Susan Morrison: Jeremy Kyle’s got baby blues

Newcastle was cock-a-hoop last weekend. Their very clever scientists have found a very clever way to remove a bit of faulty DNA from a mum-to-be, replace it with working DNA from a mum-just-helping to fix problems that lead to children being born into short, pain-filled lives, if they even make it that far.

What will the law change mean for the Jeremy Kyle show? Picture: PA

All good stuff, and in my opinion, what scientists should be doing, rather than dribbling mascara into beagles’ ears to see if their IQ gets lowered.

Of course, these unbelievably brilliant people have not thought this through. First of all, they naturally annoyed the men in charge of churches, who immediately started gum-bumping about “designer 
babies”.

In the view of religious gaffers, creating babies should be carried out within extraordinarily strict parameters. This is in spite of the fact that the founder of their religion was apparently conceived in a most peculiar manner.

Ordinary churchgoers, however, tend to lean towards tolerance and understand that life has moved on since announcing angels, immaculate conceptions, and delivering babies in frankly unsanitary conditions in stables, and are more accepting of things that bring about healthy 
children.

Secondly, this will hurl The Jeremy Kyle Show into a complete tailspin. What will become of the famed all-important DNA results moment when the DNA is all over the 
place?

To be fair, mums don’t go on the show to prove whether or not the child is theirs. Most people are pretty comfortable with the notion that the woman who carried the baby is the mother, although with some of the folk who rock up on J Kyle, you can’t be too sure that they got that memo. Or understood it.

I have to be honest, when my daughter turned out to be one of those scientific folks, even I briefly wondered if I was truly her mum, until I remembered her father’s family nickname is “The Vulcan”.

Thirdly, this means that the baby will have two mums. This is outstanding. When junior hits the teenage years, we could be looking at tag-team mum-nagging.

Oh yes, young teen friends, it’s bad enough having one mum ear-bash you about the state of that bedroom, but just imagine if she brings in the woman who helped create the healthy you and they both verbally take you down like a pair of lionesses calling out a stroppy cub. In stereo.

Know what? I think that Newcastle team deserve the Nobel Prize just for that.

Yet another reason to love Newcastle

Glorious it was to watch a whole city swagger about, chests puffed up and a gleam of pride in Geordie eyes. Why, even the taxi driver was, to quote, “Proppa chuffed. This is well lush. Mind you, Ah’ve nae ideea wit it’s aboot, like.”

It’s another reason to love Newcastle. Geordies and Scots have accents that terrify anyone south of Birmingham.

Ranulph would make a better bed-fellow

Oh, I do love a weekend trip to work in Newcastle, mainly because I get a good night’s sleep.

Why? Because when I wake, the duvet still covers me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, for a couple who have been together since Thatcher, me and the Vulcan are doing just fine, but some sort of territoriality emerges whilst he sleeps.

It may be a caveman thing. Cold cave, one fur. That would explain why some chaps feel the need to seize the duvet, then wrap themselves in it like a sort of human sausage roll.

We womenfolk freeze through the night, leading us to greet the dawn having turned fifty shades of gray, and not in a good way.

And they wonder why we favour cotton jammies and bedsocks? I’m thinking of investing in the sort of gear Sir Ranulph Fiennes sports for his tromps to the pole.

I’m all for designer sprogs if they can make them sleep

No train trip home from Newcastle would be complete without the child in the carriage. This little poppet was around 18 months old, and I bet she was usually cooed over, but not today.

Her mum was a lovely young woman, but boy, she looked tired. Not surprising, really. When I joined the train, the child in question was standing on the table hurling herself against the window like Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate.

She was a clever little girl, but was choosing to use only one word, and that word was NO at the sort of volume that threatened to shatter glass.

Her aim with an empty yoghurt carton would have impressed a top-of-the-bill knife-throwing act and she had an escapologist’s ability to get under trollies, tables and seats. When she was extracted from beneath the trolley, table or seat of her choice, it sounded like a live version of The Exorcist.

Her poor mum was utterly shattered. At that very moment, she wanted designer baby. A baby that had been designed to fall asleep on the train, and stuff the qualms of the Archbish of Canterbury.