Timetable trouble

Date: 17/04/1997

Patrick Child, spokesman for single currency supremo Yves-Thibault de Silguy, has at last admitted that there is no possible chance of sticking to the agreed timetable.

He had no choice really, because the due date for his wife to give birth to the first Child child came and went without incident.

Child senior, who had stayed away from the Noordwijk finance ministers' informal meeting because of the planned 5 April launch of Child junior, conceded gracefully that forecasts can sometimes be wrong.

And naturally, being a man of figures, he did some checking: “I have discovered that 60&percent; of children are born after their due date and this rises to 80&percent; for first children,” he revealed. Emily Catherine, weighing in at 3.6kg, eventually arrived eight days past deadline on Sunday 13 April.

And what about single currencies? No comment.

Meanwhile, Child's boss has been reinforcing the euro launch date with considerable vigour - he made a total of 107 speeches last year, or two a week on average. Could this prodigious rate of speechifying be prompted by the theory that if you say 1 January 1999 often enough, it will come true?