Oh wow, you’re doing Dry January? That’s great, amazing!
A whole week in already? Super! You’re experimenting with non-alcoholic beer? Fab!
Look, we’d love to hear more, we really would – and let us just be the first to say your hair actually is looking glossier already – but let’s cut to the chase: you’re a sociopath.
The world is literally on fire and you choose now to reject the warm embrace of the pint? The tender touch of the G&T? The sweet kiss of a Malibu and lemonade (don’t judge us).
Here at Metro.co.uk, we only really care about two things: news and the pub.
Every weekend, we bring you a pre-night out digest of all the week’s most important stories so you can bluff your way through grown-up talk.
This week it’s dedicated to everybody who hasn’t decided to kick off 2022 by boring the life out of themselves and everyone they know.
This one’s for the Wet January crowd – you are our people and we are with you.
Crisis? What crisis?
Omicron is continuing its relentless campaign to sew up the Villain Of The Year 2022 award as soon as possible and you have to sort of admire its tenacity.
Hundreds of thousands of people are getting infected every day, with a new daily record of 218,000 set this week.
Mercifully, it really does look like this variant is less severe than Covid-19’s previous guises but the sheer number of cases is putting huge pressure on the NHS.
More than 20 hospital trusts are in a critical state, with the health service being hit by the double whammy of rising admissions and unprecedented staff absences.
The army has had to be drafted in to help (never a good sign) and a canteen has been turned into a ward at one hospital.
And if that wasn’t enough terrifying virus news for you, a man in Devon who shared his house with dozens of ducks has caught avian flu. He’s fine – the birds, we regret to report, are not.
But there was a bit of good news from overseas for fans of karmic justice and nominative determinism though.
Tennis star Djokovic – who is such a committed anti-vaxxer his first name is literally Novak – was detained after the Australian government got itself in a right tiz over whether or not to grant him a travel exemption.
There was huge anger at the prospect of him travelling to the country for a tournament without a jab, a very bitter pill to swallow for families who were separated for several months. Now he’s being held in a small hotel room pending a visa hearing on Monday.
We don’t want to gloat or anything but (and please do prepare yourself for a quite terrible joke here) it is hard not to feel like justice has been SERVED.
TL;DR: Omicron might not kill you but it’s having a bloody good go at killing the NHS.
A royal mess
Prince Andrew has had a nervous – albeit sweat-free – wait to find out if a civil lawsuit against him will be allowed to progress.
His lawyers have argued that his accuser waived the right to sue the Duke of York under the terms of a legal settlement from more than a decade ago.
Virginia Giuffre signed a deal worth £370,000 with Jeffrey Epstein, convicted paedophile and long-time pal to the prince, in 2009 but it was only made public this week.
Andrew – who strenuously denies the allegations made against him – is hoping the New York judge will agree with his lawyers and throw the case out.
But a crunch hearing didn’t exactly go swimmingly for the senior royal, with his lawyer Andrew B Brettler appearing to get on the wrong side of the judge.
Responding to one submission, the judge replied curtly: ‘With all due respect, Mr Brettler, that’s not a dog that’s got a hunt here.’
Things looked like they might be tricky for Andrew’s team when they told the judge they ‘respectfully disagreed’ with the judge’s interpretation.
As one analyst put it: ‘In the courtroom, respectfully disagreeing with the judge means you are about to lose.’
TL;DR: Is the prince going to court? A judge will decide if the trial of the century will go ahead soon.
The quite honourable member
Like a lot of what went on in the 1990s, it’s fair to say Sir Tony Blair’s legacy has not aged entirely well.
It is impossible to deny the man’s achievements at home, but for millions he is defined by one word: war.
The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions have cast a long shadow over UK foreign policy and, without relitigating whether or not there was a case for either at the time, it’s hard not to look at both countries now and conclude ‘what in the actual eff were they thinking?’.
So the news that the Queen had appointed him Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter was always likely to rub some people up the wrong way.
It’s not just a knighthood, you see – it’s a top of the range, gold-plated, Nando’s black card sort of knighthood. The best you can get, in fact, higher than any other honour and outranked only by the Victoria Cross and George Cross (you have to actually fight a war rather than start one to get hold of that).
The appointment has put his record back in the spotlight and a petition calling for the decision to be reversed has passed the one million signatures mark in a matter of days.
Will it make a blind bit of difference? Absolutely not. We can’t profess to know the mind of the Queen, but we doubt she’s swayed by an online petition.
Still, it’s fascinating that more than 20 years since the September 11 attacks, the UK’s involvement in the Middle East remains a very live issue.
TL;DR: Tony Blair has had a lovely week and people are struggling to just be happy for him.
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan is on the brink of civil war and huge protests are sweeping the country.
The disorder is the most serious the central Asian country has seen since it became independent from the Soviet Union 30 years ago.
What started off as spontaneous demonstrations about rising fuel prices have become about much more than that and are threatening to tip the country into total chaos.
Kazakhstan has just the 64th biggest population in the world despite having the ninth largest area. Its vast territory sits atop huge reserves of oil, gas and precious metals.
But despite its wealth and growing tycoon class, economic hardship is rife. The country was ruled by one dictator between 1990 and 2019, with his successor now in charge and desperately clinging on to power.
The situation has become extremely violent, with police authorised to shoot to kill. According to the interior ministry, 26 protesters and 18 officers had been killed as of Friday, including one who was reportedly beheaded.
Internet across the country has been shut down, two airports have been closed and, in a move which is unlikely to put many minds at ease, Russia has sent in troops to prop up the government.
Where this goes next is anyone’s guess, but its wealth and strategic importance to neighbouring Russia and China means the world will be watching.
TL;DR: Fuel protests have started a fire in Kazakhstan.
And finally… giant penis news
Well done for making it through the serious stuff – here’s your reward.
A 10ft statue adorned with a colossal schlong has been defaced within days of it being *pauses for effect*… erected.
The indigenous monument, known as Huaco Erotico, was put up in the Peruvian town of Trujillo to mark the start of 2022.
According to the town’s mayor, the erect penis doesn’t represent ‘does not represent eroticism but faith to God’. We’re not knocking anyone’s beliefs but that has the whiff of a hastily contrived excuse about it to us.
The statue got some people’s backs up and three hooded thugs armed with knives threatened to kill a security guard before smashing a big hole in the bright red member.
It’s a real shame because it’s comfortably the best statue of a giant dong we’ve ever seen and people who follow Moche culture – including the belief that ‘sexuality must be seen as something normal and natural’ – seem like a right good bunch to us.
We look forward to reporting that the majestic pecker is all patched up and ready to scandalise passersby again soon.
TL;DR: Honestly, just look at the picture.
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