Take me back to the glory days of international life, when we crashed out to Iceland. I’m kidding, of course! Who could fail to be thrilled by the news that Boris Johnson is BACK. And not only that, he’s the actual foreign secretary. Lazarus is not just out of bed – he’s off to cause a diplomatic incident with some dusky waxwork from Jerusalem, and tell people semi-privately that Jesus is a very boring little man.

Furthermore, we have a new foreign secretary who the new home secretary made a date-rape gag about four weeks ago. OK – a date-rape gag with a drink-drive cover story. Still: WOOF!

Whichever way you slice it, Boris Johnson’s appointment forces an urgent update of the traditional Foreign Office diplomatic classifications. They now comprise: Europeanist, Arabist, Atlanticist and Piss Artist.

The Boris news is not so much a cabinet appointment as a three-episode comic subplot in Downton Abbey. It casts the UK as one of those failing theme parks where bad actors wander round pretending to be from olden times, even though their backdrop is a stinking food court and signs reading THIS TOILET IS OUT OF ORDER.

According to the cartographers, the sheer reach of Boris’s insults forms an alternative empire on which the sun never sets. Boris Johnson would have represented a parodic view of Britain in 1959. That was the year of release of the lovely movie Carlton-Browne of the FO, which satirises the misplaced vanity and upper class ineptitude of the post-imperial Foreign Office. Never mind history repeating itself as farce. This is a Terry-Thomas farce repeating itself as history.

Still, we gave the world all the great games – amirite, Brits? – and this is just the latest one. The race is now on to come up with the most accurate description of the UK at this moment in its national journey. I’ll start the ball rolling with “auto-satirical cardboard deathstar”, but expect other countries to swiftly come out on top. As they have in all the other games we invented.

Will it be possible for ironists to get him, Putin, and Donald Trump in a photo – the Yalta conference of narcissism?

In the meantime, there are so many questions about the style Johnson will bring to the global stage. Does he refer to America as “the new world”? Are there any countries he has yet to mug off? Will he trail future diplomatic incidents in his Telegraph column? Is it going to be possible for ironists to get him, Putin, and Donald Trump in a photo – the Yalta conference of extreme narcissism?

As for how the appointment has been received around the world… I’m going to shock you here, but early indications are that the #massivelegend element of Boris Johnson’s personal brand does not seem to travel beyond our borders. To be fair, we’ve never really tested whether it travels beyond London and the Home Counties.

But that’s not important right now, because there is footage of the US state department spokesman learning live on air that Boris Johnson has been appointed foreign secretary. Considering that Mark Toner’s Washington training is likely to have included the administering of electric shocks should he fail to maintain a poker face, it’s a tribute to the sheer WTF-ery of the Johnson appointment this guy can’t keep the smirk or the radioactive disdain off his face . But how confusing…. Why is he not saying “Get IN!” Why is he not reacting to the news with the verdict: “He’s a MASSIVE legend?”

Even accounting for this, however, my favourite bit of film yet to emerge came on Wednesday night, and features the three most senior Foreign Office mandarins welcoming Boris to his new Whitehall home. Is it CGI? Because I’m watching three men literally ageing 10 years in the process of a single minute’s footage. Here they are at the door, failing to hide the fact that they’re mentally cancelling their weekend plans – cancelling weekends, really – and preparing to make calls to 112 countries to offer a variant on “Yes, yes, well I’m sure he didn’t really mean it. He’s quite a character, you know!”

By the time they’re leading Johnson up the staircase, they are wearing the silent screams of people who know a non-medicated solution is now off the table, who now regard the decades of managed decline in their once-great office as the halcyon years, and whose diary entries that night will read simply: “Suez on a zipwire”.