Romesh Ranganathan

My garage/office is strewn with Post-its, cards, folders, notebooks, yoga mats and multicoloured pens, all purchased in a quest to unlock a magic way of working that will ensure my ascension to next-level creativity.

I have long believed that success stories need a bit of balance. We only hear from people who risked it all, and found it paid off.

I owe much of my success to Seann Walsh. He kept recommending me for Live At The Apollo until eventually the producers offered me a gig.

I would not have succeeded as a comedian had I not had some hugely lucky breaks.

I used to think that people just hate vegans; I have since discovered that everybody hates anyone who abstains from anything.

When you spend your day writing comedy, particularly with others, the discussion of jokes and how far to push things with a group of unoffendable colleagues means that your grasp of what is acceptable in normal conversation is often skewed.

It is fair to say that I am generally very bad at keeping in touch - with everyone. When I read a text, my brain seems to think that I have replied to it, and so I am often genuinely surprised when people tell me I haven't.

I thoroughly enjoy my children's birthdays, despite the fact their parties are an apocalyptic mix of hall-booking, Nerf-gun-hiring, refreshment-organising and talking to parents whose names you've forgotten.

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.

My wife and I have three boys, and it turns out this is the perfect number to ensure that you are never doing something that everybody wants to do.

When my wife and I promised the rest of our lives to each other, I doubt either of us suspected that life would involve quite so much TV.

I have read that, when you are writing or working on something creative, and your attention wanders, your brain is processing and working on what you have just done. But I find it hard to believe that my brain is really taking five hours to fully process the seven minutes I have managed to spend focused on one thing.

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.

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.

As a young child, I loved the hugs and kisses, but I also remember getting to the age when they no longer felt OK. My parents would kiss me when they dropped me off at school, which was obviously embarrassing because having loving parents makes you a social pariah.

My childhood memories are filled with hugs and kisses from both my mum and dad. My mum has a thing about kissing you an odd number of times: if she kisses you once, all good, but if she kisses you twice, then you know another one has to follow and, weirdly, she tends to go for the forehead.

Getting a sleeve at my age is a midlife crisis for the man who can't afford a sports car.

I will admit to being slightly embarrassed that I am getting tattoos relatively late in life. Tattoos are meant to be something you get in your 20s when you're actually worried about your appearance.

I was terrible at sport at school. I was fat, which made things slightly tougher, but it also meant that people were encouraging to the point of patronising.

In life, we mostly manage to walk around interacting with each other fairly politely. But as soon as we get into our cars, we morph into something out of 'Mad Max'.

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 have long been guilty of dressing too young for my age.

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.

I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn't like them.

People say that I'm quite grumpy and negative on stage and that I surely can't be like that off it, but I really am.

Everyone seems so excited by the fact that music is more accessible, people can find new artists more easily and it's cheaper, without focusing on the potential negatives, not least of which is that idiots can more easily listen to your favourite music.

I'm not suggesting I met a significant enough number of them to constitute a robust sample size, but I am saying that my general impression of Sri Lankans is that they are friendly, chatty and hospitable people.

Having curry for breakfast is a thing of beauty.

Sri Lanka's interpretation of western cuisine is pretty diabolical. Sri Lankan food itself is ace, however, and they bloody love a buffet. Even if you go to a basic-looking cafe, they can knock up four or five different curries for you very quickly.

All of the most interesting people had a horrible time as kids. All the best rappers struggled.

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.

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.

The error that many vegans make is forgetting that our food has novelty value. Non-vegans think our food is awful, but are fascinated by the prospect of something vegan being delicious. They want to disprove it.

It's much easier for the vegan to remain at home and do their own Christmas dinner. That way, you can enjoy your food without someone making some hilarious comment about your stuffed pepper.

Veganism is a point of contention all year round. So much so that many vegans cut themselves off from the rest of society, huddling together for warmth and smugness, and using online forums to vent their disgust at the morally corrupt dairy- and meat-eating savages who make up most of the populace.

I am not obliged to tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs, nor am I qualified to do so.

My problem is that we are all listening to music in a more disposable fashion.

Consuming art should involve investment and risk.

I want to say things on stage that I wouldn't have the guts to say in conversation.

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.

Announcing a diversity initiative, or making it a cause, exerts unwanted pressure.

Black Panther is a great film'. It has the most compelling villain of any Marvel movie, and it deals admirably with the issue of diminishing jeopardy in a million superhero films where the world is going to end.

Trumpeting diversity undermines what you are trying to achieve in the first place. It should happen without fanfare.

Some of the best comedy comes from squeezing humour from tragedy and struggle, but the main pursuit of comedy should be laughter.

We've all seen comedians look like they're reaching just a little bit too much for the laugh. This is counterproductive. The conceit of standup is that it is effortless, which makes the prospect of generating new comedy a tricky one: you are trying to be funny without looking like you are trying to be funny.

Trying to be funny is arguably the least funny thing you can do.

My life consists of intense focus on urgent areas of development, and then abandonment of that focus shortly afterwards.

My comedy career aside, I am a father of three, a husband, a son, a brother and a vegan.

Being away a lot on tour means that my family has to suffer an inordinate amount of overcompensation, as I return home with skewed ideas of what counts as quality time. I will force everyone into a cinema trip, insistent that three hours in the dark in silence is the perfect way for us all to re-engage.

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.