The Sunday Times November 28, 2021 27
NEWS
Rod Liddle
I
t is selfish, I suppose, to hope that
all new and dangerous variants of
Covid should first present
themselves in countries that
nobody in their right mind would
ever wish to visit, such as
Turkmenistan, or France. So it is
that the latest cunning little thug in
the family, B.1.1.529, or Nu, to give its
cute nickname — or is it Omicron? —
popped up in Botswana and South
Africa.
Beautiful countries, without doubt.
Botswana still has a few elephants left,
apparently. But neither is right up there
on my bucket list of travel destinations.
The virus has also been spotted in
Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Namibia
and Belgium. So, kinda ditto.
And yet I understand that many
people are upset that most of these
countries (not Belgium, which would
have been first to be banned for me,
regardless of anything to do with
viruses) are now on our red list, which
means you cannot visit them without
subsequently spending two weeks in one
of those hotels where you are not, by
law, allowed either food or access to the
adult channels.
“But we want to go skiing in
Tiffindell!” came the plaint from that
section of our metropolitan middle class
that almost certainly voted for Corbyn
and is richer than Croesus. There will be
a study done in about 2027 that will
prove it was neither pangolins nor
deranged commie Chinese biotechers
who were responsible for the vast death
toll from Covid, but ski bunnies. Ski
bunnies returning from stricken Italy
were responsible for the first wave over
here. And now they’re at it again,
desperate to surf the piste and then later
develop a mysterious ticklish cough,
which they will bring back to share with
their friends Ivo and Sophia over a
kitchen supper in Fulham.
I thought Covid might have reined in
our wanderlust a little, our enormous
sense of entitlement to unlimited foreign
travel. But nope, not even remotely.Nu — or Omicron — is a bit of a
problem. It apparently contains an
unusually high 32 mutations on the spike
protein, including, I believe, comic
prosthetic breasts and very sharp teeth.
It is, according to one virologist, “a big
jump in evolution” and may be more
transmissible than any variants we have
seen before, less bothered by our
vaccines and more impervious to
palliative treatment.
Omicron is a player, then — but so,
before it arrived, was the Delta variant,which we were not allowed to call the
Indian variant; and the Brazilian variant,
which everyone rather liked for its
cheerful, hedonistic exoticism; and the
Kent variant, which came from Margate,
had dentures and voted Ukip.
If this is Armageddon for humanity,
then it is not like it said in the Bible, but a
long, drawn-out affair and nowhere near
over just yet. The next variant to worry
us will be slightly more nasty than
Omicron, in its gregariousness, its
refusal to respect the hard work of the
people at Moderna and Pfizer and
AstraZeneca. We are lucky that
evolutionary science suggests that
viruses tend — in general terms — to
become less lethal over time, rather than
more so, so as to preserve their own
futures. But viruses sometimes make
evolutionary mistakes. There may one
day be a suicide variant, perhaps
emanating from Syria.
Meanwhile we will continue to
demand, as a human right, that we be
allowed to go skiing anywhere the hell
we want to. Or, to use that awful phrase,
“partying”.
It is one more thing on a long list of
stuff that I was wrong about. I had
imagined, during that first lockdown and
shortly afterwards, that we might have
taken stock a little and recognised that
some of the impositions upon us actually
made for a gentler, less frenetic, less
environmentally damaging, more
fulfilling mode of existence. Cooped up
in our homes we may have been, but we
became, paradoxically, more
communitarian: helping those who
needed help, shopping very locally,
being more in touch with our
communities and more appreciative of
gentler pleasures — the birds in our
gardens, a vivid sunset, a boxed set.
I thought some of that would remain
and perhaps nudge us, in a kindly
manner, towards a less rapacious
lifestyle.
But it did not. It just made us all the
more avid to go skiing in South Africa.
It’s our birthright to do so, after all.lTime to share another headline
with you from Teesside, after the
pleasure that seemed to be afforded
by last week’s offering. For those
who missed that column, the headline
was: “Drunk whacked penis on
women’s car then did poo in street as
they sat and ate chips”. Bears
repeating, no?
This week’s is a bit of a puzzler. So,
from Teesside Live once again:
“Teesside woman accused ofexposing penis, using sex toy and
masturbating in public”.
Can any of you spot the apparent
paradox? It is a long-held contention
of mine, recently proving
controversial, that people who have a
penis, either securely fastened in
their trousers or waved about in
public, tend to be what we call “men”.
Even if, as in this case, they have
adopted a female name. “Chloe” has
denied the charges.PM visits Peppa Pig World
PHOTOBUBBLE: NICK NEWMANThere’s nothing like a virus to remind us
no one has a God-given right to go skiing
He’s quite
childish but he
keeps the
kiddies happy
for a whileRather wonderfully, the National Trust
has now banned trail hunting on its
land. Natural Resources Wales has
banned it too.
Trail hunting is what foxhunters tell
you they are doing when they’re
actually hunting foxes, as was
memorably exposed by the hunters
themselves in a hilarious video they
made explaining how to get away with
it. (Yes, they are dim on an almost epic
level.)
Now all we need is for the Ministry of
Defence to come on board and stop
allowing people to break the law.
So, almost 20 years after the
legislation was passed, foxes might now
have a genuine reason to feel a little
safer.We began to
appreciate
gentler
pleasures —
the birds in
our gardens,
a vivid sunset
Giving huntsmen
the tally heave-ho
A chap in Istanbul was filmed on CCTV
surreptitiously trying to frame a dog
travelling on a city train by planting a log
of dog poo next to where it was sitting.
The dog, described as a popular stray
who often used public transport, was
later exonerated. The man seemed to
produce the material from his coat
pocket: it was not in a bag.
The Turkish media are wondering if
this was an attempt to blacken the name
of the Istanbul mayor, suggesting that
he was in favour of excrement on public
transport ... or something.
I shall try to bring you more important
political stories from Turkey, which this
year dropped one place in my
prestigious list of Countries I Most
Detest, being evicted from the No 1
spot by Canada. France is holding
steady at No 3.A smear campaign
— Turkish style