“Yes.” I was trapped. Trapped in an absurdist prison of meta-humour with a posh nitwit who was secretly a genius that delighted in tormenting me. “Yes, that would be droll. So anyway, they send him to the…umm…to the electric chair and it…um…it doesn’t work.”

Alex grinned. “Ah, because he’s a bad conductor, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Actually, old boy, wasn’t quite as droll as I’d anticipated. Not in practice.”

There should have been some kind of joke-related emergency service you could call to rescue you in situations like this. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault. Although in retrospect I think knowing the twist in advance made it less comical.”

“You don’t say?”

Alex nodded. “Yes, you see the essence of humour is surprise. So if you want to get better at this joke-telling lark, you might want to keep your cards a little closer to your chest.”

“Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.” Okay, this was it, I was nearly—

“Tell you what, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

There was no possible way this could end well.

“I say, Rhys.” Alex stuck his head into the social media office. “Do you have a second?”

Rhys Jones Bowen emerged walking backwards and talking into his phone, which he was holding at a high selfie angle. “Hello, Internet,” he was saying, “this is Rhys Jones Bowen from See Arr Ay Pee Pee, the dung beetle charity. I’ve just finished up my morning coffee, and now Alex from the front office has called me through because he wants something, so I’m just going to see what that is and—”

“Rhys,” I asked, “what are you doing?”

He gave me a look like I’d asked a very silly question which, to be fair, I had. “What does it look like I’m doing; I’m live streaming.”

“Is that a thing that’s happening now?”

“Got to move with the times, Luc.”

I treated him to my most sceptical expression. “We really don’t. Half our computers are still running Windows 7, and there’s a map in the hall that shows two Germanies.”

Sadly, Rhys ignored my entreaty to keep the twenty-first century out of our office. “Why don’t you say hello to the internet, Luc.”

“I refuse to believe that anybody is watching this.”

“Excuse me, I’ll have you know I’ve got five hundred and seventy-three viewers.”

That seemed at once like not very many, and far more than I expected. “Are you sure?”

He showed me his phone, and I watched as the 573 popped up to a 574, while beneath his video a stream of chat messages spammed variations on Who’s this prick? and Where’s Rhys?

“Can I tell you my joke now?” asked Alex. “Although, in the spirit of full disclosure, it’s really more Luc’s joke.”