There’s something post-coital about Boris Johnson these days. He appears distracted, disappointed. On the verge of boredom. Even when he rouses himself to public displays of optimism with calls to “stop talking Britain down”, it feels like a tired performance rather than a lived experience. Soon his only comforts will be homeopathic traces of memory.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. He’d thought being prime minister would be a sustained triumph – the climax that was so high and wild he’d no longer need to have another – but it had turned out to be just as transient as all the rest. In some ways, it was even worse. Now there was nothing more to look forward to. Everything was downhill from here. A slow slide into insignificance. Just think of David Cameron.

Back in the day, there had been an edge to his life. A sense of jeopardy. The lies and backstabbing to further his career. Now his days – from the moment he woke up to the time he went to bed – were managed to the point of inertia. No free time to nip out for IT refresher courses in Shoreditch. No easy money to be made from recycling old columns for the Daily Telegraph.

Frankly, it was getting harder and harder for him to give a toss about anything. Only the previous night, he’d had to put Silent Witness on pause for five minutes because Dominic Cummings had wanted him to make a totally pointless Twitter video about how everything was going to be brilliant after Brexit. What a waste of his and everyone else’s time. He’d barely even bothered to go through the motions. Brexit had only been interesting while it had been an idea to be won. Now it was a reality to be delivered all the fun had drained away.

The closest to any genuine excitement Boris could now get was prime minister’s questions. A session he always seemed to enjoyed more, the less preparation he put in. The thrill of winging it in front of a large audience. But even PMQs was beginning to pall. It was all just too easy. He could say whatever he liked and almost no one would dare challenge him. The Labour party was entirely comatose and some of his own MPs were a far tougher audience. But enough of them were either fawning or supine, so he still didn’t really need to break sweat. He’d never have believed it before, but you really could tire of flattery. The insincerity was corrosive.

Boris barely bothered to engage with Jeremy Corbyn. Then the Labour leader can’t even manage to engage with himself any more. He realises it was a huge mistake to stay on while his party chose his successor, but is too proud to admit it. So he just plods on, mumbling out his computer-generated questions in a detached monotone, neither inviting, nor expecting any answers. Not even getting round to exposing possible cracks in the Tory ranks over Huawei or HS2.

More out of habit than anything else, Johnson laced his contempt with indifference. Have you finished yet? He yawned, having failed to answer any questions on President Trump’s idiotic Israel-Palestine peace deal or the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia. He barely even seemed aware of the SNP’s demands for a Scottish visa. Page 20? He didn’t even know there was a page 20. Instead he just said we’re leaving the EU on Friday and invited anyone who wanted to buy a “Sod Off Europe” tea towel should get shopping on the Tory party website. And for an extra £20 – cash only – he’d even sign one.

Dialling down the triumphalism and uniting the country is proving a spectacular success. Boris wouldn’t have been totally out of place waving Union Jacks and flicking V signs with Nigel Farage and the Brexit party in the EU parliament later in the afternoon. They’ve all been consistent in their gracelessness. For a man who prides himself on charm, Boris can be surprisingly charmless. Then part of his appeal has always been his brazen amorality. Talking big, but acting small.

While – Farage and his gang of MEPs excepted – the EU was bidding a heartfelt, dignified and moving farewell to the UK in Brussels, Boris was back mugging off the country in another edition of his “People’s PMQs”. A 15-minute piece of nihilistic narcissistic indulgence that serves no discernible democratic function. But with parliamentary PMQs no longer giving Boris his required dopamine hit, he needs all the attention he can get.

Yet again Johnson raced through a whole load of questions sent in by members of his own team at Number 10, while Classic Dom kept watch off camera. Homelessness was a bad thing – he knew that from personal experience having been kicked out of his home several times already and it was only a matter of time before it happened again. It won’t be the Labour party that brings him down. It will be his own capacity for self-destruction.

Of course we’d get a trade agreement in a matter of weeks. We were already aligned with the EU and they were far too stupid to notice we were planning to diverge. Was Huawei safe? Of course, because the Chinese already had all our secrets anyway. There were already 50,000 nurses waiting to start work in the 40 hospitals he was going to build inside a month.

Before long, Boris inevitably got bored and wound things up. Just one last question. How was he going to celebrate leaving the EU on Friday. Hmm. Boris had to think about that. Well, first he’d make an entirely missable speech to the nation. So no need for anyone to tune in. Then he’d knock back a couple of bottles of wine, fall over and hope for a shag. Much like any other Friday night.