Hasn't anybody twigged yet?

In a week when couples everywhere are having early nights and copulating frantically, there's all this talk of people trying to capitalise on lucrative sponsorship deals with a Millennium Baby.

Posters have begun to appear, with the sort of message we more commonly associate with dogs at Christmas: "A baby is for life, not just for the Millennium."

The message is that people shouldn't have a child simply to make money should their offspring appear at 12.01am on January 1, 2000.

It's a wise, sensible message - babies are hard work, and people shouldn't underestimate for one second the impact they will have upon their lives.

But there has been a huge misunderstanding. Couples may be busy making babies this week - but I'll bet my Christmas bonus that sponsorship isn't the reason why.

They want to provide themselves with the only acceptable, cast-iron excuse on Earth to say "No" to the Biggest Ever Bash on the Planet.

I know, it's drastic action - a baby is for life, not just to use as a reason to stay at home on New Year's Eve.

But as those among us who are positively allergic to New Year will testify, even making excuses in an ordinary, boring old run-of-the-mill year leads to you being labelled a saddo of the weirdest kind.

Come the year 2000, only the overwhelming responsibility of a vulnerable newborn child, with its very special needs, to care for will preserve your street cred. And if you're in hospital actually giving birth, all the better.

Six-month-old tots won't do, and toddlers certainly won't, because everyone who is anyone will be able to find a willing teenager to babysit on December 31 - especially since the going rate is likely to top £50 an hour.

I've already been asked countless times what I'll be doing on New Year's Eve and the answer - "Probably tucked up in bed at home" - has attracted the usual puzzled/pitying/haven't-you-got any-friends sort of looks. It's as if you've committed a crime by deciding to abstain.

It seems that anyone who isn't having a baby will be seeing in the new year at the top of the Empire State building, half way up a pyramid, at the Everest base camp or in the Cock and Bottle, Barkerend Road.

I'd be happy to spend time in any of those places but not alongside thousands of other revellers, swaying together in a drunken stupor, making what they believe are profound (but are in fact meaningless twaddle) statements, hugging, kissing and singing daft songs.

When the new Millennium dawns (and, really, that's not until Jan 1, 2001) Britain's maternity wards (no alcohol, no loud music, no obligation to snog complete strangers) will be among the few safe havens in the country.

Millennium Baby? If I wasn't struggling with two children under three, you could certainly count me in.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.