Opinions: How would you woo back a lost lover?

DEREK JAMESON, broadcaster: Once the light has been switched off you can't put it back on. I once threatened to lie down on the runway in front of the plane of a lover fleeing to Greece. I hung around Heathrow all day hiding behind a pillar. I saw her going into the international departure lounge but I didn't have my passport, so they wouldn't let me in after her.

SARA WOOD, Mills & Boon authoress: Personally, I wouldn't bother. But in one of my stories the jilted hero, a hot air balloonist, was so desperate to win his beloved back that he staged a pancake landing of his balloon in the field which she happened to be wandering across at the time. Dressed all in black leather, he collapsed it down from a 60ft height on top of her - it's quite feasible, you know, I've actually done it. While the heroine was floundering around, groping balloon silk and black leather, she realised just how tactile and attractive her erstwhile lover really was and fell in love with him again.

MICHAEL PALEY, traffic warden: I would cover my girlfriend's car with flowers, and pop a rose under the windscreen wipers where the ticket normally goes - together with a little note to say how much I loved her.

AILEEN MORRISON, nurse: I was deeply in love with a musician but he seemed more in love with his music. When our affair finally fizzled out I was heartbroken. It must have been more than fate which made me drive him into the back of another car on the way home from a concert. He was injured, though thankfully not too badly, and I nursed him voraciously back to health. He proposed to me as soon as he was well.

DAVID CADOGAN, author, A Flair for Affairs: Quickly try to become far more interesting than you have ever been before in your entire life - it would help if you could quickly acquire an enormous amount of money too.

NICHOLAS DELANEY, artist: I wouldn't. I would just compliment her on her good taste and take out a handkerchief, preferably silk, to wave her goodbye.

PENROSE HALSON, marriage bureau director: Joining a marriage bureau concentrates the mind of the errant lover quite extraordinarily. Only last month we returned a registration fee because the client hadn't been with us long enough to go out on a date before her lover snatched her back. The last I heard of her, she was married.

MIKE ALLAN, DJ: I know it sounds boring but I'd have a shave, wear something nice and go round to her house with a bunch of flowers and ask her back. Women prefer you to be straightforward. They don't like a load of bullshit.

NICOLA AMES, anthropologist: Get pregnant.

(Photograph omitted)