The 5G conspiracy is the most nonsensical of all | Matt Mohan-Hickson

We’ve gone from apocalyptic wildfires in Australia to the brink of World War Three before arriving at a global pandemic, with the journey including the death of Kobe Bryant, Philip Schofield coming out and Prince Harry standing down. Just off the top of my head.

However in the pantheon of living nightmares served up to us by 2020 so far, the most ridiculous of all has to be the great 5G conspiracy.

According to theories online, the latest generation of telephone networks is actually responsible for all the deaths and Covid-19 is just a hoax. Or something like that.

Just quite how telephone masts would actually cause a respiratory virus to spread like wildfire around the globe doesn’t make a lick of sense but then conspiracy theories usually don’t.

Yet it feels like the current time is open season for conspiracies – if you look at social media for even the briefest moment or two you will probably have stumbled across one.

Boris Johnson wasn’t actually ill, he was just hiding. The government are using the pandemic to kill off old people – because it is a great electoral strategy for the Tories to murder the demographic most likely to vote for them.

They might seem harmless but they pose a real danger. Over the Easter weekend there were 20 suspected phone mast attacks. Not just in the UK, similar incidents have happened over Europe including in the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and the Netherlands.

It might seem silly to see someone sharing a 5G conspiracy online but it is in fact a potentially dangerous act. Chatting to one of my friends, I joked that maybe there should be an automatic one week internet ban for sharing daft conspiracies. It would be nearly impossible to implement. But maybe it would get people to stop and think before hitting share?

I’m sure board games bring out the worst in humans

You know that moment in every monster movie when the tension starts to build and the characters realise something evil is among them.

Well, I experienced a moment like that over the Easter bank holiday while sitting in the kitchen with my housemates playing board games. Play a round of Articulate and then a game of Pictionary – what could possibly go wrong?

It started out fun, until the spectre of competitiveness emerged like an alien bursting out of a chest cavity. Before you know it tempers are flaring, moods have soured and pride has been hurt – a good idea turned into a complete disaster. Just like taking a weekend trip to a cabin in the woods.

Can we all calm down with the futile viral challenges?

Since the lockdown started a month ago I’ve been challenged to run a 5K, share pictures of myself and numerous others as well.

At first it seems like a nice fun way to change up the daily routine during the pandemic. But now I’m putting my foot down, it has to stop.

We don’t need to see any more couple challenges or toilet roll keepie-uppies.

But the one that has angered me the most is one purporting to raise awareness of suicide among men. You share a picture of yourself, with some long rambling copy and paste blurb and then tag 10 friends.

Wouldn’t a better one be to call one friend and chat with them about how they are coping with the lockdown?