Arthur Smith

Acting is the most demanding, painful job in the world.

When they meet a stand-up comic, people sometimes remark: 'That must be the hardest job in the world.' Among comedians, only Freddie Starr is not embarrassed and slightly appalled by this remark.

It is more interesting to be compared to someone famous, because it lets you gauge what perceptions people have about your appearance.

Obviously I am not bothered about men's fashion - is anyone, apart from Jonathan Ross?

An uninspiring canvas becomes a glamorous masterpiece when it is reattributed to a better-known artist.

It is London fashion week, and once again I haven't been invited to any shows. This is upsetting given my well-known love of fashion, or, as I think of it, playing with the dressing-up box.

I've been trekking the hills and lanes of the British countryside for nearly four decades now and I've come to associate my passion with overexcited poets rather than pampered painters.

I see my large nose, like half an avocado. I broke it falling downstairs when I was six, and it now resembles a large blob of play-dough.

Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended.

If you want to write something of length, however modern and radical, you must live the life of an elderly gentleman of the 1950s.

The Bible has no doubt had much influence in its time, but it provides very few laughs. None, in fact.

A female friend who caught me watching Fashion TV reckons its audience is largely made up of slobbering men who are just taking a break from the appalling Men & Motors channel. I don't agree.