RORY BREMNER

It's a new world that's very, very difficult to make sense of. But we have a new hope. We have a new man. America has now elected its first openly black President.

I remember driving home one evening while they were reviewing the papers on the radio. One of the articles was about me separating from my wife. It's a weird thing to listen to a news report about the break-up of your marriage.

I've no idea what they make of me. People usually don't recognise themselves in an impression.

Like millions of Scots, I've agonised over whether to go for independence or remain with the Union.

I think if there is a God, it's very important that he has a sense of humour - otherwise, you are in for a very miserable afterlife.

British politics is more nuanced. Part of the problem with New Labour is that they are a moving target.

When I was growing up, there were just the three channels, so as a nation we all sat down to the same meal at the end of the day. Now there's been this explosion.

For such a small country, Britain packs in an amazing diversity of landscapes: coastline, lakes, mountains, rolling countryside, villages and great cities.

Now I'm instantly nervous about the demands of doing a weekly column.

I am proud of Edinburgh's status as a financial centre, but where is it on the index of global financial centres? Sixty-fourth. Below Hamilton, Casablanca and Mauritius. London, by contrast, is second only to New York. That's a link worth keeping.

In a more intellectually rigorous age, I wouldn't be talked about as a satirist at all. I would just be a topical comedian.

I wish my father had lived longer. He died when I was 18.

What's fascinating about doing comedy about the referendum is, because it is the first time, it is the most extraordinary atmosphere. You find that if you are making jokes about politicians, it becomes intensely political.

It is a weird thing, because most people tend to get more conservative as they get older, but I find myself going the opposite way. I am sure that by the end I will be selling Marxist pamphlets on the Holloway Road.

I've never felt entirely comfortable in high society. I'm more comfortable talking to the bar staff than the super-rich. I don't really get what makes them tick.

For some time, Scotland's greatest exports to England have included whisky and Scottish MPs. Or, in the case of Charles Kennedy, both. All these links, politically, economically, culturally, are part of my Union. Would Glasgow's brilliant Commonwealth Games or the Edinburgh Festival be any better for our being independent? I doubt it.

In truth, I barely knew my father at all. He was 53 when I was born, and when I was ten he contracted cancer. Eight years later, in 1979, he died.

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

I can't look at John Prescott without thinking of Les Dawson, and Robin Cook is a caricature of himself.

I love anywhere new and different. That's the fun of travel. I've always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy - sometimes in an Alfa Spider.

People may say that what I do is very clever, but it's not really at all. It's not Swift.

To get to do a West End play is once in a lifetime chance.

Location is everything, I'd rather camp in the Lake District or Scotland than sit in a five-star hotel in Frankfurt.

I don't think my life would be significantly poorer if I don't impersonate Nick Clegg. Life is short enough without sitting up night after night listening to tapes of him.

I don't have olive skin. Nobody could tell from my skin that I'm Mediterranean. I'm quite fair, and I do burn easily.