It's that time of year again, when the card shop owner's thoughts turn to lurve. To celebrate in a science way here's the third of our lurve quizzes, The Business of Lurve. There are 15 opportunities to pick the right science word to make the path of true lurve run smurth. If you get them all right you could win the most attractive thing we could find – powerful UberOrb magnets. Even if you throw them in the air they'll still end up together. Ahhhhhhhh......

(if you've come to this page accidentally or you're not really in a romantic mood check out the February trivia quiz)

(if you lurve the lurve quiz, check out the previous ones: Amazonian Lurve Quiz & Original Lurve Quiz)

CHAPTER ONE

Eleni Georgios leapt out of bed. This afternoon she was presenting her new company to Gerard Pinman, head of Pinman Associates, one of the richest venture capitalist companies in the City of London and his science advisor, Navin.  If this meeting went well, a) she would get the money to make her business fly, and b) she would never have to meet irritating Navin ever again! He’d quizzed her and quizzed her about the ingredients that went into her make-up. GlowWorm Cosmetics was new and unique, and she knew what she was doing. She hadn’t spent years studying the biophysics of insect iridescence for nothing.

As she showered, warming her bathroom with the Steam  Oxygen  Hydrogen  she mused on the picture of Gerard she’d built up.

Gerard was always on the Times list of the most eligible men in the UK. He was a sophisticated man, with an irresistible twinkle of pure success in his eye. She sighed as she drew his initials in the condiments  condemnation  condensation  her mirror.

CHAPTER TWO

Giving her name to the receptionist, Eleni looked round. Pinman Associates had the financial backing she needed to really get GlowWorm off the ground. You could just tell. From the frogs  forks  fossils  in the marble of the reception area to the grain of the walrus  walnut  walmart  boardroom table.

She checked her make-up in her hand mirror, and examined her refraction reflection reduction . She looked OK but she’d booked a model to attend the meeting too, to demonstrate some of the looks that it was possible to achieve with her range of insect inspired colours and effects. Good to bring some colour to the proceedings, (GlowWorm had all the colours of the speculation spectrum specimen  in fact!) so that it wasn’t all business plans and finance projections. Bang on time Chloe turned up, a tall graceful elephant ectomorph electron  with huge grey eyes. They shook hands and walked to the lifts.

CHAPTER THREE

The meeting was going well. Gerard was every bit as charming as the Times list made him out to be, he payed Chloe a lot of attention as he asked Eleni about how she’d achieved the effects, he even smeared some of her butterfly shadow on his hand. He gazed thoughtfully at his metacarpus  metatarsals  metaphysics  and admired the colour. As Eleni explained about her years of rhythm and blues research and development copying and pasting  at university, and her field trips to the jungles of the Arctic Circle  Arizona Desert  Amazon Basin  to research insects, Gerard just stared at Chloe’s amazing face.

Oh well, Eleni thought, the man and the money was a little too much to hope for. Gerard and Navin had better come up with the money or it really would be a depressing day.

CHAPTER FOUR

They all shook hands and Gerard and Navin walked Eleni and Chloe to the lifts. After saying their goodbyes, the lift doors closed and the lift began its decent. No sooner had it left their floor than there was an abrupt halt and the lights went out. Chloe screamed. After a couple of minutes there was a knocking sound on the roof of the lift and the panel in the ceiling came open.

Navin’s head stuck through the opening. “I’m awfully sorry ladies, total electrics meltdown for the whole block apparently. We’ve fused the entire circus circumstances circuit . Gerard’s sent me to see if you’re OK? It’s rather eerie in the lift shaft I can tell you! Shall I shimmy in?”

He dropped down into the lift and proceeded to chatter about anything and everything just to take Chloe’s mind off her situation.  ‘That’s kind’ thought Eleni, maybe I misjudged him. Chloe had calmed down a lot, and was talking to Navin about her science lessons at school and when the teacher had made all her hair stand up with her Van Dyke Van Rental Van Der Graaf  generator.  Navin laughed. Great, thought Eleni, I’ve become the invisible woman!

CHAPTER FIVE

Finally the lift brought them all back to reception, and Chloe left to get a taxi.

‘What a sweet girl’, said Navin, ‘I didn’t think I’d stand a chance with a girl like that, but she gave me her number you know – she said I was interesting!’

‘Well, good luck telling your boss! I think he rather liked her too’ retorted Eleni, quite grumpily.

‘Oh really’ replied Navin, evenly, ‘we’ll see about that’.

Eleni trotted off umbrella-less into the rainy night. She should have heeded the radio meatier chunks  meteorologist  meteorites  that morning. What an idiot she was. Neither Navin nor Gerard had mentioned making a deal with her, and both of them were smitten with a model she’d been daft enough to invite to the occasion. Men!

CHAPTER SIX

Standing on the curb to cross to the tube station Eleni was suddenly drenched by a large dark car swishing past through a puddle. She was completely satisfied saturated satirised !

‘Oi!’ she shouted. The car stopped and to her utter astonishment Gerard stepped out, holding an umbrella.

‘Ah, there you are…’ he walked over to her, ‘Miss Georgios …Eleni, I was wondering if you’d care to dine with me this evening. Perhaps, like me, you are completely far-fetched fabulous famished ?  I don’t normally mix business with pleasure, but then, I don’t normally meet women as, well, brilliant as you. Normally I spend my time with women like Chloe – lovely, but, no business sense at all! You’ve, er…smudged that amazing make-up of yours in the rain…’

And as he touched her face to unsmudge the smudge, Eleni knew there’d be many more chapters of this story to come……

Back to Quizzes & Competitions