An ex-girlfriend once said to me: “Nobody could ever accuse you of being a fashion victim.” I think it was meant to be a mild insult, based on my inability to dress like an escapee from a Japanese WW2 concentration camp: I chose to take it as a compliment.

However, Carolina and I are in danger of becoming trendsetters, because since Jasper came along, suddenly everybody we know is expecting a baby, planning for a baby, or breaking up with their long-term partners who have realised they don’t want to have babies after all.

This leads to some interesting paradoxes. Such as the members of my rugby team (traditionally the last bastion of maleness) having to arrange ‘good behaviour passes’ to join their teammates on a bachelor party pub crawl.

Why’s the groom getting married? Because he wants to start a family, of course. No less than six guests at his New Year’s Eve party were pregnant last year. Peer pressure rules.

We have almost as many infants as adults watching our home matches these days. (I wonder whether they understand more than the wives do about the game.) Our little man even has his own infant rugby shirt, though it’s his cousin from Germany, Lindell, who looks like being the future rugger star of the family. His head is almost as big as mine and he’s less than a year old.

What about the bachelor pub crawl? Did everybody behave themselves? It should warm the hearts of wives, mothers and marriage counsellors everywhere to learn that the subject of children was the most commonly discussed of the evening.

Photos were taken from wallets and handed around; phone calls were placed home from concerned dads checking on their beloved offspring.

And then we all got hammered. But perhaps it’s just as well that the modern dad can still make time for himself, and his friends, once in a while. Sleep well.

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