What is your greatest fear?

Dying in a plane crash and having somebody else get top billing.

Not working and not being able to continue to live this lifestyle.

I think that loss of speech, and of understanding of speech, and of understanding of writing, and of coherent writing – these losses will amount to the loss of my mind. I know what this feels like and it has no insides, no internal echo. Mind means talking to oneself. There wouldn't be any secret mind surviving in me.

A crippling accident.

Being found out.

The loss of anything, be it a loved one or a faculty—my sight, hearing, or mind.

Dying of the same awful disease that took my mother – a particularly aggressive form of dementia called Pick’s disease.

People laughing at me, which is terrible for someone who makes a living out of making people laugh.

Running out of options.

Spiders, needles, blood, pain and breaking wind in public.

When I get to the restaurant and don’t see any hot sauce on the table.

Outliving my kids – and rats.

Being stuck in a project that’s not challenging me, or true to my nature.

Not fulfilling my potential.

Balloons. I have a big phobia of balloons. Big.

That I can’t write.

Ironically, it’s talking to hundreds of people in a room.

Being lost and no one wanting to find me.

Slugs. And planetary annihilation.

When I was little, a couple of rapes took place in Glasgow. I remember my mum saying to walk in the middle of the pavement, and to this day I am very conscious of where I am.