> Kay was probably riffing off of that.

You don't need to hypothesize about all this, to put things in their proper context you could listen to the speech where he famously said it.

https://youtu.be/aYT2se94eU0?t=324

> It can be inferred from Kay's own words. He probably was just poking fun in a tongue-in-cheek manner often seen amongst larger-than-life figures.

...is that not obvious from the original quote? Maybe it's a cultural difference (I'm from Ireland), but that's how I've always interpreted and it's never occurred to me that people took it seriously or as anything other than tongue in cheek.