Mr Marr's Antepenultimate Sunday Morning Sermon

There aren't many shopping days left till Andrew Marr Day, so I hope you're ready for 19th December, the date of Andrew Marr's final Sunday show on BBC One. 

Order your supply of tissues now! 

And if you just can't bear the thought of no more Andrew Marr on a Sunday morning, here's today's sermon to savour and return to and linger over as the nights draw in and we are all left feeling bereft when we wake up on a Sunday morning only to find that Mr Marr has mounted his reindeers and sleigh and flown off to the Left Pole at the New Statesman - and LBC and Classic FM.

Now I know that some of you on reading the bit in the transcript below about ''to snog, or not to snog'' and talks of ''hugs'' might start thinking of inventive ways to substitute ''snog'' and ''hugs'' with ''grope'', but I couldn't possibly comment.

Anyhow, here's today's scary and opinionated Andrew Marr Sunday Sermon - his intro to today's show:

Hello. More information coming in this morning on the Omicron variant. And it isn't, I'm afraid, hugely cheering. 160 cases officially identified here, maybe many more. Both England and Scotland are affected, we know this spreads very quickly. And, yes, vaccinated people are being infected. So, this leaves all of us with immediate Christmas dilemmas. To party or not to party. To snog, or not to snog. See older relatives for a mince pie and a hug, or pass on that this year. In normal times, we would look to the government for clear direction, but during this week, the messages from those in charge have been so confused, and so contradictory, it's really very hard to know what they think at all. Perhaps, at least for the moment, it's up to us to make up our own minds about how to behave this Christmas.