At the same time as we were seizing the lands that we turned into Iraq, we were devising an interesting future for our new protectorate in Palestine, and simultaneously trying to pacify Ireland, where we hit upon the solution of partition in 1921, thereby securing a peaceful resolution to the conflict only 86 years later.

Apparently, some physicists argue that time is curved. I suppose this means that the past is in some way still present.

I suppose there wasn't a well-worn path into the British space programme because we didn't really have a space programme. Dad was one of the pioneers of it.

I tend not to look back on old clips of myself or look at things I wrote or listen to something from the radio 30 years ago: I remember them, but it feels like someone else.

I receive underwear - some clean, some not. No joke. My assistant who helps me with my fan mail constantly threatens to quit because of what we get sent.

I'm doing 5000 seat theaters and audiences are going nuts, it's fantastic and it makes me very happy. I'm dirty, but not like this; I just do comedy that I find funny. I'm working on a new tv show for cable and it's not set up yet.

If the clockwork universe equated the human body with the mechanics of the clock, the digital universe now equates human consciousness with the processing of the computer. We joke that things don't compute, that we need a reboot, or that our memory has been wiped.

I was inspired by comedy channels. I loved that they got to do sketches and could be funny and crude and make people laugh. But most of those channels, if not all of them, were done by guys.