PAUL MERTON

Generally speaking, politicians are an odd bunch. They seem to have very thick skins and genuinely don't care what people think. And charm is a very important part of the politician's armoury. I try to resist that kind of charm.

I never give anyone advice: it can backfire horribly. In the 1950s, Eric Morecambe told Ken Dodd to get his teeth fixed. But those teeth turned out to be one of Dodd's big selling points.

I don't always vote in general elections, but I think I've always voted Labour.

I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't?

In fact, I don't watch a lot of contemporary comedy for fear of being influenced by it.

The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear.

It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making people laugh is a good way to make friends. It's an instant connection.

I was never one to go up to someone as a five- or six-year-old and say, 'Hello, my name's Paul, will you be my friend?' But I found if I did an impression of the PE teacher or whatever and people laughed, then they did like me, and so then they started talking to me, rather than me making the initial overture and then maybe being rebuffed.

In 1986, I was attacked in the street as I helped Neil Mullarkey from the Comedy Store Players to put up posters. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time - midnight - and we were English. I got kicked in the head.

There's something magical about film, it's the ultimate for me, because it's kind of permanent - inasmuch as anything is. When I went to see Buster Keaton when I was about 14 and I came out of the cinema having really laughed at this film which had been made 50 years before, I thought: That's immortality. It's fantastic.

I really don't take any interest at all in contemporary comedy.

When I was nine I spent a lot of my time reading books about the history of comedy, or listening to the Goons or Hancock, humour from previous generations.

I read every book about Buster Keaton and Chaplin to see how they worked - it's all about dedication, tunnel vision, pursuit of perfection, getting the gag right.

All disc jockeys are without talent. Noel Edmonds - I can't stand Noel Edmonds.

Am I allowed to call myself working-class now? Because obviously I'm now very rich.

I'll never forget my first experience of swede. It was at school and I thought I was getting mashed potato. I've never got over it.

In 1987, I was in Edinburgh doing my first one-man show. I took part in a kickabout with some fellow comedians and tripped over my trousers and heard this cracking sound in my leg. A couple of days later I went into a coma and was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.

I have never sold my story, done 'Hello!' magazine, any of that stuff. I'm not guilty of exploiting my private life for cash and then saying, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about my private life.' I've never crossed that line.

When I turned about 12 or 13, I realised that being funny wasn't about remembering jokes. It was about creating them.

I think having an outsider's viewpoint is interesting and good, especially for a comedian.

I'm always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identified by their dental records. What I can't understand is, if they don't know who you are, how do they know who your dentist is?

I was trying to organise my DVDs into a sort of chronological order, and I am afraid that it all trailed off after the Sixties.

If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned laughter is cheating.

I've never been disappointed by politicians. I've never invested that much in them in the first place.

On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn't he said, 'Do you mind if I mug you here?'.