HANNAH GIBBONS has discovered something alarming. All the good men out there are being poached by the Government in the hope of creating a new super-race...

I SAW a programme on telly the other day about a group of women in their mid-30s, all with smashingly high-powered careers, good social lives and who seemed like genuinely happy people.

But they couldn't be so perfect - it would be too annoying.

Their imperfection, so to speak, lay in the fact that they didn't have a man.

No, that's entirely wrong - I don't think they were especially fussed about having a man or not.

What riled them was that they didn't have a baby - and for all their independent womanliness, it was a problem that they couldn't sort out on their own.

I mention all this because I've recently been exposed to the seedy world of the sperm donor.

A close family friend (30s, successful, man-less) decided that she, too, wished to go down the route of artificial insemination and dramatically told me that she "needs sperm!"

"Goodness, I'm flattered you should ask, but I'm not sure I'll really be able to help you there," I declined.

But while I may not be quite what she was looking for, she certainly had a fair idea of what she was after.

"Tall, dark, handsome, smart..."

"Right-ho, so where are you going to find this special man?" I wondered.

Ah, where but the internet, of course - the answer to everything.

So, I thought, in the name of research, I'd do a bit of 'Google-ing' myself, which is where I stumbled across 'man-not-included.com', a 'premier' sperm bank, apparently.

And, wow, do I want to meet these donors - 'intelligent, attractive with Nordic smile' went one.

'Young, virile and of Hispanic origin'. Nice.

The more I read of those wonder men, the more I decided that this is where the good men go!

They're not available on the open market, oh no. They're poached by a Government organisation, forced to donate sperm of exceptional quality for intelligent, successful women to make a new super-race of human beings.

But wait! This isn't a dating service and you can't actually meet and fall in love with these men. And while it's OK to take a chance on a blind date from a personal ad, it's surely very different when it comes to your child.

How well do they vet these people? Everyone knows that "very attractive" means ugly as sin, and a "good sense of humour" means they laugh at their own jokes. It all seemed a little too risky for my liking.

And then, if you've managed to pick your child's father, you then have to decide what 'plan' you want - the golden plan? The platinum plan? The frozen sperm plan? The thawing sperm plan? But what about all the dregs? Where do they go?

There's no lazy-screw-up child plan (I suppose that's called the 'chav outside McDonald's on a Friday night' option, and is fairly easy to replicate free of charge in any given area). But the maths doesn't add up - there sure are a lot of lazy-screw-up potential sperm donors around, who must be placed under some category.

I relayed my findings back to our family friend, who noted my concern but told me that she probably would investigate other, more reputable organisations before placing her order, so I wasn't to worry unduly. She has a point, and I certainly trust her to pick a top-notch little swimmer to be the perfect mother to.

It's just a shame they don't do a two-for-one service - man with Nordic smile thrown in for free.

Updated: 15:50 Wednesday, February 15, 2006