I'm completely recipe-bound. Everything has to be prepped and laid out in separate bowls with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. I've no flair.

I'm not on Twitter because I'm worried I'd be really dull, which would be tragic for someone who's supposed to be funny.

There is surely a finite amount of European baked goods, isn't there?

The world is such a blooming topsy-turvy, fragile, bleak place.

I don't want to take things for granted.

Comedy can become quite addictive actually.

Mum and Dad have both got very well-tuned senses of humour.

It was an honour to be asked to do 'The Gift.' The producers took a risk asking me because, coming from a comedy background, I am not known for this kind of highly-charged, emotional show.

Nobody likes a presenter melting in a self-indulgent puddle of tears.

I'm really proud of 'The Gift.' There are stories we can all relate to - a first love that went wrong, a person who bullied us at school, a kind person we took for granted.

At Trinity College there was a coterie of the poshest of the posh, people you didn't ever see, they were so posh. They went to each other's rooms and, at weekends, each other's estates. I preferred to be with the weirdo bunch of raggle-taggle thesps.

I got into Cambridge and it all went downhill.

I would not describe myself as the best Catholic - I'm a bit of a cherry-picker. I like the community of it.

I probably go to church two Sundays out of four.

My kids both had Catholic junior school education, which I'm really glad for - it taught them how to be compassionate, how to be kind.

I've never seen 'Light Lunch' - only clips. But I do remember from those clips that there was a lot of bounding about and energy and I think that's probably slightly lessened over the years.

Of course there's pressure on you whatever timeslot you're doing, but I think there's more pressure on you as you go into the evening and I think being tucked away in a nice teatime arena feels quite nice.

People can now get to see anything they want, in any shape or form, anywhere, on laptop, iPad or 'phone. What's not controllable, though, is the live element. So there's still a real thrill for TV viewers in watching actors pulling it all together and performing live, and a real challenge for the actors.

I can hold a tune but it's a bit ropey.

Noel Fielding is a friend of mine and I love what he does.

I love performing in front of a live audience and just stepping out in front of ruddy Royal Albert Hall is just something, I can't describe it.

Performing on radio is great, you roll up with no makeup in pyjamas and nobody will know.

My siblings and I have got the worst teeth in Britain.

The Bake Off' taps into nostalgic feelings about your mum baking in the kitchen. It's a big ruddy comfort blanket, and you get attached to the bakers. It also genuinely has a good heart.

I take each thing as it comes and try and give it 110 per cent - it's just a blessing to be able to do different things.

I've always done stuff on stage, so it feels very natural.

I feel very lucky. 'Bake Off' has opened more doors for me. I was so delighted to get the job.

As someone who is a dedicated fan of the NHS, I'm extremely worried, I think its a very precious thing that needs to be nurtured, looked after.

Believe me, you don't want to play to an audience of seven in a village hall in Cumbernauld.

There is something a bit volatile about hosting a big live show like 'Eurovision.' Anything could literally happen.

For me, Christmas was always about presents. As a child, we each had an allotted place in the sitting room for the ceremonial unwrapping and mine was perched beside the telly on a Moroccan pouffe. We would watch our mum with bated breath as she divided up the gifts.

The older I get, as well, bloody hell - time's running out. I just feel, jeez, there's so much to do. I'm not going to try to change the planet but make changes just in a small way.

Is it rather stupid and dangerous to take Magna Carta so much for granted, as many of us seem to do, and to think of this attitude as 'very English?'

Compared to the big 19th-century novelists, I've got a slim volume of work.

Magna Carta has become totemic. It is in the comedy of Tony Hancock, in the poetry of Kipling, never far from the front pages in a constitutional crisis.

There are two big beasts in the arts: the BBC and Sky Arts - challenging, leading the way.

Class doesn't create culture anymore.

Television, above all, is the place where people can see the world they live in, and if the world they live in is a world without the arts, so much the worse for television, and so much the worse for the viewers.

I think television does tease out a certain vanity in everybody when you look at yourself and you go, 'Oh Christ.' Maybe that's why my intros get shorter and shorter.

I'm a class mongrel.

What artists are doing, and what people who are receiving the arts are doing, is entering into this agreement to occupy a parallel world. The parallel world is ever-expanding. We used to think that it existed only for people who were wealthy, well-born, or educated. It isn't like that.

It is in our culture that we don't want to admit that our culture is good.

Magna Carta has 63 clauses in abbreviated Latin. Two of them that are still on the statute book, numbers 39 and 40, could be said to have changed the way in which the free world has grown.

Too old at 72? Careful. Ageism is out. We'll have the law on you!

It is very difficult for middle-aged, institutionalised males who have done so well out of subsidy - and, fair play, given much back - to realise that there is a time to be a well-heeled revolutionary.

More people go to Tate Modern than watch the Arsenal.

It's amazing that Sky is the only place that has two dedicated arts channels. The BBC is doing very well... but why don't they do more?

Like university science departments, the arts have shown how they can earn their way and point to an economically newborn future for this country. They show that the U.K. could be a prime provider of imaginative riches and intellectual adventure, which I think are the two great prizes of the 21st century.

Miliband failed us, his Labour supporters. And Labour will now, because of him, be in a disaster zone for a long time.

I don't feel inferior in the slightest to anybody - or superior to anybody, let's get that clear. But I do feel different.