I also think it helps that Black Books has a fusty and careworn feel - it could be the 1950's, it could be the 1930s.

One thing that's coming up a lot is: are you as grumpy as you appear from this Black Books thing.

You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.

I draw hundreds and hundreds of pictures of sort of gnarly looking men, so I don't know what that tells you. People who look like... they're waiting for a sandwich that's never going to come. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I'd be hard-pressed to think of anybody who's made me laugh, who's funny, but who's also relentlessly positive.

I'm really not big on nationalism, to be honest with you. I really don't think it gets people anywhere except near a pile of dead bodies. I'm Irish, yeah, but I don't need to get up on a soapbox about it.