Every Tuesday at 8.45pm, I stand in the silent lane alone and bang my Le Creusets in support of a group of brave people who must never be forgotten; unsung martyrs who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves working at the very heart of a terrible unfolding disaster of an unprecedented scale – the cast of the second series of Ricky Gervais’s After Life (Netflix).

Denied proper support or protection, in the form of three-dimensional characters or plausible dialogue, these simple actors, almost two of them from an ethnic minority, are forced instead to mouth lines apparently designed merely to cement public perceptions of their author’s own genius, like old beggars under sacks. And yet they solider on, the real heroes of our times, discharging their duties with professionalism and dignity, lions led by a dong. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we shall remember them.

I’m joking of course! But should anything be off-limits for humour, especially during the horror of The Corona Virus (Wuhan Bat and Pangolin Snack ™ ® Co Ltd)? It’s a question answered by Ricky Gervais himself in a syndicated Press Association interview provided free to the Aberdeen Evening Express, and newspapers nationwide, in March. The “Wokefinder General” (Sarah Vine, Daily Mail) concluded: “There is no better tool to get you through bad things… than with a sense of humour.” I am sure this was a sentiment shared privately by his cast every day during the filming of After Life (Netflix).

If nothing should be off-limits for humour, especially during the horror of The Corona Virus (Wuhan Bat and Pangolin Smoothies and ’Shakes ™ ® Co Ltd), then is it acceptable to joke that After Life (Netflix) is the first successful post-truth TV programme? Manifestly ill-equipped to fulfil its chosen function, mixing callous cruelty with saccharine sentimentality, claiming it was only joking whenever its intentions are questioned, and buoyed artificially by the support of a loyal Twitter following and its attendant algorithmic significance, After Life (Netflix) is the sociopathic Donald Trump (Fox News) of comedy dramas. But at least After Life (Netflix) hasn’t recommended drinking Dettol (Reckitt Benckiser Group plc).

But is it appropriate to laugh at Donald Trump (Fox News) during the horror of The Corona Virus (Wuhan Battered Bat and Pangolin Fingers ™ ® Inc)? Did the time for laughing end when Donald Trump (Fox News), who has the codes to a nuclear holocaust in his man bag, recommended the ingestion of cleaning fluids? Was this in fact the time for the world to collectively crap its pants and cry, instead of laughing and carrying on?

I’m joking of course! Nothing should be off-limits for humour, even during the horror of The Corona Virus (Wuhan Bat and Pangolin Party Bites ™ ® Ltd)!! People should, and indeed must, be free to enjoy the Wokefinder’s After Life (Netflix) if they wish to do so, irrespective of the opinions of the gatekeepers of the temples of culture. And, in the same way, people should also be free to drink or mainline cleaning fluid if they so desire, whatever the so-called “cleaning fluid manufacturers” of the liberal elite and their gender-fluid friends say.

Vice-president Mike Pence (The Koch Network) explained that he was the only one not wearing a mask when touring a coronavirus clinic because he wanted to be able to look medical workers in the eye. But medical masks cover the mouth, not the eyes and thus would not prevent eye-to-eye contact. All the medical mask would do is prevent Mike Pence (The Koch Network) from thanking medical workers by kissing them full on the mouth, and then gratefully tonguing them to climax.

Perhaps Mike Pence (The Koch Network) is confusing medical masks with the full-head rubber gimp mask he is forced to wear during his private Oval Office meetings with Donald Trump (Fox News). Nothing should be off limits for humour, but is it appropriate to joke that Mike Pence (The Koch Network) is regularly sodomised by Donald Trump (Fox News) while wearing a rubber gimp mask, especially during the horror of The Corona Virus (Wuhan Bat and Pangolin Home Masseuses ™ ® Ltd)? Or will it seem like a distasteful joke when this actually turns out to have been the case, and that the Russians have it on film?

It is worth remembering this. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, but that which does kill us actually does kills us. Dead! And Dettol (Reckitt Benckiser Group plc), whether drunk or injected, will kill you, even if you drink or inject it sarcastically, having been recommended to drink or inject it in a “sarcastic” way by the leader of the free world.

But is it appropriate to be sarcastic during the horror of The Corona Virus (Wuhan Bat and Pangolin Escort Service ™ ® Intl)? Donald Trump (Fox News) was quick to dismiss accurate transcripts of his exact comments about how you should drink or inject Dettol (Reckitt Benckiser Group plc) as “fake news”, a concept I experienced personally myself last week for the first time when I became the subject of a failed meme attempt.

A clickbait entity circulated a plausible-looking BBC news page online, featuring a photograph of “comedian” Stewart Lee claiming he wanted lockdown to last at least two years. I have never said this, but if anything I think two years isn’t long enough, and that Richard Branson’s unpaid taxes should be used to fund all British citizens’ locked-down leisure, in full, indefinitely, even after the virus is eliminated. And that every household should receive a free copy of the German experimental band Faust’s second album for Virgin, 1973’s Faust IV, so they can dream away the lotus days in a haze of fuzzy krautrock.

I’m joking of course. But After Life is trending and Matt Handcock is dissembling. And a baby, a baby! Is this a civilisation that deserves to be saved?