“When I left uni, I carried on playing and trying out at stand-up.”

I’m a natural born show off. I love performing, and at school we had a really good music scene and an even better drama scene.

When I got to university, I played in bands and did sketch stuff and it was always about coming up with material, which is why I never really practised and have no chops!!

I see the holidays as a chance for kids to learn self-sufficiency.

And to be honest, it’s all about the sound, the noise, the rattle and hum. Who wouldn’t want to make a fantastic noise with drums and cymbals?!

I think it’s really easy to forget that – I’d sooner play something musical than flash, and as I can’t play anything flash.

I try to be musical. Drums can set a mood, create an impression, as much as anything else.

My mum had a cousin that had played when he was younger.

PimpCo is a little business I’ve got, which basically offers drummers the affordable opportunity to make their drums that little bit more bespoke.

Actually, when you’re doing something you love, even when you’re busy and it’s hectic you don’t feel the need to relax.

Louis Pasteur, the great scientist, said “chance favours the prepared mind”, which is a posh way of saying ‘do your homework’, but it’s an excellent piece of advice.

Music is endlessly fascinating.

I never used to take holidays and it would upset ex-wives and girlfriends, but working has me in a better mood than doing nothing.

Thanks to the internet, I buy lots of music, but thanks to my easily distracted nature, I forget about half of it!

All about how he developed his career and his creativity as a comedian. Lots of what he talks about is relevant to anyone in the creative arts.

I’m not an alcoholic, I am freedom fighter against the teetotal taliban.

Seriously, if you want to get inside the head of a stand-up comic, you could do a lot worse than reading Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up.

My dad was such a good dad that when he left, he left a huge scar. He was my superhero.

I was really scared to stay home alone when I was kid, and I would freak out whenever there was a noise after my parents left.

Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.

I’m just saying the producers and people who work on music are getting left out – that’s when it starts getting criminal. It’s like you’re working hard, and you’re not receiving. In any other business, people would be standing before Congress. They have antitrust laws against this kind of behavior.

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can’t get away this time!

About the joys and the courage, I really don’t know what other people think. I just know that I’ve never left Africa. I’ve lived there all my life. And one of the wonderful things, in spite of all the terrible things that happen in South Africa, is the way people continue to keep their dignity.

Climbing the economic ladder has been very hard for me; I still feel a great deal of guilt towards those I left behind.

Few names have left a firmer imprint upon the pages of the history of American times than has that of Ty Cobb… he seems to have understood that in the competition of baseball, just as in war, defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.