My beard is just an ongoing effort to hide my face as much as possible.
Romesh Ranganathan
I've had a Hindu upbringing. There's a lot about it I think is cool. Temples are amazing. It's a nice vibe when people are praying. And there's lots about it where I understand why they believe those things. But I'm not practising.
Education seems to be placing increased emphasis on assessment and tracking, which means parents are terrified that if their kid doesn't exceed their expected learning level at six years old, they are immediately put in the class that ends up working at McDonald's.
I strive for honesty because I think that's where the funniest stuff comes from.
I used to love the Wu-Tang Clan. They took my school by storm, by which I mean the three kids in my year who listened to hip-hop. I skipped lectures to go and buy their second album, 'Forever', and then rushed home to listen to it.
Social media has exacerbated a trend whereby people speak with complete authority on every subject, regardless of how informed they are.
Supermarkets and specialist suppliers will have you believe there are great substitutes for cheese. There are not. No vegan cheese tastes anything like decent cheese, and melting cheese might as well be alchemy as far as the vegan cheese industry is concerned.
In the past, I have been guilty of returning from work with some parenting words of wisdom, ignoring the fact that my wife has been dealing with the situation for a while. The correct strategy at these times is to wind my mansplaining neck in.
I was a teacher before comedy, but it was good because no two days were the same, which this job is too.
I chose to be a maths teacher because I thought the marking would be easy. You'd just tick and cross, whereas if you're an English teacher, you've got to read essays. Then they said I had to analyse the methodology. It takes an eternity, it's insane!
New Year's resolutions have always been something to beat myself up with by the second week of January. It seems perverse to set yourself up for failure right at the start of the year.
I tend to be melodramatic and super self-involved.
I'll play anything Mario- or Zelda-related, but Fortnite is one step beyond me. I don't get anything from it but motion sickness and an increased sense of anxiety about how violent future generations are going to be.
Teaching is so solid and reliable, comedy is not.
I know you're supposed to love yourself, but I really hate the way I look. When I look in the mirror I'm so disgusted by the chocolate blancmange abomination staring back at me, I actually apologise to my wife for my physical appearance. I've got no backside, an overhanging belly and I'm so disproportionate.
I'm hugely negative, so if a joke doesn't land it takes me a long time to get over it. If something doesn't go well I go dark in my head. Basically I start thinking it should be illegal for me to be doing comedy.
My comedy career aside, I am a father of three, a husband, a son, a brother and a vegan.
To avoid depression while travelling, I always take loads of items that make me feel connected with home. I can't even explain the joy I felt when I realised I'd remembered to pack my vanilla and mango scented beard oil. The feeling of euphoria was similar to my kids being born.
Usually, if I have a day to write, I will spend the first hour thinking about how I am going to structure my day. I will also spend time helping my kids to get ready for school. Then I spend an hour making and eating breakfast, because balanced nutrition has suddenly become very important.
One day, I brought home Eddie Murphy's 'Raw', and Dad and I would watch that together.
I realised I had an issue with my mobile phone use when a friend started explaining the virtues of the Fast 800 diet and, while still engaged in the conversation, I pulled out my phone and ordered the book before they had finished their sentence.
My obsession with hip-hop has given me an addiction to trainers, which are very much a young person's game, and I am known to rock a full tracksuit, under the pretence that it's more comfortable to travel in.
I want to say things on stage that I wouldn't have the guts to say in conversation.
The key to a happy marriage is myself being absent for long periods of time. My wife Leesa and I will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary next year, but if my comedy gigs petered out and I was around the house more, we'd 100% be getting divorced.
I have a hip-hop podcast and get to meet all these rappers I love, so I feel very lucky.
All of the most interesting people had a horrible time as kids. All the best rappers struggled.
Years later, when I was working as a trolley wally in a supermarket, I tackled the boredom by talking to the customers in as many different accents as I could manage. I started with one that I didn't think would alert any suspicion - generic Asian - then moved on to Irish, Welsh, Australian and American.
Getting a sleeve at my age is a midlife crisis for the man who can't afford a sports car.
Because let's be clear about this: birthdays are for children. It's the one day of the year where they get properly spoilt and are the centre of attention, and they get the presents they really, really want.
Announcing a diversity initiative, or making it a cause, exerts unwanted pressure.
I loved stand-up, but I never thought you could do it as a job.
People assume that your audience is full of people who love you. But, typically, it's one person in four who's chosen to come and has convinced some other people to go with them.
There's nothing less funny than somebody trying to be funny. I loved Jack Dee, then I met him and I became the least funny human to exist because of my desperation to say something amusing.
I used to do standup about footballers; they are easy targets because they are traditionally seen as stupid.
David Beckham is always seen as the thickest man on the planet, too daft to complete a jigsaw puzzle. But then you watch old footage of him playing and every time he plays a ball across the field, he's intuitively working out the trajectory of the ball.
The contrast of being in the spotlight when you're very young and then suddenly not can be really bad for your mental state.
Actually, the reason I'm a huge Arsenal fan is because when my dad moved over from Sri Lanka, he lived in north London and fell in love with Arsenal. Then he moved to East Grinstead and bought a pub, which he turned into an Arsenal pub.
I have Asian friends - second generation - and I am the worst in terms of being in touch with my heritage.
My mum's financial plan is: Romesh becomes a millionaire.
I've always loved American stand-up. Richard Pryor is one of the main reasons I got into stand-up. After Pryor, I made my way through the other great American comics, then finally got into the British ones over here.
When I first started watching stand-up, I fell in love with American comedy before British comedy.
What we're increasingly seeing is comics are becoming better known across the world. They're recording shows wherever they are, then putting them online for everyone. It has definitely changed in that way.
I mean, my stand-up is very honest and exposing in this way. I probably carry that into everything I do.
In the 10 years I've been with my wife we've probably argued twice.
It's such a privileged thing to say, but I'm still that same lazy person!
We are entering an age where people can claim to know more about what really happened than the people who were there. Where people will dismiss eyewitness accounts, on the basis of their gut feelings; where they will refute scientific discoveries because the scientist just doesn't look trustworthy.
Our house was repossessed and we lived in a B&B until we got a council house. It was a struggle, but Mum just got her head down, found cleaning jobs and never complained. I owe her a lot, so I now do everything she says.
Mum came to Crawley from Sri Lanka at 19 after marrying my dad. Later, Dad had financial problems and they split for a while.
When I started doing stand-up, I resigned from my job as a maths teacher and, three days before I was due to leave, my dad passed away.
There is a magical, unexplainable phenomenon that still occurs to this day where, however funny you think the material you've written is, as soon as you turn up to a gig to try it out, it becomes almost incoherent.
