They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but for most people, by the time it's ready to eat, they just don't fancy it any more.

I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn't turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did.

Over the years I attempted to make my style a bit more relaxed 'cause the initial style you couldn't watch for more than ten minutes without wanting to kill me.

There are comics who treat women fairly appallingly. But I can be great friends with them because I don't tend to do that ticking of boxes: it can make life too simplistic.

My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and they met as young socialists. That probably tells you everything you need to know about my attitude to money - I've never really been bothered about it.

I am a hip-hop artist, as you probably know. My hip-hop name is Big Smalls.

No one I know is actually so rude as to tell me I've become duller since having children. But I'm sure they think it.

Not many women will go out on a limb to make themselves really unattractive and unfeminine so you can get the laughs, but it's a great thing to do in my book.

Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.

Having children is fab. They keep me young and make me get up in the morning.

My mum and my husband are from Irish backgrounds, so we have a lot of potatoes. Chips, mashed, boiled, new potatoes, I love them all. Even the slightly wonky ones like Duchess potatoes that go up in a little spiral.

I don't know if we will ever try again because those sort of things are very hard to organise but yes, I've known Doon for years and John as well but I hadn't met Will before, and he turned out to be a good laugh.

I wouldn't say I was organised at all. I just have to prioritise. Is it more important for them to be organised, or to have their dinner, do you know what I mean?

I still get blokes who say, 'Oh you hate men, don't you?' And I say, 'No, I just hate you.' I really love doing that, just to see the look on their faces.

My mum is bright, ambitious, well read, political and very bolshie: when my dad was conscripted into the Army and posted to Libya, she convinced some general to let her go with him. I don't know how she managed it.

I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning - though I never really intended it to be - was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly.

A lot of people do that kind of nostalgia stuff believing that they were very happy in their teenage years, but that's probably just an illusion.

I love everything about books. I love the content, the way they look and even the lovely way they smell. I think a book collection says something about you as a person, and certainly my books are something I'd want to pass on for future generations.

Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading an article about themselves in the press knows that, on the whole, there is a huge amount of inaccuracy, value judgment and the use of a crowbar to insert editorial bias that reflects the current political leaning of that particular paper.

It's got too much hard work slapping them and telling them to shut up.

I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.

I believe that if your brain has to get to grips with complicated words, then you won't get Alzheimer's. I'm sure it's not true, but I do believe it.

In the end, punk inevitably burned itself out and acted as a bridge across which the New Romantics could sashay in their chiffon and glossy hair.

I've never, ever had people being aggressive to me in public or abusing me, and actually quite a lot of men do say to me, 'You're quite good' - though they can't bear to go, 'You're great.'