For several years now we have had a perfectly good vaccine for HPV - that would be the virus that causes genital warts - but it has recently come to Wonks Anonymous attention that this vaccine is not approved for men over a certain age.

Which can be an issue since genital warts appear on areas not covered by condoms.

The thinking behind this, if we may call it "thinking", seems to be that most men of a certain age will have caught the virus during their misspent youth and, if they have not, they really ought to just settle down, follow social norms, and shut up.

Indeed the threat of an embarrassing, disfiguring but not necessarily fatal retrovirus should serve well to keep our society moral.

As to women of a certain age who have contracted HPV, why they should either be in a monogamous relationship or off in a nunnery repenting their sins.

Sigh!