You end up with this succession of periods when everything was marvellous - from King Arthur to the medieval times, Ivanhoe, chivalry, Henry VIII, Merry England, the Blitz

My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty.

Internet journalism is not a world we know very well at all. It's conducted more on the screen and less in bars, which makes it rather less useful for getting stories about people throwing up over one another, which is what one's after.

England Their England by AG Macdonell which was written in the thirties and is about a young Scotsman who's got shell shocked during the First World War… I love it.

The best comedy is where you attack the strong, not the weak.

There's an awful lot of terrible television which I could do, but I mostly stick to Have I Got News for You.

I've got a very peculiar sort of fame, based on being on the telly. It doesn't mean you have the lifestyle people expect.