… found that Serafinowicz Twitter joke

Or have I? Apologies if you’ve clicked on this, read those first three words and are now very angry with me.

To clear up any confusion for anyone who’s being doing something constructive in the past 24 hours, it’s all kicked off over on Twitter thanks to a joke posted by comedian Peter Serafinowicz apparently so offensive that even a simple glance at the words it comprises could cause your brain to instantly boil in your head.

Feeds for Serafinowicz-mentioning hashtags are going mental. People are desperate to find out what the joke was, despite it having seemed pretty clear since this whole brouhaha started that there was, in fact, never such a joke – the Spaced and Shaun of the Dead comedian merely posted a mock apology for a tweet that didn’t exist in the first place.

Last night, though, rumours were abound that the now-near-legendary quip featured something about maniacal American beauty pageant contestant Sarah Palin and jumped-up vicar the Pope. By this morning, consensus had shifted and the aside was reported to have featured fake-photo-publishing Piers Morgan and hairy Sky box manufacturer Alan Sugar. And possibly Simon Pegg.

Now, if there was a joke, it would have been re-posted by someone somewhere. But the beauty of this (supposed) hoax is no one can be completely sure there wasn’t a joke. And the human brain just can’t handle that. It has to know. And people will keep typing the name Serafinowicz into their keyboards until the whole thing’s cleared up one way or another.

Well done, Peter. That’s how to use Twitter. And if nothing else, it’s a good excuse to post a clip from the brilliant Look Around You.