for me, was that Minnie Riperton's Lovin' You was on the wrong list. Awful, cloying, irritating song. The bit where she squeaks makes me want to commit random acts of violence.

Missing from the list, but by far the most wretched love song even penned, is Secret Lovers by Atlantic Starr - A soft-focus duet about adultery, in which Barbara Weathers and David Lewis croon soulfully about the great difficulty of keeping an extramarital affair under wraps, and then release their confession on a major record label, guaranteeing it blanket radio airplay.

The song reaches a tonsil-stabbing zenith during its overwrought middle eight, after which the smoochy tone of implied intimacy is shattered forever by the line: “In the middle of making love we notice the time, we both get nervous ‘cause it’s way after nine.”

The key word here - “We” – allows for some CSI-style forensic reconstruction of the tawdry scene: Since both partners notice the time, they must be positioned in a way that allows them to be facing in the same direction. My guess would be on all fours, with the clock on the DVD player in clear line of sight. At this point they’re not even gazing wistfully into each other’s eyes; any pretence of love making having long since degenerated into an apathetic, glazed-eyed shagging session, in which both parties are so bored that their attention drifts to random objects around the room.

The only practical use for Secret Lovers is as an improvised infidelity detector. The kind of song that you might play out of curiosity at a wedding reception or other large social gathering, purely to see who gets up and slow dances to it.