"If all you need is love," said Porky Withers, down at the Chalk 'n Cue, "then why did God make alcohol taste so good? Eh? Heh, heh, heh. Eh, lads?" We all frowned and looked away. Porky Withers was in an expansive mood. When Porky Withers is in an expansive mood, the only thing to do is ignore him until it passes. Porky Withers's expansive moods generally start up after his third gin and last until his fifth gin or until he starts to think about his life.

When Porky Withers is in an expansive mood he likes to spread his wisdom around the room, as though it were Tuesday and he were Morrie. That is bad enough, but when Porky Withers is in a very expansive mood, he likes to invent epigrams. Some people were born epigrammists, some people achieve epigrams, and others have epigrams thrust upon them. When he is feeling very expansive, Porky Withers thrusts his epigrams upon us.

"Love," said Porky Withers after a pause, "may be a many-splendoured thing, but whiskey is a many-blended thing."

There was a silence while grown men wrestled with strong emotions. The strong emotions with which we wrestled were individual variations of the giddy urge to knock Porky Withers off his barstool and drag him outside.

'We fight all the time and say cruel things to each other, still I'm going to marry her'

"Steady now, boys," said Big Bob Plummer under his breath. "Don't make eye contact. Just another few minutes before he orders his fifth gin. We can do it."

"But what does that mean, Porky?" asked Stage-Door Johnny suddenly, and there was a moment of interest and activity while a couple of the locals nearest Stage-Door Johnny knocked him off his barstool and dragged him outside.

Stage-Door Johnny has not been a local at the Chalk 'n Cue for very long, and if we are not firm with him, he will never learn.

Fortunately Porky Withers had not noticed. He was still wrapped in epigrammatic inquiries into love and liquor. For Porky Withers, love is like a red, red nose.

It was not love that had turned Porky Withers thoughtful, but a television show. All You Need is Love (SABC1 on Saturdays at 6.30pm) is dedicated to facilitating, cajoling, celebrating and engineering the blessed mysteries of love among members of the public.

It was the wink of someone in a bar who thinks he is about to get lucky

The show raised the age-old question, if not quite as old as love itself, at least as old as local television: why do SABC1 shows always decorate their sets in shades of lime green, pink and purple? This is true even when the subject of the show is not love, but the assault on the optic nerve becomes the more unendurable as soon as romance is in the air. For an SABC1 stylist, nothing says "love" like a room decorated to resemble the small intestine of a Teletubby.

On Saturday, Hlomla Dandala introduced us to three likely lads who were intending to propose to their sweethearts on national television. For the three likely lads, nothing says "love" like a camera crew, a live audience and a big room in Auckland Park. Likely Lad No 1 explained his passion. "She is always there for me," he rhapsodised. "We have fought, I have made her cry, I have done terrible things, but now we're having a baby." Ah, love! Sweet love, that maketh of men to speak in the silver tongues of angels!

Likely Lad No 2 put forward his case. "I want her to know that even though she makes me mad, and we fight and fight all the time and say cruel things to each other, still I'm going to marry her."

Why?

"Because I love her."

Noble Shakespeare himself could not more precisely have described the teeming glory that is love. What other word can mean so many different things to so many different people? Where you or I might hear only "dysfunctional relationship sure to end in tears", someone else hears "good basis on which to spend the rest of our lives together". Ah, love! Ain't it grand?

Soon enough, under Hlomla's indulgent eye, the boys proposed. The fiancee of Likely Lad No 2 accepted, but she had a faraway look in her eye. "This is so perfect," she said, and if you listened closely you could almost hear the shadow of emphasis falling on the word "this", rather than "perfect". She paused, and shadows moved behind her eyes. "I wish it could be like this all the time," she said. There were worlds of wistfulness in those words.

Love is a beautiful thing, but it is tricky, because many other things can be mistaken for love. Fear, for instance, and tiredness and loneliness and - on more than one occasion - hunger. Sometimes love is just another way of saying you have nothing else to say.

We met some young duffer whose name eluded me. The young duffer was looking for someone to love. Hlomla interviewed him to build up a romantic profile. "What would you do to show your woman you love her?" asked Hlomla.

"Flowers," said the young duffer confidently.

"Who is the woman of your dreams?" asked Hlomla. "My ex-girlfriend," replied the young duffer.

"Sum up what you look for in a woman," Hlomla invited the young duffer. The young duffer was ready for this question. He squared his shoulders and looked into the camera. "Someone with the same qualities as me, but who carries herself well," he announced, and blow me down if he didn't wink at us. It was not an ironic wink, or a pre-arranged wink to his friends. It was the wink of someone in a bar who thinks he is about to get lucky.

The sad thing is that the little winker will get plenty of invitations from ladies out there looking for love. These days it is love that matters, not the object of the love.

It is enough to make you sip from Porky Withers's gin. Sometimes love is just another word for nothing left to lose.