Second Best

I'm pleased to reveal that the wife is 12 weeks pregnant again. All being well, she'll be due on Saturday Jan 17th, the same date Charlton face Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough.

Our son Toby Charlton was born on a Saturday, and less than nine hours later we demolished West Ham 4-0 at The Valley. Thus when we were told the wife's new due date, I couldn't help thinking it boded well for what could be a vital three points just after the busy Xmas period. If she is a few days early however, it could coincide with an FA Cup Third Round replay.

Disappointingly, Toby hasn't shown much interest in playing football, though to be fair to him, he's not even walking yet. As a result, whilst I'm refusing to panic, I'd say my long-term plan to turn him into a Charlton player is at least two or three months behind schedule at this point. After all, there are only so many goalkeeping drills you can do sitting down, before he starts to get bored and frustrated.

Fatherhood has been great so far, and it's hard to remember life before it. My drinking has suffered for sure, and I now consider 11pm to be a late night, but I can honestly say it hasn't been as difficult as I envisaged (yet). You certainly learn plenty about life, some of which you'd quite happily not to have known about (like the fact that newborns often do green poos).

Notwithstanding those first couple of months (which frankly remain a complete blur), at every stage thereafter I've thought, "..I wish he could remain this age forever" yet just a few weeks later, I'm thinking the exact same thing again which is great. I guess this continues until they reach 13 years old, when they refuse to be seen with you in public.

One thing I definitely wasn't aware of, and which can only be described as an incontrovertible 'good', is the degree to which a man walking alone with his baby attracts such fabulous female attention.

It makes me wonder whether my single friends are not potentially missing out on a brilliant solution to their solitude. As a direct result, therefore I've begun to prepare a business plan for my new dating site solely for single straight men......Rent-A-Baby.Com

Unlike most dating sites that match couples via usually awkward blind dates, on Rent-A-Baby.Com, single men would simply walk the streets astride a buggy, and await the inevitable attention that will follow from women wowed by their combination of sensitivity and virility. After all, there's nothing quite like the presence of a baby that screams to a woman, "...relax, I'm not a psycho."

Whenever I'm walking with my son, and an attractive woman stops and says, "..so cute", I have two well-rehearsed lines that I am particularly fond of:

Line 1: "Thanks...he takes after his Mum" - knowingly flirtatious, yet self-effacing at the same time. A beautiful combination that invariably elicits a cheeky smile to lighten one's day.

Line 2: "Thanks........oh sorry, were you referring to the baby?" - requiring slightly more self-confidence than Line 1 admittedly, but it usually elicits a laugh even in New York, especially when delivered in an English accent.

Yet now imagine if the man to whom the line was delivered, is infact single and available. Suddenly the ice has been broken by his potential target (surely the hardest part of stranger seduction thus solved), and now in a completely natural setting, a conversation can flow.

If they subscribe to the 'Premier' service on the site, my expert counsellors would probably advise the young beau to reel them in as follows, "..oh, it's actually my friend's baby.....I'd love to have kids someday, but I haven't met the right person." Hey presto, if they haven't secured a date within a few minutes, then frankly they deserve to stay single.

Some of the details are yet to be worked out admittedly. Most of my friends with young children for example, have been reluctant to let them be pushed around for an hour by a complete stranger, but my guys are working on a solution as we speak (it will probably involve some form of GPS technology).

Anyone interested in being an early investor in Rent-A-Baby.Com can email me via the link on the right.