A week away from Christmas but the world still has the blues.

 A week away from Christmas but the world still has the blues.

You can hardly believe it but it's nonetheless true. Christmas is a week away now and the country still feels as though it's been hit by a bulldozer. There are sore heads, ringing ears, bleak landscapes and winter feels like a weight on our shoulders. The world, if you were to believe some, is rapidly heading towards the end and civilisation is about to disappear. We're all going to hell and a handcart.

Still, we awake to fatal fires, horrendous murders, polarised countries, bickering politicians- nothing new there, hey- natural disasters such as hurricanes, children dying by the day and the homeless at Christmas still spending the festive period in draughty doorways exposed to the merciless elements. It's enough to leave you feeling both flat and totally disillusioned. If only we could just turn back the clock to March 2020 and pretend this never really happened. This though is no optical illusion. It's happening right now. 

And then there was the Omicron variant which, as we all know hilariously, is an anagram for moronic. But the only person who probably thinks that's the funniest joke he's ever heard is the one and only highly esteemed politician Jacob Rees Mogg who seems to regard the whole subject of the coronavirus as some highly amusing Old Etonian belly laugh of a wisecrack. Now this is to be nothing more than should be expected since Rees Mogg is one of those lounge lizards who just loves to treat his House of Commons green bench as some kind of comforting camp bed. Try to get some sleep at the right time Jacob, please. 

So how did we reach the point of Omicron? Could somebody give us a clear explanation as to why this virus has got so many variants. What we have here is a conspiracy, one designed to leave us deliberately downbeat and depressed. Surely the virus must have exhausted itself by now but sadly we may have to resign ourselves to yet more regular episodes and repeated outbreaks of one sort or another. It almost feels as if  that, just as we may have thought we'd seen the back of this virus then another one comes along. 

With a week to go before Britain and the rest of the world finally abandons itself to crazy, joyous, hedonistic pleasure on Christmas Day, the feelings of sorrow and regret still lie uncomfortably close to home. Of course the families of the world are now stocking up their festive stockings of presents, the children will get excited for the umpteenth time and maybe we'll complain about the utter dross and rubbish on the TV. But then again we could be pleasantly surprised in which case it's time to shout Hooray!

On the outside world, the corporate hospitality venues such as the pubs and bars will be hoping that somebody at 10 Downing Street won't suddenly pull the plug on their intensive preparations. Because if he does they'll take to the streets of Westminster, holler profanities at Boris and his Merry Men and then scribble inflammatory comments on social media about the criminal incompetence of those who allegedly run the country. 

We have a week to go before the whole ritualistic family gathering in the living rooms of the country will make their yearly appearance. Now this may be a hard one to judge but you've never been a betting man so it may be wise to just allow the fun to begin. A week is, famously, a long time in politics and this may be more of an irony than first thought. For almost the last two years the Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been wrestling with a living nightmare, which in all fairness, was probably beyond his control. So this has been going on for much longer than a week. 

So Ladies and Gentlemen. This is how it works. You sit tight for the next seven days, fill up your groaning supermarket trolleys with as many mince pies, crisps, turkeys, bottles of mulled wine, chocolates and sweets as you can possibly manage and just take a deep breath. You don't have to panic. Yet. Omicron may be quietly following us around in the background but at the moment it isn't going to shut everything down. There's nothing sinister or underhand to wreck our plans. There are a couple of clandestine whispers from those who should probably know better but they're hiding in a Christmas party room in Westminster wishing a hole would just swallow them up. 

But if you can just keep cool and calm then nothing untoward will happen. The number of infected cases may be soaring alarmingly through the roof but the number of fatalities as a result of the virus is thus far, dwindling by the day. And yet Omicron is still on the warpath, spreading insidiously, creeping around the globe mischievously but it won't get to us. It can't and won't. It's that simple. 

So as you wrap your Christmas presents, finish off a whole card shop of cards to your loved ones and then look for yet more decorations for your tree, it may be as well to spare a thought for those who'd rather sleep through the entire holiday period and deny the existence of Christmas. They're the ones who can't stand the ridiculous commercialism that now seems to have become an inevitablity and we would rather just pretend that it's still Easter. Incidentally, the betting slips are now complete and we reckon Christmas might just happen. But don't tell Uncle Jim or Auntie Agnes. They've already made the party hats.