JACK DEE

I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere.

I really hated fighting people and hurting them, but felt unable to stop.

But I like going to church. If you've been brought up in the Church of England, it feels like visiting an elderly relative. And I think it's important that part of the kids' education is knowing about the Bible.

In many ways, not fitting in has been a comedic asset and a comedic resource.

It's something that has informed quite a lot of my comedy - that idea of someone who is always trying to get in there with the right crowd, always trying to be a certain type of person and never managing it.

I don't like men who blow-dry their hair. If you are a man and you blow-dry your hair, then I don't like you and that's all there is to it.

In particular, I found praying very disturbing, like swimming with bricks tied to your feet. And yet I was drawn to it constantly.

Well, I don't ever get excited. I haven't been excited since I got a Chopper bicycle when I was about 12. Once you get older you realise there's always a catch to everything. So when I get, say, a commission to make a TV show, the catch is that you have to deliver something and then the sense of responsibility overwhelms the joy of the occasion.

I took religion much too seriously, however, and its overall effect was depressing. I would have really liked to discard it, but somehow I couldn't.

If I'm pushed, I'd also have to admit I don't like people with allergies. They just annoy me. There seems to be something far too self-centred about it. 'No thanks, I'm allergic.' Why not just say 'No thanks'? I wasn't asking for your medical history, I was just passing around the nuts. Trying to be friendly, that's all.

I had a longing for ritual, something I could cling to, a routine to make me feel well and contented. I hoped that reading Bible commentaries and theological critiques would nudge me closer to some kind of absolute that I could hold up as a torch to light my way.

Possibly I am difficult to live with, but I don't bring my work home much. I'm either busy or not busy. And I don't work from home. I have an office here which has a white wall. No view. I did try working in a room with a view but it was too interesting. Too distracting.

The rain forest has Sting. Now Siberia has Jack Dee. Someone had to draw the short straw. In this case it was the rain forest.

I was on various anti-depressants, but not for long - I didn't function very well on them. I felt sort of flattened out.

One Saturday in 1984, I walked into my first AA meeting. I went regularly for six years and only stopped when I came to realize my underlying problem was not genuine alcoholism, but depression.

There were a few teachers who just did not like me because of my face. Once, I was told to stand in the corner until I cheered up. The attitude was, 'Oh, for God's sake, what's the matter with him?' But it's just a natural expression.

One of my friends went on a murder weekend... now he is doing life for it.

I was so keen to become a comedian that actually doing the comedy itself almost came second.

I love mixing with comedians when I'm working with them, but when I'm not I don't feel the need to hang around with them.

I tend not to trust people who live in very tidy houses. I know that on the surface there is nothing wrong with a person being well-ordered and disciplined. Nothing, except that it leaves the impression of that person having lived in the confines of a stark institution which, although he or she has long since left, remains within.

If I've inadvertently become some sort of role model for failed comedians, then it's really backfired very badly on me.

My character, Rick Spleen, is a what-if version of me, really, where nothing did quite turn out right and everything else is still around the corner.

I really like rustic mediterranean cooking. And I like trying out curry takeaways.

Mmmm... the comedy that matters is the comedy you pull out of thin air. It's a bit like when something funny has happened and you try to explain it to someone else and end up saying, 'You had to be there.'

The book is called 'Thanks for Nothing' and it's really the story of how I got into comedy and traces back every strand in my life that is relevant to that story. It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up.