STEPHEN LEWIS is less than starry-eyed about the latest craze for St Valentine's Day gifts

JUST imagine it. The candles are lit, the table is bathed in a warm, intimate glow, your beloved is leaning towards you, her eyes melting. Feeling the moment is just right you produce, with a flourish, a snowy envelope. It's wrapped in a giant red ribbon.

"Happy St Valentine's Day, darling," you say.

Her eyes sparkle, her hands clap together. "Oh, what is it?" she gasps.

"Open it."

She does, hands trembling. You glance up to the window, curtains drawn to reveal the moon hanging in the clear night sky, gleaming softly.

The envelope tears, a little slip of paper falls out. She fumbles with it, a tiny frown line appearing between her brows. "What... what is it?"

It's a map. A very strange map. You touch her cheek gently. "Look. Look up there," you say in a soft voice.

The moon gleams behind the lace curtains. "Up there," you say, pointing. "Just about ... there. That part of the moon. It's yours."

There's a moment's freezing silence while her eyebrows contract like thunder. Then splat! The contents of her wine glass are deposited in your face. As you wipe your streaming eyes you catch a glimpse of her white silk-clad figure hurrying out of the room, shoulders contorted with sobs.

OK, OK, so the bit about the candlelit dinner's made up. I mean, who does those any more? But the Moon - yes, you really can buy an acre of prime lunar real estate for just £19.99 to give your beloved this St Valentine's Day.

It doesn't stop there. If you really, really want to - and you honestly do believe your beloved's a love goddess - you could buy her an acre of Venus, instead. And since women may be from Venus but men are very definitely from Mars she, if she were so minded, could buy you your very own acre of the red planet in return. Same price of £19.99, map and legal certificate of registration included.

All you have to do is log on to the Alternative Gifts Company's website at www.alt-gifts.com - and have your credit card details ready.

It's all, apparently, perfectly legal and above board. Back in the 1960s, world leaders signed a treaty forbidding any national government to claim a celestial body such as the Moon or a planet for any one nation. But they forgot to include individuals in the agreement. Spotting the loophole, an American - yes, it had to be an American - named Dennis Hope filed a declaration of ownership of the Moon and the planets Mars and Venus on November 22 1980. His ownership is now, apparently, recognised by the USA, USSR and the UN General Assembly.

Now the planets are being sold off bit by bit to all comers - an acre at a time, mineral rights thrown in. Celebs who have already staked a claim to a chunk of celestial real estate include Tom Cruise and Clint Eastwood.

It looks as though a piece of a planet is going to be the must-have accessory this St Valentine's Day. Alternative Gifts have the exclusive rights to flog off Mars and Venus to people in the UK - at least until February 14 - but the competition to sell off our nearest neighbour, the Moon, is hotting up.

Alternative Gifts is undercutting the opposition, it's true. But if you are really of a romantic disposition you might choose to go via the opposition instead.

Internet retailer Newstravels is offering through its website - www.qxl.com - an acre of the Moon for £49 plus £3.80 postage and packing (for the legal documentation, that is, not for your acre of moondust). Seems expensive - £30 an acre more expensive, to be precise - but this company is throwing in a box of luxury Belgian chocolates as well.

"They are superb chocolates," says spokesman Kevin Taylor. "The only place you can usually buy these chocolates is under the Harrods name. Otherwise they're not available." So that's all right, then.

Not everyone, of course, is entirely happy at the thought of the moon and planets being turned into commercial real estate and flogged off to the first comer with a box of chocolates thrown in.

It looks as if we're fencing off the solar system before we've even had a chance to get out there. Will the first men to land on Mars walk into a giant 'Keep Out' sign?

Astronomer Martin Lunn admits he finds the whole thing 'deeply saddening'.

"I thought space was there for everybody," he says. "It's very, very sad. Does it mean if a future rocket goes to the Moon and you land someone, they will find someone saying 'you're trespassing?'. Or does it mean someone can say you're not allowed to land in a certain crater?

"It's like the Spanish conquistadors going across to the New World, landing on the coast of Brazil and claiming the whole country for some king or queen. I think most people would be quite upset."

Most astronomers, certainly. Estate agents might not agree. But it would be nice, one day, if we could actually discover a new world that we didn't immediately start bickering over and parcelling up. Wouldn't it?

Might as well ask for the Moon.

Updated: 10:28 Monday, February 05, 2001