Tim Vine

My house is a bit like a teenager’s bedroom. The kind of pictures you have hanging up on your wall say a lot about you. I’ve got ones of Evel Knievel, Elvis and Starsky and Hutch, signed by David Soul.

I’ll tell you what I love doing more than anything: trying to pack myself in a small suitcase. I can hardly contain myself.

Now you know those trick candles that you blow out and a couple of seconds.

I was reading a book… ‘the history of glue’ – I couldn’t put it down.

Black beauty – he’s a dark horse.

I’ve just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I’ll tell you what, never again.

People ask ‘do you make a conscious effort not to swear?’ – if you’re doing silly stuff you’re not tempted to put swearing in. All the comics from my childhood, who were funny without swearing, were the people that influenced me. What I do is quite traditional anyway.

So I rang up my local swimming baths. I said ‘Is that the local swimming baths?’ He said ‘It depends where you’re calling from.’

I love acting, but it’s all just a bonus.

Now, most dentist’s chairs go up and down, don’t they? The one I was in went back and forwards. I thought ‘This is unusual’. And the dentist said to me ‘Mr Vine, get out of the filing cabinet.

You see I’m against hunting, in fact I’m a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox.

So I rang up a local building firm, I said ‘I want a skip outside my house.’ He said ‘I’m not stopping you.’

So I went to the Chinese restaurant and this duck came up to me with a red.

With silly stuff, it’s seventy-five percent confidence. I always tell people that it’s because I’m nervous about getting that next laugh and I need to hear it. I always want to condense a joke.

I was at sea the other day and loads of meat floated past. It was a bit choppy.

I sit in places like Costa Coffee in Banstead and write rubbish. I need a deadline. I think about the 44 tour dates and keep imagining standing in front of all these people. Then every day I write 15 jokes minimum.

Apparently, one in five people in the world are Chinese. And there are five people in my family, so it must be one of them. It’s either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother, Colin. Or my younger brother, Ho-Chan-Chu. But I think it’s Colin.

Velcro: what a rip-off.

So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said ‘Who’s speaking please?’ And a voice said ‘You are.’

You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said ‘Parking Fine.’ So that was nice.

So I said to the gym instructor: ‘Can you teach me to do the splits?’ He said: ‘How flexible are you?’ I said: I can’t make Tuesdays.’

So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me “Can you give me a lift?” I said “Sure, you look great, the world’s your oyster, go for it.'”