WITH just a week to go until Valentine's Day, perhaps the Internet can help you find that special something.

Plenty of websites offer some amour online and the world wide nature of the web can be found at www.valentines.com where they have been thinking about how to say "I love you" in every language.

The site also gives you some different ideas for gifts such a home-made fortune cookies as well as the standard flowers and chocolates.

If it is the more usual gifts you are looking for, then have a look around at www.pressie.com. This UK site offers a free gift-wrapping service as well as the option to pay by cheque or phone for those nervous of online transactions. Closer to home, The Northern Echo's Valentine's website at www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/clients/valentines offers gifts for him and her as well as giving readers the chance to send a message.

For traditionalists, the Victorian love tokens on show at www.scrapalbum.com/stvalent.html could prove to be inspiring with their confections of lace and scent.

However, most people today settle for sending a card and the Internet has plenty on offer.

At www.aristotle.net/valentines, visitors get the chance to win a romantic Elvis weekend as well as a choice of free cards and at that favourite stand-by for any occasion www.shockwave.com there is a wide variety of cards in the "love section" from the silly to the sickly.

The web being the web, you would expect some rather alternative offerings but the fashion for sending people black-humoured cards goes back to the 1850s. At www.evilvalentines.com, surfers are offered the chance to show "how much you don't care". (Readers should be warned that this site contains material of an adult nature).

But the spirit of Valentine's means we should all take the chance to say those three special words to the one we love: "Mina rakkastan sinua" as they say in Finland, apparently.