Trying to sell frozen food over the phone for a company called American Frozen Foods. It lasted about half an hour. I found myself telling people not to buy too much of it because it could go bad, and my supervisor said, “This job is probably not for you.”

When I was a kid I had a Saturday job in the stockroom of a supermarket. I remember everything in there being a little bit grubby and slightly sticky. We’d do things like play rugby with a swiss roll. I think of it every time I go shopping.

I used to be an ear-piercing specialist when I was 16, and had to pierce babies’ ears. It was horrendous. I had to practise on my friends – several have misplaced piercings.

When I was younger, I signed up to a job agency and thought I would be doing secretarial work, but they assigned me to clean toilets in a factory in Oldham.

Not doing Top Of The Pops when The Young Ones’ single went to number one.

I practise stoicism. Not the stiff-upper-lip, modern stuff, but the ancient Greek philosophy. You have to accept what you can’t change. I try to face forwards all the time. When that doesn’t work, I think about buying a machine gun.

My granddaughter is only one, but she gives the best hugs. That’s when I’m happiest at the moment.

Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Whenever Rik and I got stuck writing a script, we would put this on and the world would immediately seem to be a more stupidly brilliant place again.

I only ever wanted to be an actor or a rock star. I was suspended from school in the sixth form and allowed back only when I promised to join the army. But I lied.

I hit a bit of lumpy tarmac driving my motorbike over the Pyrenees in the early 1980s. There was no safety barrier and I found myself riding along the edge of a precipice on half the width of the tyres for 100 yards.