When we graduated [ from Cambridge], we were grabbed right into television. I was grabbed straight into the practice of writing comedy. It was all writing and performing. You wrote something in order for you to perform it.

I used to have a house in London, but couldn't face 20 more years of St John's Wood in the rain.

I like being a foreigner. For me, to live in California is very pleasant - I'm more comfortable not feeling a part of everything, not feeling responsible for the government or the roads or the health system.

If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?

My wife, Tania, is very big on dogs, so I'm always paying out to animal charities.

Subversion is what I do.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.