I'd edit out all the wrong people I surrounded myself with socially and professionally whom I thought I had to tolerate.

I would not toy with people's affections as much.

I would be richer, I’d have beaten Mrs Thatcher’s ban on women in the cabinet, and I would be a dame.

I would not let Nick Cassavetes direct My Sister’s Keeper, the film. He said [the ending] was going to match what was in the book, then changed it.

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.

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

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.

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

I worked in the largest pork pie factory in Europe. I had a plastic mushroom-shaped thing and had to tamp down the meat into the pie base. It was a conveyor belt of pies from nine to five. The worst thing was the crackly AM radio, which was played loudly through the tinny tannoy system. I still can’t listen to I’m Not In Love by 10cc without thinking of raw minced pork.