Peter Rhodes on more Covid mysteries, a Dickens character in the garden and the joyous anarchy of VE-Day

Many thanks for your messages recalling an illness with Covid-19 type symptoms that was doing the rounds in December, long before the virus was officially detected in Britain. Coincidentally, a doctor in France has just claimed one of his patients was probably infected with coronavirus between December 14-22. The mystery deepens.

With the best will in the world, how can they possibly conduct a realistic pilot test of the smartphone-app tracking system on the Isle of Wight when the islanders are still under strict orders to stay at home? You could spend an awful lot of time wandering through deserted streets before the first alarm goes off.

Confusing the issue further, what are we to make of tragedies such as the death of The Stranglers’ keyboard player Dave Greenfield? He has died aged 71 after testing positive for coronavirus. He apparently contracted the virus following a prolonged stay in hospital for heart problems. So, as with so many other deaths during this pandemic, did he die of it or with it?

There are worse things than Covid-19. Every year, malaria kills more than 400,000 people, most of them children under five. Today, buried under the 24/7 avalanche of coronavirus news, comes a report that scientists in Kenya and Britain have discovered a microbe that completely protects mosquitoes from being infected with malaria and has "enormous potential" to control the disease. A world without malaria would be a world transformed.

Tomorrow we mark the 75th anniversary of VE-Day. Those who were alive in 1945 will remember it in many different ways. Of course, joy was the chief emotion. But anarchy and rebellion were not far behind. I once interviewed a wartime “Lumber Jill,” a member of the Women's Timber Corps. “Everyone downed tools and went absolutely wild," she recalled. "The management decided the best thing to do was to give everyone the rest of the day off. So we all went straight down the nearest pub."

My father was a teenage Bevin Boy, a conscripted miner, who had spent two gruelling years underground at Barnsley Main colliery. He and his pals celebrated VE-Day by deserting. They "borrowed" the pit manager's car and drove home to join the celebrations in Bradford. I believe they took the view that mining thousands of tons of coal was fair exchange for a few gallons of petrol.

A friend emailed us an image of a mystery grass in her garden. Mrs Rhodes identified it as Pendulous Sedge which is not only a grass but also an earworm, one of those things that gets stuck in your head all day. Pendulous Sedge, Pendulous Sedge. And then you find yourself thinking, haven't I heard the name before? It definitely sounds like a character from Dickens. Pendulous Sedge, the wrinkled old clock-winder in Hard Times. Or maybe not.