexander Rybak pointed out, leaving the contest well alone) and decided to butch up the show by having the Russian army choir sing. A t.A.T.u. song. You remember t.A.T.u.? The women who opened our minds to the possibility that staged lesbianism could be used to sell music. Five years later, Sochi did exactly the same. They even used the same arrangement.

Meanwhile the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion had this to say:

Incidentally, the top two double luge pairs in the world are Andreas and Wolfgang Linger from Austria, and Andris and Juris Šics from Latvia. They are brothers.

2. Valentine's day needn't be as tragic as you think

As students across Cambridge prepare for their RAG blind dates, and lament their choice of friends, based on their inability to be as 'hilarious' as they might have hoped, there is still love to be found out there. Here are five ways:

After a low-commitment relationship that can work long distance? Date a convict

Is mutual love of carrots essential? Insist on vegetarian

Want someone to bring out your inner child? You'll find it here

Torn between a life of love and a life of cats? YOU CAN HAVE BOTH

Are you one of those terrible, terrible people so content with their own lives they feel the right to run the lives of their friends? Then make sure you look after your single friends.

3. Eurovision watch part 3: no-one wants to be in your bedroom, Alvaro, leave it.

The Eurovision is truly up and running, with more and more countries revealing the acts fighting to fly the flag at the Olympics of everything Mr Putin would rather not have. Namely Georgian nationalism. Potential acts are polishing up their entries, and Slovenia is considering whether to send a previously unknown act called 'Muff'. After forays into the best EFL pop the East had to offer, we reach the true Eurovision juggernaught: Sweden.

Over six weeks, the Swedes watch 32 songs battle for the ticket to Copenhagen, and a few have already fallen by the wayside. One that did not make the grade was Bedroom by Alvaro Estrella. His song can best be described as the sort of awkward pride people take in one-night stands, set to a backing track that does most of the singing. Such as the passion the bedroom was never reached. Or, as Alvaro admits, it was a case of "Boom Boom Boom" - 3 thrusts and he was done for the night.

4. Russian cat of the week

And finally

Barry strikes again.