I can. I’m a creature of routine if you don’t count filming and holidays. Steve (Merchant) and I start work at about 11am and up until that point all I’ve done is got up, had breakfast and had a bath. I finish work at about three and then put in all my meetings, admin and that sort of thing. Then I work out. I do like to work out every day, seriously, and I want to imagine what I’d look like if I didn’t. I’m in my slippers by about six, unless I’m out for the evening. Then it’s 8.30 – rock and roll. I lead a very normal life, if a bit more privileged, because I don’t start work until 11.

What's your tipple of choice? Ricky Werra, Halifax

At home it’s beer or wine – a full-bodied red wine or maybe a nice pinot grigio, but very chilled. I’m a bit of a pleb because I like it not just chilled but very cold. In the bar, it has to be a pint. You can’t ask a big barman for a glass of wine and then say, “Can you make it colder please?”

Where do your ideas come from and how do they develop? Andrew Cruxton, Lancaster

They come from my head. Real observations, usually – I’m a people watcher. You know that if you’re in the industry, films are ruined because you can see all the edits, all the joins. I’m like that with people. I can be talking to a perfectly normal person and I think, “Oh, you said something funny.” Or I can be watching somebody sitting on his own and I'll think, “I bet his wife just left him,” and I want to know if I’m right. I’ve never asked, though, because you can’t, and I try not to stare at people now because I know it’s rude.

I do like a realist base to my humour, not clichés such as the difference between men and women. I don’t like surrealist rants either. I like observations and I like taking things to their logical conclusion.

You said that after the success of The Office, you felt as if stand-up comedy was your proving ground as a serious comedian. Is that how you approached it and can we expect more stand-up? Sam Churchill, London

It sort of was. I also felt guilt that most comedians slog around for 30 years and try to get a sitcom and I just turned up at the BBC and said, “Can I have a sitcom” and they said yes, so I thought I should do some stand-up.

But you are naked up there on your own, and you don’t have the mask of a character – although I do have a bit of a persona and I think most people do – but you just have to go up there in front of everyone and say that this is the funniest stuff I could think of.

It was also a bit of an experiment. Everything I’ve done has been a bit of an experiment. With The Office it was, can I write a sitcom? Then with Animals it was, can I write a stand-up show? It was harder than The Office. I've said The Office came to me very easily, but now that I’ve done both I’ve decided that writing a good sitcom is harder than stand-up. Stand-up is a lot more practised – honing the lines and getting the delivery right. You can hone a sitcom for 30 years and never get it right. I’ve decided that I’m slightly prouder of being a writer-director than being a stand-up. It may be because I'm not the greatest stand-up comic in the world.

I’m going to do another stand-up show called Science, which I intend to be my last and most extravagant. I wanted to do the first one on science but I didn’t think I would be able to do it justice so I saved it. I do feel that I’m a scientist. I mean, I believe in science as opposed to astrology and crystallography and God – they go against logic and what you observe happening. I’ll be on the side of science, even if the show is pseudo-science.

When writing The Office, did you intend its appeal to be universal, or were you aiming for a specifically British audience? Have you been surprised by its global popularity? James Yew, London

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