Q. You'll be 40 next birthday - are you having a huge birthday party?
A I'll do what I always do every birthday, Christmas and New Year - stay in and watch telly. I think my last big birthday party was for my 21st. My girlfriend wil make me a cake, though, bless her.

Q. What were you like as a kid?
A. Sporty. I was captain of the school football team. I hung out with the lads, but I was well behaved, really. The hieght of naughtiness then was putting an alarm clock in the teachers wastebin. No kids go aroiund stabbing staff and smoking crack, as I understand it.

Q. Could you have had a glittering footbal career?
A. I played for Middlesbrough Boys, and was captain of my university team, but then at 29, I just woke up one morning with rheumatoid arthritis. I was taken to hospital and I couldn't get out of bed or anything. I still turn out for charity when I can though.

Q. How did you end up a solicitor?
A. Just drifted into it really. I'm from one of those Northern families where you're expected to have a nice steady career at the end of your studying. I wanted to do sociology but I knew there'd be more chance of a job in law.

Q. When you first saw Vic Reeves did ou think, there's the comic future?
A. I did, as it happens. I met him backstage and we just clicked. I never thought I'd be a pat of it, though. I mean, I always made myself laugh, but I didn't imagine anyone else would get the joke. But my boss gavew me two and a half months off work and we wrote and recorded the first TV series, and I've never looked back.

Q. You and Vic are best mates?
A. Yeah. There's no one else that comes close for either of us in terms of sharing a laugh. We spend all our time killing ourselves at incredibly pathetic private jokes.

Q. Is it true that you write all your shows in Vic's garden shed?
A. Actually, it's more of a summe house. There's a table and two wooden chairs in there, plus a kett;e, and I generally bring over a bag of bisuits and some Woolworths pick and mix. We work from 11am to 3pm. There's only about four hours a day in us.

Q. Why do you do so many TV ads?
A. We both have families. So you think the money from that one'll build a loft extension, that one pays for the school fees, et cetera. Also, at the end of a series, we never expect to get commisioned for anything ever again.

Q. Do you live the life of a country gent?
A. Not at all. I don't have a trout farm, I'm just here with Lisa and my kids. I don't know anyone in the whole of Kent apart from Vic. I've been here for four years and had two visitors. It's not even as if I've got my London crowd partying down here. I can't be bothered - I seem to have got all that out of my system.

Q. Do you have a lot of land?
A. About two football pitches' worth. there's a small outdoor swimming pool which we got two days' use out of last year. A lot of greater spotted woodpeckers live near by - I heard they were endangered, but not round my way.

Q. Has fatherhood mellowed you?
A. No, it's driven me to the brink of a nervous collapse. It's the lack of sleep. Before, I would generally go to bed at 12 and get up at ten. Those days are gone for ever. No one prepares you for it, but when you see their heads emerging and you're scraping the scales off them, you realise it's a life sentence.

Q. What's your biggest indulgence?
A. Watching daytime TV. I like that feeling that it's just me and the bewildered and bedridden watching.

Q. What's your culinary speciality?
A. Eggs. My mum always said the test of a great cook was the quality of their eggs. I can make a pancake you can see through and I know a poached egg should be eased off a nice cold saucer into a pan with a drop of vinigar in it.

Q. Your favourite room in the house?
A. The kitchen. It's got a telly and a steel cooker and a great big sink, the full works. All my major life desicions are made there, like should I close that cupboard door or leave it slightly ajar? That's the kind of thing I ponder these days.Q. Favourite item of clothing?
A. White jeans from Marks & Spencer. They're very slim-fit. I've got about ten pairs. I like to find something that suits and stick to it. It saves time and heartache.

Q. Where will you be in 30 years time?
A. I'll be quite, quite dead, what with all my unfortunate medical conditions, plus smoking and drinking. But I've already started a healthier regime - I'm leaving longer stubs on my fags.