Though at first glance it is a normal photo, the six of them after wrapping another show (David taking the photo in order to escape the insanity), left to right, the photo reads like a story.

Hugh stands slightly awkwardly next to Frankie, who as usual is pulling a stupid lewd pose, in an attempt to make Hugh burst out laughing. The sheer ridiculousness of Frankie’s pose makes Hugh look like the school-teacher who knows he shouldn’t laugh, it will just encourage the idiot next to him, and yet the tightening of the mouth shows how much he wants to guffaw at his antics.

Next to them, Andy stands with a pint (Dara asked him earlier whether he was planning to look for Jesus in it) and beaming smile, the flash from the camera reflecting off his head.

[For the end of the previous series, Frankie, Russell, Hugh and Dara had teamed together to buy him a rainbow-coloured afro, and the resulting chase through the studios wouldn’t have looked out of place on “You’ve been framed”, teamed with the Benny Hill theme tune.]

Andy stands next to Dara, who as usual looms over the rest of the team even though he tries not to.

[One night after the infamous ‘Anal Lube’ episode, Hugh suggested Dara should try out for WWE, and this led to the team wrapping the hotel-towels round their shoulders like capes and giving themselves insanely stupid wrestling names, the highlight of that evening being Russell’s body-slam of Frankie turning into him begging for mercy after Frankie bent his arms backwards and declared that he was the true champion of wrestling, not some “zummerzetian funny-man”.]

Dara stands in the midst of a bellowing laugh at Frankie’ pose, other arm with another pint (of cider, contrary to popular belief beer doesn’t sit well with him), the two of them looking like the mates Russell used to go drinking with who would rouse drunkards in Greenland with their bellowing, full-bodied laughs and sheer happiness to be doing the jobs that they love.

Next to them, arms over each other’s shoulders, smiles like the sun, the glint of a cheeky plan to prank the rest of them, stand Ed and Russell, leaning slightly in towards each other, sheer contrasts in their looks and yet so similar in their personalities. Ed as dark as his humour, hair in that stage of growing where it persistently tickles his neck, bags under his eyes visible even behind the glasses, a packet of cigarettes poking out his trouser pockets, blazer rumpled as though he’s slept in it. Russell, shining as bright as the day, giggling, his short blonde hair tousled and pointing every which way, t-shirt riding slightly to show the superman belt his mum bought him for Christmas, ink-stains on his hands, glasses sitting skewed on his face.

[The two of them had teamed together earlier to buy about twenty rubber ducks which they left around the studio and dressing rooms, with notes about the duck’s plans for world domination, and the confusion of the production staff left them in a pile of helpless laughter in the bar, holding on to each other for support as they struggled to breathe due to the memories of the poor cameraman finding a duck sitting in his seat, with a little note saying ‘that’s MY seat MWA HA HA HA HAAA’. Russell had to wrestle the darker plots from Ed’s fingers, feeling that although placing a duck in a noose on Dara’s desk, with the note ‘You will be the last to die’ would be hilarious, it might be slightly too freaky. Ed naturally had protested this, and it led to the two having an impromptu tickle fight, resulting in Frankie asking them (in front of the studio audience) as they arrived on set out of breath and clothes rumpled, whether they could wait till after the show to have passionate sex.]

Ed’s smug reply of “You’re just jealous of the duck” made Russell collapse on the desk in another giggle-fit, the rest of the team bemused as to why that was just so funny.

The slight blurriness of the photo is due to David bursting out laughing at Frankie’s “hurry the fuck up, my arms can’t grope Hugh any longer”, leading to Andy being forced to sit down as he was laughing too hard to be able to stand. By that point, Hugh had given up holding in the giggles, and Ed and Russell were horizontal on the floor, collapsed on each other in laughter, making David ask the two of them to “get a room”, as it was obvious that they were going to have sex. Russell’s reply of “it would be bloody difficult to have sex while giggling”, panting for breath, and Ed’s “but not impossible!” finished the two of them off, and the rest of the team were found in a pile in the corner, laughing so much that the barman came over to ask what the fuck was so funny that they had been laughing for the past hour solid.

The only reply from the seven of them (David by this time having joined the laughing), was “Ducks!” making the barman regret offering half-price drinks on the night that Mock the Week wrapped their shows.

If you live by the code, that defines you, makes you who you think you’re meant to be.

Don’t talk about sex with someone other than your girlfriend, laugh, be funny, smile, act like you never have a care in the world.

It makes you get up out of bed in the morning, when you’d rather burrow under the covers and hide from the world, and it makes you go to sleep at night when you’d rather be in someone else’s bed.

It makes you say “I love you” to the person who you’d rather leave, who you would rather not be there so you can be free and live your life how you want it.

Sometimes (though you never tell anyone), as you lie awake in bed next to them in the early hours, hearing them snuffle into the quilt, feeling their arm thrown over you like you’re a giant teddy bear, you fantasise about catching them in the middle of a torrid affair with someone else, then you won’t seem like the bad one if you broke up.

The code makes you ignore the person you’d rather be with, it forces you to joke with them and be merry but to never get past the friends barrier, to never see the real person who you know is under there waiting.

It forces you to never drink so much that your memories are obliterated, because you fear that you’ll either tell them how you feel and get rejected, or wake up beside them with no memory of how you got there, or why you feel as though you’ve just had sex.

You can never quite decide which one is the worst option.

It makes you sit on a set with them, laughing and whispering like two little school-boys, under the watchful eye of about two million people, knowing that all they see is two friends, knowing the public is watching for any move you make that is out of the ordinary, that isn’t natural, and then they’ll pounce like rabid wild animals.

It makes you draw an arm around your ‘partner’ at Sunday dinner, when your parents ask when you’re going to get married, and smile as though it will happen.

It makes you always look the same, because it’s the norm, yet you wish to one day walk into a barbers, and get them to chop off all your ridiculous blonde hair, maybe dye the new lot purple, so you don’t feel as much of a child desperately trying to be funny in hopes of making their crush laugh.

It makes you change your t-shirts so you’re not always wearing the same stuff day-in day-out (however you rebel by always wearing blue when he’s on the show – he said it makes him happy to see you in it, even if you wish he could see you with it off. And maybe his clothes as well. Scratch that, definitely no clothes involved for either party).

It makes you never sit next to him when the panellists go out drinking after successfully wrapping a show, the temptation to wrap your hand around his, bury your face into the crook of his neck and be tickled by his hair, which is persistently in that silly stage between short and cropped, and long and curly, smell his drink-fags-sex smell that leaves you gasping if you’re not prepared, is just too much.

When you see him and anyone else hug, the code makes you laugh and joke about whether they’re having sex, yet your heart breaks just a little more inside every time.

The code makes you answer “I’m fine, I’m happy, nothing could be better” when you’re asked the obligatory how-are-you by people, by him, by your ‘partner’, when you really want to answer “No I’m not fine, I want to do what I want, I want to be me” (and if he asks, answer “fuck me! Now!” and remove words from the equation and just kiss the answer).

The code makes you live normally in a normal life, in a normal world, when inside, you know that it’s not normal, that what you want and what you are will always be different, will never reconcile, and it makes you feel broken.