Peter Rhodes on closing churches, a national campaign against flab and discriminating against miseryguts

The 2020 edition of ITV's Love Island has been cancelled. A nation mourns.

“Why are the shops open but the churches closed?” wailed one German worshipper on the radio. Simple. It's because most of us value supermarkets more than superstition. And however devoted you may be to your gods, the rest of us are not prepared to die for them, thanks.

Why did health secretary Matt Hancock make a quick recovery from the virus without a stay in hospital but Boris Johnson almost died? No mystery, according to consultant cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra who says it's because Hancock is slim but the PM is “significantly overweight.”

Obesity is emerging as one of the biggest risk factors in this contagion. According to some research, being seriously overweight leads to a ten-fold risk of death. It makes you wonder how much milder this pandemic might have been if it had struck in the 1950s when we Brits were so much thinner than today.

Boris Johnson says the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine is “the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes.” Then why not make a “shared endeavour” to get every citizen's BMI (body-mass index) below 30? If the Government can lock down 60 million citizens for months on end it can surely get a grip on the nation's spare tyres.

As for the inevitable allegations of “fat-shaming” that such a campaign would bring, consider the story of Weight Watchers' star Lee Jamieson from Wolverhampton. He was on holiday in Dubai two years ago when a taxi driver suggested charging him double fare because, at 24 stone, he was the size of two passengers. That comment may have been hurtful and shaming but it was also an inspiration. Lee is today ten stone lighter and much healthier.

No surprises that a spike in Covid-19 infections has been noted in the Cheltenham area. Those who warned against holding the Festival were shouted down by the organisers, and the health experts' official advice was: “Many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe." But then Cheltenham was hardly an outdoor event. Much of the socialising went on in jam-packed beer tents suffused with a fetid fug of good will and banter from all over the world. (I was once there, in the interests of research). As the Sun reminded its readers before the 2019 festival: “ Some people go there (the Guinness Village) and stay there for the whole four days.” And how many of them are now occupying hospital beds?

As part of easing lockdown, we may be limited to mixing in “bubbles” of 10 friends. Ten? What about those of us who haven't got 10 friends? This is blatant discrimination against the unsociable, the rude, the unfriendly and the curmudgeonly and we are not happy about it. Or anything else, come to think of it.