AM I alone in thinking Boaty McBoatface is a brilliant name for the Natural Environment Research Council’s new £200 million boat?

Admittedly, it’s going to stick out like a sore thumb next to its sister vessel the RRS Ernest Shackleton.

But that’s what you get when you open up the naming to the great British public.

If NERC wanted a sensible, in-keeping name they should have steered clear of online voters as the commander of RRS Boaty McBoatface will need to steer clear of icebergs.

Apparently Boaty McBoatface netted almost 30,000 votes. Its nearest contender garnered a mere 8,000. That was to name the ship after Henry Worsley, the British polar explorer who died earlier this year.

And while I think it would have been a fitting tribute to Mr Worsley, I think Boaty is a great demonstration of our sense of humour.

We live in dark times. Yet we Brits face adversity with a joke.

Taking the p*ss is one of our safety valves. If you can’t take a joke in this country, you may as well hop on the next flight.

We like to poke fun at authority, to unsettle things.

Sometimes we take life far too seriously. Sometimes we are small-minded, petty, stuffy, bureaucratic, priggish, prudish and self-important.

It’s never long before a wit comes along to prick our pomposity.

So don’t get too up yourself, or fancy, or high-and-mighty, or think you’re better than anyone else.

When it comes down to it, when we’re all stripped naked, we’re all the same underneath.

I personally think it’s a very healthy state of affairs.

It’s why the likes of Ann Widdicombe and John Sergeant get to the final stages of Strictly Come Dancing, and Monster Raving Loony party candidates stand at elections.

And why in the 2001 UK census 390,000 returned their forms claiming they followed the Jedi religion.

We don’t like sanctimony or self-righteousness.

You’ll have heard the story of Bono being brought down a peg or two at a U2 concert in Scotland. He asked the audience to be completely silent. Then the singer of Pride (In The Name Of Love) slowly clapped before telling his audience: “Every time I clap my hands a child in Africa dies.” A lone voice from the audience shouted: “Well stop effing clapping, ya evil b*st*rd!”

Beautifully to the point, the heckle was devastatingly powerful.

Going back hundreds of years, it’s why the ruling monarch employed a court jester, the one person who could speak the truth without fear of having his head chopped off.

We need that quality these days more than ever.