But I don’t think we should let this anniversary pass without acknowledging that Hicks is standing the test of time incredibly well. The polls? In as much as those rankings are worth anything, he’s still up there – fourth in Channel 5’s recent run-down of the top stand-ups. I suspect that my generation – lucky enough to be there at his peak – might vote for him partly out of nostalgia, the younger generation because his absence from mainstream culture affords the thrill of discovering him as if for the first time. When Russell Crowe produces his biopic, Hicks may become big news again. But I think we’ve already reached the stage where he doesn’t even much need to be championed because he has become a permanent fixture. If you haven’t cottoned onto him you’re not just missing out, you’re missing the point: he made rare sense of the world we live in.