I can finally quit worrying, none of it is my fault.

No matter what I do, who I upset or insult, whether I go begging on the streets of York or behave anti-socially to my neighbours, it was all decided long ago.

I can behave how I wish in the safe knowledge that whatever I do was pre-determined by my late Uncle Bob, my great, great grandfather or my long-lost prehistoric forebear, Ugg. And it is bound to be accepted as a defence by the magistrates, isn't it Your Honour?

Life has always been a worry. But I thought it was the effects of the full moon, the screeching wife or the screaming kids.

But new research has discovered that personality traits, once thought to be the result of upbringing or life experience, are actually encoded in the genes.

Scientists at deCode, a "gene mining" company in Iceland, have discovered a gene which is responsible for a fearful, or anxious, personality.

Phew, that's all right then. I thought it was just me. I mean, 'Worry' is my middle name. Have I locked the door before bed, did I stop at that crossroads, what did I say to the boss after a drink too many, and did my good wife see me chatting up that lovely creature when she arrived in the pub?

But if there's a gene for fretting, I'm sure that next week they'll discover there's an Auntie Gene who is also responsible for naughtiness, alcoholic and nicotine excesses, and an over-zealous eye for the ladies. So I'm in the clear.

The Jesuits used to say "Give me the boy until he is seven and I will give you the man." According to this research, that's rubbish. Which is just as well because we don't want missionaries running riot through the wild tribes of Fulford spreading the common cold and religious bigotry, with everybody wearing long, brown hessian frocks.

Anyway, back to Iceland. This latest scientific discovery reckons a child's upbringing and environment play a very small part in the finished product.

So when you next want to kill the neighbours' kid because he's a mindless, little moron, hold fire.

Try to consider that it is not his fault, he was pre-conditioned to be a minor monster, his annoying, destructive habits may have been determined centuries ago.

When you have counted to ten and given him his due - then you can kill him!

Mind you, this amazing discovery is based entirely on a study of Icelanders, a race with very little to do on those long, dark, Arctic nights and which was founded by Vikings who had rowed there with fond maidens pillaged from Celtic shores in the 9th century. Not many McDonalds or MacArthurGlens to ward off the primeval urges.

The research may move to England next, though. And it will be taken further, to try to identify those with artistic, musical, athletic or intellectual talent long before they exhibit any such tendencies.

Before you strap a violin to the baby's chin, or give him Einstein's Theory of Relativity for his story-at-bedtime instead of Janet and John Book One, let's wait and see if the research is sound.

I remember a couple of decades ago when educationalists dictated that spelling was unimportant as long as the child understood the words.

All it created was a generation of semi-literate kids who are now working for print companies that put out those restaurant menus or street signs with spelling and grammar that make you cringe and wish you were French, German, Italian, anything but an English schoolkid who can't tell his jeans from his genes. The other thing about these high-falluting research findings is that they are a bit demoralising, a little de-motivating.

If your great, great grandma twice removed was ugly, surely you want to rise above it and become Miss Acomb.

If your dad was a cobbler, maybe you want to be a brain surgeon. Nothing wrong with that.

Don't give in to the fact that research says everything is pre-determined by your ancestry. Cobblers. Break out and be yourself. If we listened to reason we'd all be walking around with clubs instead of cruising in cars.

We would be wearing antelope instead of Armani; and we'd be living in holes in the cliffs listening to the mating sounds of the mammoth instead of Meat Loaf's Greatest Hits - and the estate agents would still be charging a fortune for a bijou bat cave.

Updated: 10:45 Tuesday, March 30, 2004