This business is fickle. You have very good patches and less good patches, but you learn to ride them out. As long as you don't take yourself too seriously, you'll be fine. When you lose sight of that, you're in trouble.

Maternity bras are the Alcatraz under-wear. If they were a door they'd have a mortise lock, a padlock and the rest.

Mum was in her early 50s when she had four strokes in quick succession that almost took her off. I'd just come down from Cambridge with a rubbish degree. I spent a year reading to her - her eyesight was badly affected - and making sure she got proper rest. It was a special time but very intense, too.

I know things can go pear-shaped.

I bloody love transport and plotting a route through London.

I had to go to an audition for a rather large West End musical set on a Greek island. I didn't realise that you had to go with sheet music to give to the pianist. I took a Mark Bolan CD, a small ghetto blaster and then sang along. It was absolutely appalling.

I had to sit down and promise the kids I would no longer have any spray tans. My husband started sending me the carrot emoji.

Only now that I'm a mum can I fully understand the terrible pressure parents feel buying presents for their kids. My mum had four children plus all of the extended family and she not only had to feed us all but she bought presents for everyone, too.

It feels like you are in your own little bubble when you film 'Bake Off.' There is no noise, the outside world doesn't exist when we are filming. It's us, the tent and the bakers.

At school in the 1970s, no one cared about bullying. I spent the first four years being the apple of the teachers' eye and being bullied for it.

I met Sue Perkins at the Footlights, where she brought the house down at the auditions.

I feel very warmly and joyfully towards BBC Children in Need.

Christmas traditions are important in my family. Being half English and half Polish-Lithuanian, we have two separate celebrations.

I can't take UKIP seriously. I should, I must, it's our duty to take them seriously, because they're coming out with some really heinous old crap about immigration.

There are different types of double act: the classic dumb-and-dumber, like Morecambe and Wise; the good cop/bad cop, where one's a bit spiky and the other's daft. Sue Perkins and I take what we might call the Ant and Dec approach: the double act came out of our friendship.

I don't have a problem with the concept of a box set per se - we have many of them merrily lined up on the shelf above the telly. No, what gives me the pip is the fact that I'm never going to watch any of them.

You can't hurry a loaf of bread. You have to wait for it to prove and rise.

We all have somebody in our lives, that however closely related or not, is affected by terminal illness and these amazing nurses, who often work through the night with people, not only suffering from a terminal illness but their families, they're just extraordinary people.

My problem with present buying is usually lack of time. Not because I'm super-busy, I'm just super-lazy. I leave everything to the last minute and end up running up and down the high street on Christmas Eve like a crazed baboon.

We have our detractors. If we didn't, that would be weird. That would make me feel, 'Oh God, we must be really bland.' You have to have detractors.

I'm very competitive about puns.

Eurovision' lifts you off your feet - and, by that, I mean the absolute joy, total insanity and madness of the whole thing.

Look at someone like Mary Berry, for God's sake, that woman is just such an inspiration... what's to say you can't do stuff for years and years and years?

Any donation does make a difference. Getting involved is what makes BBC Children in Need so moving.