I’VE suspected for some time God didn’t want people to live in Australia.

He created it as a continent far, far away where he could house all his experiments that had gone wrong.

8 Australia is burning and it is not safe Credit: Getty Images - Getty

It was his under-the-stairs cupboard for stuff he wanted to forget about.

Like, for instance, the saltwater crocodile. He designed it, built it then realised it was far too savage and bitey to live in, say, Milton Keynes.

Or the poisonous redback spider which likes to hide under lavatory seats so it can bite a man’s penis when he sits down to do his number twos. No way could God have that living in Europe or the US.

He also made a lot of snakes. Some are very pretty and some are very impressive.

8 The poisonous Redback spider is one of Australia's horrors Credit: Alamy

But occasionally it all went wrong and he ended up with something that could kill a fully-grown man with one small bite. And again, these could not live in populated areas.

He needed a home for all these things, so he made Australia.

And to make sure people didn’t go there, he put a huge coral reef on the approaches and filled the interior with a sea of sand that goes on for ever.

He even used this remote outpost to house some of his more ridiculous ideas. Stuff he came up with when he was drunk.

Like those birds that can’t fly and that otter with a beak.

Then you have the kangaroo, which gets about by bouncing, and the koala, which is permanently stoned and catches chlamydia if anyone ever picks it up.

8 Perhaps humans are not meant to inhabit Australia? Credit: Getty Images - Getty

For millions of years, this big, sandy cupboard under the stairs went unnoticed.

But then along came Captain Cook and now the world knows all about Oz and its stupid, dangerous creatures.

Plainly, God is embarrassed. Because he’s decided to set fire to it.

It’s been argued the fires raging across the country were caused by global warming or out-of-control barbies.

But when you look at the footage, you know something biblical is going on.

Those things are huge.

Skies have been turned red by the flames. Choking smoke is blanketing millions of acres.

8 Firefighters try to control the flames Credit: Getty Images - Getty

Thousands of homes have been obliterated. And people are dying.

This has happened before in recent years and there’s no doubt it will happen again.

Which means people must accept that Australia isn’t meant for human habitation.

So if you’re reading this down there, please come home.

You’ll like it. It never stops raining. And we are better at sport.

Gaul of scaredy French

8 The French have got a real cheek Credit: Alamy

DURING World War Two, General de Gaulle used London as a base and to say a belated thank you, current president Emmanuel Macron is thinking of giving the city France’s highest award for honour.

Needless to say, lots of people are now jumping up and down in Paris saying the Legion d’Honneur cannot possibly be given to London as England and France are “hereditary enemies”.

No we aren’t. Germany is our hereditary enemy and not just on the football pitch.

France, meanwhile, is just some place we visit to buy cheese and wine.

We have no idea what it’s like to fight France because it always surrenders before the battle’s got going.

I'm on my way out

ALL of us begin a new decade with hope in our hearts that it’ll be better than the past one.

Not me. This is thanks to two things.

Firstly, there’s Libya. Since they shoved a scaffolding pole up Colonel Gaddafi’s bottom, it has been a lawless haven for terrorists and lunatics.

Today it’s run by factions of the Judean People’s Front and the Popular Front For Judea, with one backed by Turkey and Qatar and the other backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

There’s going to be a bloodbath. And this is a country less than 300 miles from mainland Europe.

Which means we are going to have to get involved. Because if we don’t, Russia will.

That’s one reason, then, that I fear for the coming decade.

The other is that at some point in the next ten years, statistically speaking, I am likely to die.

Dud was dome n' dumber

8 At least Led Zeppelin made good use of the Dome

TWENTY years ago, Britain created the perfect argument for not allowing anything to be nationalised or run by the Government.

It was called The Dome.

Created to mark the end of a millennium, it cost £789million and was filled by right-on frizzy haired vegans with things no one wanted to see.

There was a plastic human you could walk through, a multi-faith zone and lots of global warming malarkey.

Unsurprisingly, it was a spectacular flop.

So after a year, it was given away to a property company which turned it into the O2, a music venue that now rakes in £41million a year. Led Zeppelin had their reunion there.

As I’ve always said, governments should put up park benches and run the nuclear submarines.

And that’s it. Everything else should be run by the private sector.

8 Myleene has welcoming the New Year abroad... but is it really so great? Credit: Xposure

AS we all trudge back to work, with the fog making our hair frizzy and the puddles reminding us we need some new shoes, we will develop a teeth-rattling hatred for all those celebrities on Instagram who are frolicking in the Caribbean or sipping green juices on a beach in the Maldives.

Amanda Holden. Pippa Middleton. Myleene Klass. Grrrr.

Except, if you think about it, you and I don’t have to find someone to put sun cream on our back five times a day.

We aren’t being eaten alive by mosquitoes. And while a wet pavement isn’t very romantic, it’s better than hopping about, yelping, on a superheated white beach.

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Also, we will not have dicky tummies from the weird food, bad heads from the cocktails, puffy eyes from the jet lag and the constant worry we’ve been papped while bending over.

And what’s more, we didn’t have to spend half an hour at an airport waiting for someone in a high-visibility jacket to take an X-ray photograph of our genitals.

It's gone too VAR

8 Wolves were furious to have a goal denied by VAR Credit: AFP

TECHNICALLY speaking, the fabulous goal scored by Wolves against Liverpool last weekend was not a goal at all.

Because careful examination of the footage showed one of the players involved in the build-up was offside by 0.000001mm.

It seems to me, then, this VAR business is a bit like a speed camera that nails you for doing 31 mph.

It may have been three in the morning. The road may have been empty and the skies clear. And there’s no way you should have to waste a day on a speed awareness course as a result.

But technology means we live in a time when there is no grey area. Pity.

Keep it running... I WENT for a walk with family and friends in the perineum between Christmas and New Year. Many of the kids were explaining how they’d given up meat to save the planet and that Greta Thunberg may be Mrs Jesus. But then, instead of actually going walking, they stayed in the car, running its V8 diesel engine to keep warm.

My case rests.

I WAS asked the other day if I’d be starting the year by doing Veganuary.

No. I won’t.

FINALLY, may I wish everyone a very happy New Year.

And extend a big thank you to Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott for making such a thing likely.