This turned out to be a very British night for the Baftas, a smidgen more British than usual in fact. It started out with the Hollywood A-listers in the audience being presented with hilarious British snacks, of whose existence they had no more idea than they had of life forms on the moons of Saturn. Emma Stone got some Hula Hoops, Timothee Chalamet had a bag of Scampi Fries and Leonardo DiCaprio got his laughing gear around a Hobnob flapjack.
"I've become a mom and I'm in a wow moment of my life that I never expected, and it's such an honour to come home and share this with you," she said. Buckley gave a nod to her co-star Paul Mescal in her speech. "I know everyone is sick of me talking about how much I love him, but I love him, and to Kerry for reminding me of my own wildness," she said.
Hence the attention that is paid to the annual announcement of the Baftas, Golden Globes and Oscars hosts; they are gigs that can flourish in the cultural memory, such as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's multiple turns at the Golden Globes, or become infamous, such as Anne Hathaway and James Franco's double act at the Academy Awards in 2011, which saw them castigated as children and spectacularly unwatchable by the media.
However, when Russell Crowe won for A Beautiful Mind in 2002, it was his speech that got edited out. That was because he decided to recite the Patrick Kavanagh poem Sanctity, and it went on and on. When Crowe realised what had happened, he tracked down the show's director at the afterparty, pinned him against a wall, called him a cunt and then allegedly kicked three chairs across the room.
The weeks immediately following the Oscar nominations are typically a lull in the awards-season calendar. The precursors take a breather to get out of the way of the Grammys and the Super Bowl, while the remaining contenders get to do some non-televised hobnobbing at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and Oscar Nominee Luncheon. We're slowly getting back to business now.