JIMMY CARR

A surprising amount of my jokes sound very implausible but are true.

I was in the South of France. I saw a Brownie on a school trip. She was holding up a book. It said on the front 'rough guide'. I thought: 'Yeah' she's not a looker.

I don't see myself as offending people.

There's things that I couldn't joke about but other people could.

I was a Christian. I didn't want to have sex before marriage, I was a bit uptight and not very self-confident. I was a virgin until I was 26.

I go around the country and do a simple gag like, 'The property ladder is now a snake' and get a real laugh.

If I'm at home for the weekend - and that is almost never - I tend to get twitchy at about eight o'clock in the evening because my body clock is timed to go on stage. I don't know what to do with myself.

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.

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.

They say the people most affected by the credit crunch are pensioners - well, let go of the handbag then, Nanna.

The first few weeks of joining Weight Watchers, you're just finding your feet.

I am trying to release endorphins here. I am not preaching to you - I am trying to make you laugh.

It's so clear cut with a comedian - you have that reflex action, whereby you laugh or you don't. And so you either love us or you simply cannot see why people are laughing.

I didn't plan to be the rude middle-class comedian. You write a certain type of joke that you find funny, and mine happen to be often rude. Yes, it's juvenile, but that's me.

I don't think it's any coincidence that I lost my religious faith and 'manned up' in the same year. I was described somewhere as a lapsed Catholic, which is funny because I'm not going back! I want to achieve things rather than live life in an animalistic way.

After a gig I always head back to the hotel, remembering granny's words of wisdom. I cancel the late-night pizza and watch the Jonathan Ross show instead.

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.

The bigger the audience, the better with comedy.

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.

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.

You never want to be the grumpy guy, although I do have quite a grumpy face.

Like most of the world's population I'm into coffee, but in a properly big and important way. My perfect weekend would start with a pint of coffee.

Yes, I have this crazy honk of a laugh.

Women were quite terrifying until I was older. I think that's partly down to confidence.

I'm obsessed with TV. How wrong our parents were when they said we should only watch an hour a day. Stop wasting your time reading books.