When I was growing up, and periodically going to India to visit my grandmother, my classmates would often ask me about the trains. There was an exotic fascination with people sitting on top of the carriages.

When we were growing up we were all asked to accept ourselves as British citizens, and I still hold on to this idea that multicultural Britain is possible.

But I like the process of putting a show together and the impact that Edinburgh has on me as a performer.

I got fired from a job years ago. It was an accounting job. They were basically trying to cut corners, so they employed a bunch of temps to do proper accounting. And it just caused absolute bedlam and I did get fired.

The U.S. government doesn't build your computers, nor do you fly aboard a U.S. government owned and operated airline. Private industry routinely takes technologies pioneered by the government and turns them into cheap, reliable and robust industries. This has happened in aviation, air mail, computers, and the Internet.

It's one of my government's ambitions to secure a seat for Ireland on the U.N. Security Council so that we can play an even greater role in international affairs and try to build what we all believe in, which is a world of laws.

I think clearly the United States, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other countries to move in that direction.

Whether it's 'Veep' or 'Homeland' or 'The West Wing' - which is a more idealised version of democracy - people are fascinated by politics.