Ripping off my Jason Voorhees facemask, I sucked in the parched fumes that pass for oxygen in my office and stared balefully at the chocolate love hearts that were chemically bonding to my desk.

"They're for Valentine's Day," said a female colleague.

Amid all the particulate matter and leftover newspaper ink, the confectionaries had already cultured into new bacterial super-agents. There was nothing romantic about them. I wondered if anyone had a spare spatula or petri dish lying around.