The history of the relationship between comedy and swimming is short indeed. Of course it is always funny when someone falls into water, but that's about it.

If you want to write something of length, however modern and radical, you must live the life of an elderly gentleman of the 1950s.

Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.

I'm an armchair kind of guy, especially when it's raining, which it always is and always will be.

Comedy ages quicker than tragedy, to the extent that we can't know if the 10 commandments may originally have been 10 hilarious one-liners.

It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not be seen in a leather jacket.

Every generation of children has its private hero.