BRUSH your teeth twice, gargle more mouthwash, check your lippy if you wear it, then get ready to pucker up and smooch, for today is International Kissing Day.
Founded in 2006 and also known as World Kiss Day, this internationally-recognised special date celebrates love, romance and the art of the kiss.
The alert among you will have spotted that the UK has already had a National Kissing Day, celebrated on June 22, but why spoil the fun? Let’s do it all again today and join people around the globe locking lips for World Kiss Day.
According to Guinness World Records, the longest kiss lasted 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds. There are no plans for anyone to beat that record at the moment.
In America, restaurant chain Villa Italian Kitchen has announced the launch of a pizza-flavoured lipstick, but here the British Florist Association merely hopes that kissers will up the romantic stakes to a bouquet or a bunch of roses.
The association pointed out: “The nation’s kissing antics have been investigated, revealing that young lovers in the 18 to 24 age group are making out an average of 11 times each week, while 5% of people aged over 45 are managing m a staggering 31 passionate kisses each week. Who said that romance was dead?”
There are always those who will take a hard-headed approach to kissing, and that is very important to a Glasgow firm, the business growth training and motivational agency Kissing With Confidence.
Its entrepreneur-in-residence, Brian Williamson, feels that his company’s name reflects its aim of making people good at business, if not necessarily kissing.
He said: “In my role as entrepreneur in residence with Kissing With Confidence I spend a good deal of time thinking about kissing in the more pragmatic, business sense.
“The old notion that you need to kiss a fair few frogs to find a prince is as true in finding investors and partners as it is in finding true love.
“Whether it’s the dating game, with blind dates and something my daughters tell me is called Tinder, or the business world – with its conference circuits, connections, and networking – the same ratio of hit-and-miss is immediately apparent.
“It’s far too easy to be seduced by the business equivalent of a pretty smile, and find yourself down a blind alley, chasing a prospect that was never all that real and thinking to yourself, “what a waste of time that was…”
“In the world of business, if not that of potentially romantic dating, it helps to listen to an expert or two.”
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