OK! life lessons
The comedian, 53, on his secret passion, crying at everything and his happy place
My secret talent is…
hot air ballooning. About five years ago a lady from my wife’s book club came round our house. She was 75 and had just had a heart attack, so she was selling her hot air balloon. It was £5,000, so I bought it, then tweeted about it and it turned out the world champion hot air balloonist lived about 20 miles from me. We went out to Italy and I learned how to hot air balloon.
The best thing my parents taught me was…
well, as a kid I always said that I wanted to be an interpreter. Then one day my dad turned around to me and said, “Don’t be the interpreter, be the one who’s interpreted.” He was basically telling me to aim higher.
My biggest regret is…
selling my home in London too early. I sold my house to Salman Rushdie and he’s just sold it to [singer] Rex Orange County. My kids went crazy! Marvin Gaye also lived there.
One thing I would change about myself is…
patience. I’m very impatient!
If I had one day left on earth, I would…
go to a Lebanese restaurant and have a blowout meal. I’d then go to the nearest off licence and buy a crate of lovely red wine and down it. Then I’d grab my dogs and my pigs and fall into my hot air balloon and fly up.
If I could pass any law, it would be…
I would ban all laws – all parking laws especially. To me, a great country is one where you can park anywhere and everyone survives. In Italy you can park wherever you want. I just think traffic wardens are tax collectors.
My pet peeve is…
slow walkers – I can’t bear them! I think somewhere there’s a secret organisation that has an army of slow-walking people just waiting for me. They watch me and say, “Right he’s coming out of his house. Agent one, go!”
I’m most proud of…
the fact that I’m still being paid after 20 years of doing something I love.
The last time I cried was…
watching
The Dig. It’s a really good film and there are a couple of moments where I shed a tear because it’s really sad. But I shed a tear at anything.
The happiest day of my life was…
my wedding. Not! It was an absolute nightmare. Having children was equally traumatic [laughs]. Every year I go to Canada, where my wife is from. We get in my boat, go to the middle of the lake called Lake Joseph and there’s this little island that I’ve been going to since I was a kid that I’ve named Jacker after my children Jackson and Parker. We climb up to the top of a cliff and jump into the lake. That’s my happy place.
Dom Joly was speaking to us as Bt launches halo 3+ with hybrid connect, offering customers an unbreakable home connection. hybrid connect monitors your Broadband connection. if it notices an issue it switches to an ee 4g connection to ensure households keep connected.
‘my wedding day was an absolute nightmare!’