He is the original leap man. He's the first person to appear in the history books with the date February 29 next to his name - birth, death, marriage or otherwise, he's it.

Ever since the introduction of the Julian calendar, thousands of men and women have had their crucial anniversaries hung, drawn, and most importantly, quartered in order to keep the months in step with the seasons. If you were born on February 29, after this Sunday you'll be waiting a long time for your next birthday party, but your austere regime is endured in a noble cause.

Were it not for the sacrifices of the February 29th brigade, it would be July by now, and that would be deeply confusing for us all.

Leap years, while a sober and sensible invention for those of us born on the other 365 days, are more complex than they seem. Not only do we have an extra day every four years, we don't get an extra day if the year number is not divisible by 400, and every 4,000 years, the centennial year that would have been a leap year but isn't, becomes a leap year again, just so the clocks march in time with the sun. 2000 was a leap year. 3000 won't be, and neither will 4,000, 6,000 will be, of course.

Simple? Of course not, but who cares? It's all about the fine tuning of celestial mechanics, and we won't be around to worry about missing a summer day in two thousand years. The people who do worry about it are the folks born on February 29. How often must they hear, three years out of every four "Oh, but it's not REALLY your birthday, is it?"

These days we'd send the tearful victims of such taunts off to counseling, but in Gioacchino Rossini's time, the only counseling of any utility was to be found in food and wine. Born on February 29 1792, this titanic trencherman and composer of a slew of overblown operatic works would celebrate his quadrennial birthday in fine style. He had 48 months to plan the menu, and was fond of turkeys stuffed with truffles to the point of obsession. He saw the amusing side of his birth date - when he turned 72 he threw a dinner party to celebrate his 18th.

Others who found themselves short-changed in the anniversary department were band leader Jimmy Dorsey (1904), singer Dinah Shore (1916) and astronaut Jack Lousma (1936). Lousma, despite having captained the third space shuttle test flight and spent weeks on Skylab, is best known as the bloke who was at the other end of the line when Apollo 13 called in to say "Houston, we have a problem..."

It is the curse of all 29-ers - right place, wrong time.

There is, of course, a sinister side to all of this. There had to be. Herman Hollerith, the man who invented the punch-card data processing system, was a 29-er (Class of 1860). His company went on to become IBM, and these days American Democrats revile him as the originator of the hanging chad.

The first summons to appear before the hysterical Salem witch tribunal was issued to Tituba, a Carib slave girl, on February 29, 1692. The first Playboy Bunny Club opened in Chicago on the slippery date in 1960. The mighty West Indies were leaped over by Kenya, all out for 93 in the 1996 World Cup.

Perhaps fate has been cruelest to one Robert Hughes, born in the English colony of Maryland on February 29, 1776. Little Robert survived the Revolution and lived long enough to see the first stirrings of the Civil War, only to die on, you guessed it, February 29, 1860. At least Rossini and Jimmy Dorsey get ONE party every year, even if it's only a wake.

So, this Sunday, your duties are clear. Three cheers for St Hilarius, and three beers for Robert Hughes!

Credit: Pat Sheil was born in early March, and gasps "It was a damn close run thing�"

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