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The editor of a newspaper, who is an old friend, asked me to write a column. According to her, I cracked lame jokes all the time and read voraciously.

'Mrs Funnybones' is based and structured around my columns, and it's about how a modern woman looks at India and how India looks right back at her. Since I have a weakness for illustrations, there are also a few funny illustrations in there as well.

If it were not for the fact that editors have become so timorous in these politically correct times, I would probably have a greater readership than I have.

In my first story, 'Mr. Mysterious & Company'... I was asked to take out some of the humor because editors were afraid reviewers would dismiss the book as a joke. Today, humor is enjoyed and no longer regarded as literary brummagem.

A friend of mine wrote a script, a feminist romantic comedy. She had a feminist scholar consult on it. My friend said, 'Oh, my friend Gillian read it and really loved it.' She goes, 'Gillian Jacobs, you mean: Britta Perry, feminist icon?'

There is an honourable tradition in British public life that those charged with authority at the top of an organisation should accept responsibility for what happens in that organisation. I am therefore writing to the prime minister today to tender my resignation as chairman of the BBC.

Professional humorists and cartoonists have to go through a stage in which they have to kill their own internal editor just so they can get stuff out. So whether they believe it or not, they need me on the other end to do that editing for them.

I'm not really as cool and collected as 'Mrs. Funnybones', but she is the woman I want to be.

My partner of 45 years is Australian, and a big part of her character is that marvellous quality of irony which Aussies possess. I relish their humour and sense of fairness.