When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.

There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now, it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society, similar to a London society, a highbrow literature celebrity society.

Edinburgh is good craic. A romantic and beautiful city, it's one those places that makes me smile when I think about it - there are other places I would never dare go back to, but Edinburgh is very special.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

For comics, Edinburgh makes no financial or medical sense. Get an audience; that's the first task. Once the punters are in, simply make them laugh for an hour, and then sweat on the critics.

I was at a pharmaceutical conference in Dallas and bored out of my head. I'd split up from my missus and went downtown and had my kids' initials done, JLD, for Joseph, Luke and Daniel. Then I got back with my wife so I had her initials added during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - after I'd waited a few years to see if the marriage would work!

Edinburgh is my adopted home. It's a place where I wanted to come and live, and I managed to arrange my life so it happened.

Don't get me wrong, growing up in Edinburgh, I was all too familiar with the Hibs and Hearts rivalry. My father grew up in Leith - Hibee territory - just off of Easter Road on Albert Street.

I started studying business and finance in Edinburgh as a backup plan. I was still making music many hours a day, and when I was at university, the electronic music boom started really taking off globally.

During the summer of 2000, in the run-up to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's 100th birthday, I asked the Duke of Edinburgh if he was hoping to reach 100. 'Good God, no,' he spluttered, 'I can't imagine anything worse. What a ghastly idea.'

I went to anything that was on at the Lyceum in Edinburgh. I was quite geeky. There was a production of 'Look Back in Anger' with David Tennant and Kelly Reilly in it, and it blew me away. I still think about it and look back on it as the moment where I decided, 'I want to do that.'

For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like.

A new concept of God: "something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled God. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature?that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow?Mars?the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us.

When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.

There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society similar to a London society a highbrow literature celebrity society.

I do get recognized but I must say Edinburgh is a fantastic city to live if you're well-known. There is an innate respect for privacy in Edinburgh people and I also think they're used to seeing me walking around so I don't think I'm a very big deal.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.