Rhodes on dirty humanity, embarrassed boffins and optimism over Omicron

There must have been, literally, a frozen moment as European scientists from the research vessel Polarstern analysed water taken from the Antarctic seas in the hunt for man-made pollution. Imagine the outrage, the tut-tutting as they found tiny slivers known as microplastics. Oh, wicked, dirty humanity.

Then imagine the red faces when, as reported this week, the scientists looked more closely and discovered 89 per cent of the microplastic samples came from the hull paint of the good ship Polarstern itself. What is it the Bible says about condemning a speck of dust in your brother's eye while ignoring a beam of wood in your own? You look for pollution, you find a parable.

Still on scientists, a virus suddenly emerges. The boffins react by developing a range of vaccines. The virus responds by changing its nature. The scientists unveil a super-booster. The virus replies by turning into something called Omicron with many more mutations. It spreads like wildfire.

The war on Covid-19 looks like a hugely complex microscopic game of three-dimensional chess between two mighty intelligences. But a virus has no intelligence. It's not really a living thing at all so much as a jumble of chemicals. It has no brain, no wisdom, no sense of pain, pleasure, ambition, reward or success. It simply is. And whatever you may want to believe, nobody knows what it will be this time next year.

However, if like me you're an optimist, you can take comfort in the theory that a fast-spreading, low-fatality version of Covid-19 like Omicron, which presumably confers its own immunity, could be some sort of Christmas present. Even so, take care. Nobody wants to be an incurable optimist.

I bet the newsroom at the Sunday Mirror was a joyous place when it was revealed they had obtained an image of Boris at a Downing Street party. For a fleeting moment, did they imagine a cocaine-fuelled orgy with half-naked ministers getting legless and high-class hookers swinging from the chandeliers? What they actually got was a photo of three middle-aged blokes competing in a general-knowledge quiz with not a bottle in sight. If you think that's a party, you really ought to get out more.

Minor correction to the above. Two of the middle-aged blokes appear to be wearing strands of tinsel. Hubba, hubba!