A women walks into an office with a baby. That sounds like a set up for a joke but it’s not – rather a trigger for the unitary chromosome side of the planet to forget they are corporately conditioned to be employees first, and women second. Scary females from the accounts department, who are undisputed masters of putting you on hold for ever, are transformed into Earth Mothers with a penchant for cooing. It’s like bloke with motorbikes, they just can’t help themselves.

So the proud new parent pushes a pram down the corridor and half the office feels a gravitational pull similar to that of a dying star. But the rest of us have built in anti-gravity when it comes to pink, hairless and boring packages of tiny humanity. And we’re much the poorer for it but, on being trapped into peering into the cot, we still can’t quite see what all the fuss is about.

It’s like sleeping after sex. One side of a relationship lights up a imaginary cigar, congratulates himself on a job well done and rolls over. And instantly falls asleep while his partner wants to discuss the moment, the consequences,the exact level of affection he feels, or the state of the curtains. The distance between two X’s and a Y can be easily visualised by men thinking there is barely a degree of separation between crotchless panties and nice perfume when it comes to a romantic birthday present.

Or so I’ve heard.

Anyway before I offend everyone on the planet, let’s get back to babies. Except not for me of course – with two daughters already, statistically I’d be looking at a 3:1 ratio of fairies to football. And I’ll never again be ready for a face full of rocket propelled mashed carrot, a night made endless by two hours of sleep, and a level of dependency that puts your life on hold for two years. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids – I just don’t want another one.

So, being in touch with your feminine side and cautiously peering under the pram’s canopy will reveal nothing more than what morphs into a half eaten Mars Bar. Once you have decided they’re unlikely ever to play for England, you may as well give in and mooch about with all the other alpha males, indulging in some tribal crotch scratching.

If one were tending to the pragmatic, the obvious solution it to accessorise the little person with something interesting. That way, our fleeting glances and goldfish like attention span will be held by an object of interest. And we’ll trot out expected phrases “So has he got a big willy then?” / “Oh, a girl you say, right” and everyone can go home suffused in the joy that the centre of their world is at least at the periphery of ours.

I’d go with an XBOX. Or a guitar.