Wait…‘ex-pat’? I know what you’re thinking. But if you continue that thought for a moment, you’ll find that the idea of an ‘ex-pat’ sitting alone in his basement, drinking, trying to recapture the glories of his youth by watching a 5Gb file he’s illicitly downloaded from iPlayer and laughing in a bitter fashion about the downfall of his home nation is much funnier than ‘immigrant’, my preferred term.² ↩︎

And if you’ve made it to this footnote, you’re probably thinking ‘ah, I see exactly what he’s doing. It’s an unfunny facsimile of Lee’s commentary in his Faber book, isn’t it?'³ ↩︎

‘You’re stretching the point now, I think.'⁴ ↩︎

‘No, really. At this point, you’re just embarrassing yourself’⁵ ↩︎

‘And don’t think using the conceit of making up an imaginary character is going to help you out here. You’ve given me a silly voice, haven’t you? You’re 39 years old and doing silly voices in your head’⁶ ↩︎

‘So I have a silly voice, do I? Hahaha, you’re so funny! I bet I voted for Brexit too, didn’t I? Just to reinforce your superiority over me in this one-sided conversation that you made up. You make me sick.'⁷ ↩︎

‘I didn’t come here to be insulted! I can leave any time I want!'⁸ ↩︎

Exit, pursued by a bear wearing a ‘Brexit’ costume⁹ ↩︎

Lee in Oxford talking about comedy, dropping Knights of Pendragon references, and bashing Michael Gove ↩︎