Boy or girl? You choose. From today, you might be able to. A report due out today is expected to allow fertility clinics to help couples choose the sex of their baby. Not for medical reasons; for inherited illnesses - which would be wonderful - but just, well, just because you fancy having a daughter rather than a son, or the other way round.

Would you really want to choose?

For some parents, it could be a godsend, literally a lifesaver. But for the rest of us, it might be a choice too far.

How many of us would be here now if our parents could have chosen otherwise?

Not me, for a start. My father already had one daughter and I was always going to Robert Ian, so was a bit of a let down from the very beginning really. A large chunk of the population of India wouldn't be here. Nor, I'm afraid, would a lot of daughters of the nobility - especially if they didn't already have an older brother or two.

But what really frightens me is that we might not have had Smaller Son. Gulp. With one strapping lad already, and given free choice, we might have opted for a daughter. She might well have been lovely, but it's impossible to consider life without the boy we actually had.

And where will it end?

If you can choose to have the "right" sex, can you then choose to have an abortion if it turns out to be wrong? It's a very slippery slope we could be sliding down.

But there is hope. Many people could be told the sex of their baby long before it's born. For some, it's important - those genetic diseases again. For a handful of others - usually the sort who spend nine months getting the designers in to do the nursery and just must have the right colours - it's a matter of great interest.

But most people - even though the information is there - just don't want to know. We are happy to get what we're given as long as the baby's fit and healthy.

When you think about it, the sex of our babies is one of nature's great balancing acts. Even if individual families have entire football teams of boys or girls, the numbers overall still pretty much even up. Boy or girl is also one of nature's nicer surprises. And most of us - whatever today's report says - will be happy to keep it that way.

STUDENT Lydia Nash won £16,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and gave it all away to an orphanage in Thailand, where she worked in her gap year.

She felt that her prize had been money for nothing and so cheerfully gave it away. And when spoilt superstars and overpaid sports professionals read that story, I hope that they felt a little ashamed - and reached for their chequebooks.

COCOA is the latest wonder drink. Apparently, it can help prevent cancer and keeps the skin looking younger.

Maybe. But: "Come back to my place for a cup of cocoa," doesn't exactly send the hormones racing, does it?

THERE'S not much romance in pop songs any more, says new research. Today's offerings are more about sex and aggression than love and romance. (If you can't understand the words, be grateful, because, believe me, you really don't want to hear most of them.)

Which poses a problem for the future.

Most of us have a song rich in sentiment and nostalgia, "our" song.

So in the retirement homes of the future, when toothless old couples are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversaries, will they hold hands and sing quietly "Silver hairs among the gold," or "I'll be with you in apple blossom time," or even "Love, love me do."

Or will the old man lean across to his grey-haired wife and murmur romantically: "Slap me up, bitch."

Time for a re-think maybe.

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