WITH Valentine's Day marked firmly in the diary, romance has been in the air at the Adver offices in Old Town.

Sadly, many of the newsroom girls are happily settled or not interested in finding love, so the only chance I had to play Cupid was to find a willing volunteer on the streets of Swindon.

With that in mind, I headed off, camerawoman and colleague Stephanie Tye in tow, into the town centre on Tuesday to try and find someone who is looking for love.

Luckily, customer account manager and part-time club promoter Claire Hirt was a happy candidate.

"I always meet people when I'm working in clubs, but can't really do anything about it because I'm there to work," she said.

"I've got lots of single male friends, but they're friends and nothing more."

Claire, who has appeared on Blind Date in her quest for true love, took on our challenge in the town centre with gusto, describing her perfect man as someone fit, preferably blond, who likes sports, especially football, and clubbing and music.

Looks-wise, footballer Freddie Ljungberg was top of her list.

"Because of what I do with promoting club nights, I couldn't be with a man who would just stand at the side of the dance floor drinking, I'd want someone who will have a dance," she said.

"But I'm fairly relaxed about what I want."

Although Claire claimed she preferred blonds, many of the men she picked out were the dark and handsome type.

Several of them were also sensitive, arty-looking souls instead of the clubbing sportsman she'd requested.

At The Parade we expected it to be a lively thoroughfare, bustling with the best of Swindon's male talent.

Within moments Claire spotted a tall, dark and handsome guy, who was trendily dressed, as she'd hoped and off I ran to talk to him.

Sadly, he said that although he was single and did like the look of Claire, he had just come out of a bad break-up and did not fancy a night out on a date. And off he went into the distance.

Never mind, on to the next one. That's what makes the Streetmate format, based on the Davina McCall TV show, so much fun: Get rejected, move on and spot another candidate.

Aided and abetted by my partner-in-Cupid-crime Stephanie on the camera, she zoomed in from a safe distance to check out the talent long before they reached our spot.

This gave Claire a chance to see if they fitted her requirements, and me a chance to get positioned to pounce.

Surprisingly, none of the men we approached fled in complete fear, although a few did look confused and embarrassed at the thought that they'd been picked out by a total stranger.

Although I think we did manage to freak out one potential candidate, when in the midst of one chat-up attempt, two others caught my attention and sent me dashing, in high heels, through the streets to chase the one blond man we spotted.

Unfortunately, he looked utterly bemused as I breathlessly spouted: "Hi, I'm from the Adver and we're trying to streetmate Claire for Valentine's Day."

His reply was: "Sorry, I don't understand. I'm not English."

Such a shame, as he would have fitted Claire's brief to perfection.

But, girlfriends and wives of Swindon men, you can rest assured they seem to be an honest - and polite - bunch as they were quick to say "thanks but no thanks, I've got a wife/girlfriend."

That said, one lad we approached jokingly said he would have happily accepted the proposal of a date if his girlfriend wouldn't find out.

Given this article and the accompanying video on the Adver website the chances of it staying a secret were slim.

When we moved our spotting attempts to Canal Walk, thinking tactics and planting ourselves outside Topman and Burton menswear stores, we started to think there was a dearth of good looking men in the town.

Determined to counter that, we popped our heads into shops to check out the staff, but got little from that until we checked out HSBC.

There, in the company's very smart pinstriped uniform, was Nick Gregorace.

Tall and attractive, Nick, 28, had a smile to brighten the sunny lunchtime we were spending in town.

At last, a single man and he was happy to be set up on a date with Claire.

After a brief chat we discovered the pair share an interest in music, Nick is the former lead singer with Swindon band Fry although he is now developing his own music in his spare time.

"I think Claire's beautiful, she's stunning," he said. "Why not go on a Valentine's date?"

There you go, job done.

Cupids Mansell and Tye happily returned to the office, safe in the knowledge we could have given two people a chance at finding love.