I have seen good nurses and bad nurses. They existed along a continuum: from hard-working, kind and competent people, to office-hugging, bone-idle types, to apathetic, disengaged automatons.

We women continue to swallow this line that it's unladylike or even proof of being a lesbian if you wear flat shoes like Doc Martens. I'm prepared to put up with that accusation, because at least my feet aren't killing me and I don't look like a bandy ostrich.

When you cry, you don't look very attractive; you look snotty and blotchy. People seem to manage to cry quite prettily these days, and to me, that smacks of not being very genuine.

How do you conduct an intimate relationship where no one ever loses it? Where no one ever lashes out, where no one ever smacks anyone in the mouth?

Suffice to say, many women find their first appearance on a comedy panel show to be their last. Second chances seem to be given less often to the female of the species.

Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading an article about themselves in the press, knows that on the whole, there is a huge amount of inaccuracy, value judgment and the use of a crowbar to insert editorial bias that reflects the current political leaning of that particular paper.

I was always being called upon to be an honorary boy alongside my brothers. I don't think I'd be a comic now if it hadn't been for that.