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Try to imagine two more different couples than these. You can’t. They are as opposite as it gets. Oil and water. Salt and sugar. Always and never. Lost and found.

As midnight came and went, so too did Julius’s hope of Anna giving birth exactly then, with the bongs and firecracks of the new millennium heralding the baby’s arrival.

‘Any chance you could push a bit harder, babe?’

‘I hope you’re joking, you weapons-grade twat,’ Anna panted.

‘Course!’ Julius chuckled.

(He wasn’t joking.)

It would’ve made a perfectly neat nice story. There might even have been some coverage, which could have boosted Julius’s stalling profile. Yes, there might. But the baby didn’t come then. So there wasn’t. And his disappointment was palpable.