My mum told me the best time to ask my dad for anything was during sex. Not the best advice I'd ever been given. I burst in through the bedroom door saying "Can I have a new bike?". He was very upset. His secretary was surprisingly nice about it. I got the bike.

The tragedy for comedians is there's nothing more they want than to be liked. We desperately seek approval. It's almost like a personality disorder you can do as a job.

Even if you're doing the national insurance awards, there's still that excitement when you wonder who is going to win, er, best premiums.

You go, well you can't joke about race. Well if you're from a different race and that's your experience of the world and you want to talk about that, then fine. Or you can't talk about disability, but disabled comics can talk about that.

Say what you want about the deaf.

Staying in luxury hotels still gives me a kick, especially Oulton Hall in Yorkshire. I'd stay in a hotel for the breakfast and room service.

As soon as I did my first five minutes of stand-up I knew that I would rather be a failure at comedy than a success in marketing.