Peter Rhodes on a missing clink, paying more tax and the people who think Covid-19 is a hoax

A reader asks why face masks have to be worn in shops but not in swimming pools. The answer, of course, is that the pool is treated with chlorine which kills the coronavirus. And the ultimate solution is underwater shopping.

I have written before about the clink of life. This is the dramatic device when a gunshot victim is saved by someone heroically digging out the bullet and dropping it - “clink!” - into a metal dish. Once you have heard that “clink!” you know the victim will pull through. So imagine our surprise in the Japanese gangster drama Giri-Haji (BBC2 and now on Netflix) when our hero, Kenzo (Takehiro Hira) digs an entire hand-grenade load of shrapnel out of his brother's chest without a metal dish in sight and not a single “clink!” The brother makes a full recovery but a much-loved dramatic device takes a severe body blow.

And yet some essential cliches live on. Even in Japanese drama, the best place to hide from the gangsters is in a downstairs room with the lights on and the curtains open.

Yet another poll suggests the Brits are eager to build a better post-Covid world, even if it means paying higher taxes. I wonder if this is because so few people actually pay much tax. There was a time when even the lowest earners paid some income tax and the threat of an extra tuppence on income tax was a dire one. But successive governments have cut the level at which we start paying income tax. Today, 43 per cent of UK adults pay none at all. How easy it is to vote for your tax bill to be doubled when your tax bill is £0-00p.

Incidentally, the think tank responsible for the tax survey also came up with the gem that 72 per cent of people think they have followed lockdown rules “better than the average person.” There are lies, damned lies and holier-than-thouness.

It is bizarre that the world's most powerful and scientifically advanced state is also one of the world's most gullible. Conspiracy theories flourish in the United States. Like the one about coronavirus being fake news.

From Texas comes the tragic report of sceptics, who believed Covid-19 to be a hoax, organising a “Covid party.” The idea is for one person diagnosed with the illness to mix with lots of others, just to see whether the virus exists and can be spread. It can. A 30-year-old who attended the party in San Antonio died soon afterwards. The patient's final words, recorded by a doctor, were: “I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax but it's not.”

By chance, I came across an online debate blaming the US education system for the prevalence of conspiracy theories, including the belief that the world is flat. One reply, pointing out that flat-earthers are everywhere, is worth repeating: “The Flat Earth Society exists across the globe- ahem, disc.”