Why does nobody mention that Hillary Clinton is perfectly nice?

“Hello. I am Hillary Rodham Clinton, and this is the Graham Norton Show.” The almost-holder of what was once the loftiest imaginable office was surprisingly game for a bit of British kitsch: warm, indulgent and dressed in yellow, like a president on a kindergarten walkabout.

She is still too grand for some of Graham Norton’s antics. She wasn’t sold on the idea of sharing a sofa with another celebrity. You cannot blame her. The chat-trading of Norton’s ersatz dinner party environment is inherently high-risk. You could be in the middle of the most profoundly revealing story – one you could have saved for a love affair, or your Vanity Fair profile – and be eclipsed by someone’s anecdote about finding a caterpillar in their cheese sandwich.

So it was just her in the beam of Norton’s irresistible curiosity. And while she has a book to promote – What Happened – there was still this pressing incongruity of her normality. She arrived on stage wearing a surgical boot which she explained in an anecdote neither interesting nor uninteresting, just ambiently pleasant to listen to, like cicadas. “I was running down the stairs in heels with a cup of coffee in hand,” – a break for a short homily on how unwise it was to run with coffee – “I was talking over my shoulder and my heel caught and I fell backwards”. She broke her toe. She had excellent medical care from our “English medical system” (little shout out for the NHS, thoughtful and serendipitous). Well. You sound perfectly … nice. How come nobody ever mentions that you’re perfectly nice?

Graham Norton’s line of questioning was pretty bold: did she feel jinxed? You know, all geared up in 2008, then Obama came along (“well he was an excellent president”). Then in 2016 Bernie Sanders came along (though he didn’t actually win; so if Norton’s hypothesis was correct and the universe was working against her, it was pretty part-time work). Then Trump, of course. She didn’t take this head on (is there an answer, to “are you jinxed?”).

But about her feelings, upon losing, she was perfectly plain: she felt terrible. She felt responsible. “It was such a surprise: it was so shocking and obviously devastating.” There remains a slight disconnect between the words and the calm, sunny delivery but it’s not dissembling so much as a generalised disconnect. You can’t stay shocked forever.

A former president can give a view on almost anything, past dignities conferring importance upon their every thought. A former nearly-president has to choose their topic. Al Gore had the environment. Hillary’s cause is that Donald Trump is bad. Like climate change, it is unarguable but it still needs saying – and she will not rest until she’s said it a lot of times. Describing the inauguration, she insisted: “I wanted him to rise to the occasion and be our president. That didn’t happen. We were listening to this really dark, divisive speech … a cry from the white nationalist gut. I am was so disappointed, so sad.” The best line, she gives to George W Bush, who reputedly turned around and said: “That was some weird shit.”

Seriously, run through this one more time. How did a nation choose – over her – the guy who could only debate her with grim-faced, pantomime prowling? “Watch it with the sound off,” she counselled of the TV debates. “Don’t listen to what he was saying: much of it was untrue and just silly. But watch it with the sound down and you’d think: ‘Boy, he’s out there, really giving it to her.’ Maybe I should have turned around and said: ‘You’re not going to intimidate me like you try to intimidate women. Back off you creep!’”

Regret hung in the air: the impossibility of fully regretting a disaster that you still don’t know the extent of. I wonder if even Graham Norton’s trademark ebullience survived once the lights went down.