Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain 2019 was the most 'woke' year on record.
In no particular order, we endured the increasingly shrill demands of Greta Thunberg, the
Duchess of Sussex putting 'changemakers' on the cover of Vogue, Jo 'identify as whatever you want' Swinson, Extinction Rebellion, the Marks & Spencer LGBT sandwich,
Prince Harry announcing he'll have only two children to save the planet — and countless other examples of gratingly right-on virtue-signalling.
On and on it went, a great damp fog of wokeness threatening to engulf us all in its claggy embrace.
At times, it seemed as though every last atom of joy had been sucked out of the atmosphere, as though all notions of fun, mischief, irony or sarcasm were destined to become distant memories, surviving only on dusty bookshelves and re-runs of Little Britain.
And then, out of nowhere, like a knight in shining armour, comes Ricky Gervais. A more unlikely saviour of humanity one could barely imagine: pallid, middle-aged Ricky, with his bad teeth and nervous grin. Nevertheless, there he stands: saviour of comedy, restorer of sanity, banisher of baloney and, as of Sunday night, Hollywood's undisputed Wokefinder General.
The speech he delivered to the audience at the Golden Globes was brash, brutal, highly offensive in parts — and bang on the money. It tanked with the celebrities in the room. But to those outside the bubble, ordinary people sick and tired of being lectured to endlessly by limousine liberals and sulky schoolgirls, it was a real barnstormer.
There was something almost Churchillian about the passion with which Gervais delivered his diatribe. This was not just a good-natured ribbing. There was a sharp edge of viciousness, a fine line between comedy and cruelty that few save Gervais know how to tread.
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