COULD there be a more appropriate time in the year to launch two new strategies on sex and drinking than at Hogmanay?
Certainly the Scottish wing of the British Medical Association doesn't think so, getting its new year off to a flying start this week with resolutions on teenage pregnancy and the nation's other national sport, consuming as much alcohol as possible b
efore ending up in the gutter or A&E.
Controversially, two of its committees have proposed introducing sex and alcohol education into the classroom for five-year-olds.
The BMA has a point. Learning about how babies are made in a matter-of-fact way can be no bad thing for young children – that's if they don't know already should they have siblings; there are few parents who haven't had to deal with the "where do babies come from?" query.
Similarly, learning about the potentially dangerous effects of too much alcohol consumption on the body is again a reasonable suggestion – as long as they're not given a packed-in liver to dissect.
But the doctors have also missed a great opportunity – to finally link the two issues. Sex and drinking need to be tackled together with an admittance that soaring levels of teenage pregnancy and sexual disease are in bed with binge drinking. Indeed, teenage drunken fumbles and unwanted babies go together like, well, love and marriage, don't they?
Perhaps not. But if the Scottish Government and BMA are committed to tackling both issues, it is surely better to look at them in tandem when it comes to health education in schools.
Twenty or so years ago, sex education consisted of looking at magnified images of pubic lice – blown up to show off every millimetre of their itchy glory – and genital warts.
No doubt some of the 13 and 14-year-olds I sat with in the science lecture theatre being bombarded with such images were already better acquainted with each other's bodies than they legally had the right to be.
Sex education for them had a more practical, do-it-yourself approach.
At school though the emphasis was on not doing "it" because of what you might catch – anything from nasty itches to newborn babies. There was talk of condoms but, more importantly, we were given the address and phone number of the family planning clinic, the Brook, in Gilmore Place. It was a favourite haunt of Gillespie and Boroughmuir girls looking for the Pill.
Those classes could have put us all off sex for life, but by the end of fourth year there were girls leaving school to have babies.
SE classes couldn't be blamed for that. But SE also stood for "social education" and yet I can't remember a single period devoted to alcohol and the idea of drinking it responsibly.
And there can be no doubt that those who ended their education to become teenage mums did so in part thanks to the cider and vodka-fuelled house parties that were all the rage. No alcopops back then – just the hard stuff.
Teenage sex and binge drinking at weekends have always been with us, and yet these two major health and social issues are seemingly irresolvable – resulting in massive cost to the NHS.
I can understand the idea of sex education at five will likely be baulked at by parents who want to keep their youngsters as "innocent" for as long as possible. But why should knowing about how babies are made ruin a youngster's innocence? Finding out how tough school life can be in the playground will do that much more quickly.
And again while it may be troubling to think that their bright eyes might be opened to the perils of drink – that's all those children who live at home with abstainers – surely a little factual information about hangovers can do as much harm as telling them that two and two equals four.
Perhaps when they're slightly older it can be refined into simple equations such as, if x > bacardi and y > a boy/girl you like, what is xy? That's right, your new baby boy.
And honestly, which home with children has not had some discussion of the drinking culture which surrounds Hogmanay this week?
So let's take away the mystique of sex and alcohol and make them matter-of-fact subjects to be discussed openly at school – and more importantly at home – and try to remove some of their illicit appeal. Of course that won't stop young people experimenting, but forewarned is forearmed.
We are now into the eighth year of a new millennium and it's time to shake off the shackles of the previous one. It is not shameful to have sex. It is not shameful to enjoy a drink. What is shameful is bringing a baby into the world when it is not wanted because of ignorance and drunkenness.
It's time to give children the tools to grow into decent, responsible adults. We need to get them to them early.
In sickness and in health, I dookNOT for the first time I spent New Year with some loonies – this time though it was down at South Queensferry and they all seemed to be peculiarly sober.
By 11.45am on New Year's Day the truly lunatic were wading into the freezing waters of the Forth, some wearing very little (Playboy Bunny bikinis or leopard skin thongs) and leaving even less to the imagination as the temperature ensured their whole bodies would take a salute to the first day of 2008.
Apparently most taking part in the Loony Dook were doing so for charity, but for one couple it was the icing on the cake for their own celebrations.
Apparently they had got hitched at the Orocco Pier the day before and there they were up to their oxters in bitterly cold water still wearing their wedding clobber (although the bride's gown had allegedly been replaced by a charity shop version after the thought of the dry cleaning bill).
But if their marriage can survive that it can survive anything. A Happy New Year to them and to you all.
