As the countdown to the year 2000 begins in earnest, many young couples are now asking: when is the right time to conceive if you want to have a millennium baby? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. Some experts have pinpointed March 17th as the crucial date, and ITV has gone so far as to plan that evening's programmes to put viewers in the humour for bed (their schedules always have that effect on me, anyway).
But even if March 17th were the right date, there is of course no guarantee that an act of union then would result in conception. Fortunately, there is a wealth of oriental and folk wisdom available about how to maximise your chances of success. And based on this, my advice to aspiring couples is as follows:
On the night of the first full moon in March, preferably when Venus is in Pisces or vice versa, you should choose a comfortable location somewhere out of doors. Having first disrobed, you should then take time to meditate, working to achieve harmony with your surroundings and to allow your Yin and Yang to sort themselves out, and that sort of thing.
You may find it useful, immediately before love-making, to get the blood flowing by performing some vigorous aerobic exercise, such as the main theme from Riverdance. Then, choosing any standard position from the Kama sutra, you should . . .
OK, enough of that. With any luck the gardai will have arrived by this stage and you'll both be under arrest. And my advice to the officer in charge is that you should now be locked up, in separate cells, until at least one of you regains your senses. Because nobody in his or her right mind would plan to have a baby next New Year's Eve. In fact, nobody in his right mind would plan to go out next New Year's Eve: a subject I'll come back to in a moment.
It's an unfortunate thing, but birth statistics tend to closely mirror car sales. They both go up when the economy is doing well, and both experience a mid-winter surge in early January, as customers hold off to get the New Year registration. And just as car-buyers are already putting in their orders for next January's extra-special event, couples who were in the market for a new baby anyway are now finding themselves irresistibly drawn to the idea of a 00 registration.
So, despite all warnings, maternity hospitals will probably be scenes of chaos next December 31st. Women in advanced labour may have to wait for hours in corridors, probably being interviewed by Paddy O'Gorman in a Queueing for a Living special. There'll be no beds available because expectant fathers with stopwatches will be urging those already occupying them: "Slow down those contractions; there are still four hours to midnight!" Lord Dublin, who traditionally gets the first delivery of the year (I think that only goes for cars - Ed) may suffer.
`Hospitals will have to appoint independent observers to verify birth times. So, not only will mothers have midwives sharing their deepest secrets, but Alex Burns of Stokes Kennedy Crowley will be there as well'
Of course, a major factor this year will be the huge financial inducements to the first millennium babies - lucrative deals with tabloid newspapers, Pampers modelling contracts, and so on. But where there is money involved in anything, you can be sure there will also be trouble for those "lucky" enough to be giving birth immediately after midnight.
Baby-delivery issues that no one ever gave any thought to before will become fiercely contentious, so that hospitals may for the first time have to offer lawyers along with epidurals. For instance, when we hear that the first baby of the New Year was born at "five seconds past midnight," few people have ever wondered how this is decided. Do New Year babies breast a tape on the way out? (If not, it's a fair bet it happens next year.)
What will probably also happen is that hospitals will have to appoint independent observers to verify birth times. This will mean an even greater ordeal for mothers who are sensitive about their personal privacy: not only will they have midwives sharing their deepest secrets, but Alex Burns of Stokes Kennedy Crowley will be there as well.
And all of this will be happening against the background of a bacchanalian festival unprecedented since the Romans banned the original one. Consider this: New Year's Eve will fall on a Friday. Then consider a normal Friday night in Dublin's pubs, if you've ever experienced one and survived. Then add the fact that the Government has declared December 31st a holiday, so that the usual pesky nuisance of a working day between Thursday and Friday night will not be a restraining influence this year.
Remember also that there'll be little in the way of public transport on New Year's Eve: the millennium bug is likely to cause taxi drivers everywhere to malfunction, and the few who do turn up for work will be driving past mile-long taxi queues all night just for the hell of it. So, fuelled by the suspicion that Garda overtime will not stretch to extensive roadblocks on this of all days, there will be people driving who on any other day of the past 1,000 years would have had the sense to leave their cars at home.
And consider also that, aside from people having the first babies of the new millennium, others will be out to make their mark as well: first mugging of the new millennium; first armed hijacking; etc etc. Consider all this and maybe you'll begin to see why all sane people should be at home on December 31st, singing Auld Lang Syne under the covers.
Personally, I think I'll be going to bed with a good book that night. And that probably goes for March 17th as well.