There are lots of people who believe that caricature of me the tabloids created, so they think they don't like me.

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.

I think it's difficult, if you're a quite private person like I am, to write about your life very intimately.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

Does anyone really go into nursing intending to be apathetic, cold and removed from suffering? I find that very difficult to believe.

School was great. There were no boys there, which didn't really bother me at the time because I had two brothers, so I was quite pleased not to spend any more time with boys.

And I also felt that no one in an audience could abuse me worse than the sort of abuse I had had at work as a psychiatric nurse.