No-one knows what the future holds. For all you know, a lottery win could be just around the corner, you could find Mr Right, or land a fantastic job.

On the down side, you could get divorced, be made redundant or get run over by a bus.

It would help to know what's in store - if it's good news. But with any prediction, you'd have to be willing to take the bad along with it. And sadly, it's the less-welcome events in our lives which really can be foreseen.

Such as whether we're going to get some forms of breast cancer, or Alzheimer's, whether we are going to be short or tall or, on a less serious, but still distressing note, whether men are going to go bald.

Scientists have discovered that, if you look through a magnifying glass and see a small halo of orange or red skin around the root of each hair, then baldness is almost certain. It is pre-ordained by your genes, and you may as well accept it.

The big question is, once a man is party to this information, will he tell his wife or girl friend?

Some women might have been attracted by a chap's full head of hair, and might not want to stick around if those luscious locks are going to disappear. The news could make or break a relationship.

I wouldn't care whether my husband was going to go bald or not - we would save the bi-annual £3 he spends at the barbers, I suppose - but there are some things I wish I had known about him in advance, which may, have influenced our future together, such as his inability to pick toe nail clippings up off the floor and failure to place any item of discarded clothing in the laundry basket.

Scientists could help in our hunt for the perfect mate by uncovering ways to predict whether a man is likely to suffer from any of the following...

Car and/or football worship.

A love of pubs with wide-screen TV.

An aversion to nappy-changing at 4am.

Total devotion to his mother despite her hatred of any woman he goes out with.

An obsession with DIY especially on a lovely warm Bank Holiday weekend.

An inability to buy his own clothes.

Of course, there are plenty of things men would love to know about women. My husband wouldn't have gone anywhere near me if he'd known how much I moaned, how I live my life in a state of high anxiety and how depressed I become if I miss Brookside.

I wish I'd known about these things myself. If I'd signed up with a stress counsellor as a toddler, I may not be the highly-strung, paranoid bag of nerves I am today.

And if scientists are helping men by testing for hair loss - it will give them chance to save up for a wig - then why not help women by testing for cellulite. If I'd known 20 years ago that I was definitely going to get it, I wouldn't have bothered with all those arduous aerobics classes.

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