I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.

I think it's essential for comic writers to have a hate figure, a despot, a regime to react against, and I think Thatcher was perfect for me, I loathed everything she stood for.

8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.

Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure.