A lot of racism comes from projection. White Americans have a stereotype of black people being criminals purely because they can't acknowledge that it was actually white people that stole them from Africa in the first place.

Of course, it's hard to get interested in the whole idea of government. Nothing ever changes, especially people saying 'nothing ever changes,' despite the fact their kid now has a free nursery place and their aunt was forced to work despite having dementia.

In my early 20s, there was a period when all I owned was about a dozen CDs and a crappy Discman. I'd listen to 'The Man Who Sold The World' album endlessly as I sat on off-peak trains jerking around the Sussex countryside to and from the asylum I worked in.

The Conservatives have never been a party burdened by needless sentimentality; some MPs only keep their children's photos in their wallet to make sure that at the end of term they don't bring the wrong one home.

We fear the arrival of immigrants that we have drawn here with the wealth we stole from them. For much of the rest of the world we must be the focus of bitter amusement, characters in a satire we don't understand. It is British people that don't learn languages, or British history. Britain is the true scrounger, the true criminal.

We live in a culture built on debt, so we are encouraged to have no self control.

Islamic State practise a brand of Islamic law so strict that apparently Raqqa only has two Irish Pubs.

I can make a joke pointing out that David Cameron told off Sri Lanka for human rights abuses committed with weapons Britain sold it - like Ronald McDonald calling you a fat bastard.

You can actually make your own Trump policies by going through the incinerator at the Daily Mail and picking through the dust for anything they thought might get them prosecuted.

It is part of my job description to be offensive.

They say that the older you get, the more conservative you become: perhaps that's the reason there are no Tories in Scotland.

I went through a brief phase years ago of getting Men's Health then I realised there are actually only three ways to do a sit-up and they're just repackaging it endlessly.

In the future we will all be famous for 15 minutes. It will be on a daytime magazine programme and we will each wear a tasteful shirt and slacks combination. We'll be interviewed by a soothing voice under a clock that's permanently set to 4pm. We will talk about the weather. We will record for months to get 15 minutes they can use in the edit.

The Internet shows me how limited my interests are - there's everything out there and I'm still looking at what the weather's going to be like in Scotland.

There is no doubt I have offended many people. No doubt, also, that I have blasphemed. I sometimes try to offend as part of my routine - after all, the essence of humour, even in a child, is the effort to shock and surprise.

Your ruling class don't care about what happens to you. What seems like some enormous upset in your community is undetectable from a helicopter or a speeding motorcade. They are pitiless.

Trump divides his time between working some kind of 'King Ralph' angle, and claiming that he's going to make the U.S. great again by using his business experience. We can only assume that means repeatedly declaring it bankrupt, then changing its name so he can just shake off all the debt.

If you feel more emotion looking at a picture of queuing lorries than a picture of desperate humans living in a lay-by, you need to check your bedtime routine for someone beating you round the head with a meat tenderiser.

Having our privacy exposed is particularly crushing for the British - a nation for whom the phrase: 'How are you?' really means: 'Please say one word, then leave me alone.'

I doubt anyone has ever accused comedians of solidarity before. It's hard to think of a less collegiate world than that of unabashed professional narcissists competing for attention; even when we reluctantly band together on panel shows, we're only trying to sell solo tours.

The average British person would hear me doing my joke about Rebecca Adlington and realise there's no malice in it. It was an off-the-cuff ad lib.

Only the British could experience great pain at the thought of a traffic jam - a place where you can sit alone with your radio on without being expected to do any work. Aren't traffic jams unbearable? By the time you get home, you need to sit alone in a comfy chair with your favourite music on just to calm down.

British people have a really sophisticated sense of humour, because we're exposed to much more than Europeans and Americans, not least in our literary heritage.

America has gone from the Obama Years to the Trump Years, like going from the 'West Wing' to a sitcom where the incidental music involves a tuba.

I worry about everything in this country in particular.

Remember, taboos are just a map of what a society feels it's acceptable to be neurotic about. Taboos aren't rational.

I have no real enemies in comedy, but there are a couple of people who I'd laugh about if I heard that their legs had fallen off.

Doug Stanhope is great - I saw his 'Burning the Bridge to Nowhere' show and it was inspiring. He's like an anti-shaman, taking the sting out of a bunch of things we've chosen to give a symbolic power to. I've made it sound noble and worthy there, it's not, it's really funny.

I loved the idea of Bowie as an artist, with his Burroughsian cut-up technique, creating these undecipherable, abstract songs, where we all projected our own meanings onto his jarring word choices and unexpected chord changes.

Comedians shame people.

I've said jokes where I thought people might get up and hit me for this. A couple of people have thought about it. But they didn't. It gives you a lot of power, because if you're on shows where people are worried about getting sacked and you're not, then you're transcendent because you say what other people would like to say.

I read tons of comic books. My favourite is Grant Morrison, a Scottish comic writer.

I absolutely loathe adverts. I won't go into the cinema until 20 minutes after the film is due to start because there are so many.

Comedy is a terrible way to meet women. It's certainly a way to start talking to them, but they always have preconceptions about you.

I've never felt any sense of kinship with other comedians; they've always seemed too needy.

I have some friends who are comedians but not many.

I love the BBC and I think it's a really important thing.

I'm not cynical at all.

That's what I do in my stand-up. I work hard and hone the material and after a while audiences expect what I do to be good.

I think the most important things my book does is to give readers the address of George Monbiot's website and how to get hold of comic books by Grant Morrison.

The thing that nobody really said about Rebecca Adlington is that she looks pretty weird. She looks like someone who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon.

How hard is it to get female panellists?

I did a ski festival in Austria once. I was struck by how friendly Austrians were, before gradually realising it's more that Glaswegians are awful.

There's still a lot of racism in stand-up.

Supporting Celtic, waving a tricolour because your parents are Irish - that's a valid culture.

Supporting Rangers, being in an Orange Lodge, that whole life - that's a valid culture.

I think you have a lot of rich and Conservative people who control our country who are racist and their views trickle down through things like tabloid papers.

In a lot of farther-flung places in Scotland people are guarded at first, but as soon as they get to know you they really hate you.

There are a lot of problems with democracy. We need to think about how to find the people most qualified for the job.

People feel much more comfortable with the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' version of women's liberation: possibly feeling life would be much simpler if the suffragettes hadn't wanted the vote and just really enjoyed chaining themselves to railings.