A fascinating sociological study is under way in the south-west, we are excited to report.

Eight male solicitors from Foot Anstey Sargent are taking part in a special parenting competition to raise money for National Adoption Week (pictured here are, from left, Alastair Hargreaves, Simon Musannif and Anthony Butler).

The firm has been given two 'virtual babies' by the Early Excellence Centre in Exeter, one of which will live in the Plymouth office and one in the Exeter office.

Two solicitors per day will take it in turns to look after the babies, with their stints starting at 6pm and finishing at 9am the following morning, meaning that they need not apply for flexible working arrangements.

Even more excitingly, the babies come with different settings - easy, normal and cranky - and staff are paying to vote for which solicitors get which babies (if only the real things were so easily turned off).

The solicitors which register 'the fewest incidences of abuse and the least amount of crying time' win, apparently - we'll assume abuse means forgetting a feed and the like - and all in all they should raise around 500.

Were this experiment to take place in the City, of course, it would more likely be a case of virtual fathers, and the children could take turns in spending quality time with them while they were not at work, say from 11pm to 7am.

(This article refers to pictures in the printed edition [2003] Gazette, 13 November, 14)