DURING the brief, and undistinguished, period when I was home news editor of The Times there was one question, above all, that absorbed me. It was not how to introduce an element of suspense into the 2001 general election, though it was a challenge to inject excitement into a contest whose result was so predictable that it would make Real Madrid versus Raith Rovers seem like a cliffhanger. And even though we spent a great deal of time balancing the competing requirements of human interest stories with public policy analysis, the decisions over whether to place a murder story or a Railtrack scandal more prominently usually made themselves.

No, the really difficult task was finding that special, distinctive tale of our times that used to occupy the basement slot on the old broadsheet front page, the story so surprising and quirky that it challenged existing perceptions or conventional wisdom. The kind of story that shakes you from your morning torpor and demands to be read out across the breakfast table. Stories like: swimming pools are more dangerous than loaded guns. Most drug dealers live with their mums. There is a direct correlation between cheating and corporate success.

All these stories come from a fabulously entertaining new book, Freakonomics, which was serialised recently in T2.

As a concept the book sounds, at first, less enticing than an evening of modern Finnish jazz. Economists subjecting a variety of social phenomena to detailed statistical analysis doesn’t appear to offer the general reader a compelling reason to put aside his copy of Harry Potter and the Half-hearted Pastiche. But the authors of Freakonomics set out, like the best news editors, to prove that fact is much more intriguing, and stranger, than even the most fantastic fiction.

All the revelations have the quality of those classic newspaper stories that become watercooler talking points — and thus they obey what might be termed the First Law of Freakonomics: they apparently defy common sense, but they contain within them deeper truths which help us to understand the human condition better than we did before.

It isn’t only economists, however, who can generate such insights.

Family life has, for me and I’m sure many other men, been an introduction to hidden truths every bit as surprising, yet profound, as the discoveries of the Freakonomics authors. Indeed, I suspect that there may be a market for a guide explaining to men embarking on a life of domesticity just what to expect. So here’s my guide for new husbands and fathers to the mysteries of Home Freakonomics.

Did you know that, alone among all architect-built structures, family homes actually shrink physically after two years of occupation? Were you aware that, whatever it says on the side of a food packet, anything eaten off someone else’s plate, or while standing up in front of the fridge door in the middle of the night, contains no calories at all? Did you know that clothes, a little like houses, actually change their size and shape over time? And therefore, no matter how extensive a wardrobe is, it is entirely possible that there may be, literally, nothing suitable to wear at any given point in time? Oh, and were you aware that chocolate is a food group all its own, like protein and carbohydrates, which means that no meal is properly balanced and nutritious unless it includes some?

I may not be able to produce quite the same degree of statistical back-up for these discoveries as the authors of Freakonomics can for their revelations. But I know, from personal experience, that each obeys the First Law of Freakonomics. It may appear to defy common sense to believe, for example, that food eaten off someone else’s plate has no calories. But that insight, like the others, contains a truth which illuminates human nature.

For any of us who have been on a diet, it doesn’t matter what intrinsic variety our chosen regimen offers — the very fact that certain foods, or quantities of food, are off-limits is lowering to the human soul. To maintain the morale necessary to keep going, we need to show that we are not surrendering all spontaneity. So we allow ourselves a snatched chip or a stray spring roll to maintain our self-esteem as free people, not Dr Atkins’s slaves. And that act gives us, in more ways than one, the strength to go on — thus ultimately making the diet itself more likely to succeed. So the net effect of a stray indulgence is the stamina to stay on the course that leads to overall weight loss. Thus food snatched off another’s plate, in net terms, doesn’t contain calories.

In the same vein, the need to define chocolate as a staple foodstuff is an expression of the requirement to redefine at least one little luxury as a necessity of daily life. An existence governed entirely by utilitarian and spartan considerations actually fails to satisfy one of the deepest human yearnings — for pampering.

And while it may seem to defy the laws of physics that a house should shrink, it is certainly the case that the house pronounced perfect by your wife when you move in will, inevitably, be too small within, say, two years. Don’t attempt to argue.

She will be right. It will have shrunk. Because she understands instinctively what most of us men fail to realise. Moving to a bigger house, building an extension, converting your loft or whatever may be required to provide more space is a concrete expression that your shared commitment to each other is deepening and broadening. To protest that your home doesn’t need to grow is to stifle the growth of your love.

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