So, humanity.
What is humanity?
What are we?
Well, we've touched upon it there.
We're great apes.
Not metaphorically! We're literally great apes.
We are 98.6% genetically identical to a chimpanzee.
We're closer to chimps than chimps are to gorillas.
We left our common ancestor about six million years ago.
We have the same life cycle.
Same as any other animal. Which is...
our parents mate...
we're born...
we grow...
we mate...
our parents die...
our friends die...
and then we die.
Now...
my seven-year-old niece didn't like hearing that.
But I said, "You've gotta learn. Stop crying."
I said, "You're seven.
You know... today.
So...
Any more grizzling and this party's cancelled, so..."
Let's take the first of those. Birth.
It's odd, because a human is born before the end
of its natural gestation period.
I mean, because of our evolution,
our brain is so big,
we have to get that huge head out early.
That's why the skull is in parts and supple.
Then we go on gestating outside the womb. That's why we're so useless.
Look at other mammals.
A giraffe is walking along.
It goes, "I'm proper pregnant." Right?
I'm gonna have a baby giraffe right here.
Yeah, there it is.
See you later.
And the baby goes,
"Mum!" It's got to be fucking ready.
We're... we're helpless, right?
Just think, nine months we're growing in this perfect environment.
Everything's...
It's like being in a little Kate Bush video, right?
Then, suddenly, you're being squeezed out of an hole near an ass.
You're covered in shit, there's screaming.
You go, "I can't breathe." Someone goes, "Yes, you fucking can!"
The first one second of life on Earth.
You don't know where you are.
You can't choose where you're born.
I was born in Whitley Estate in Reading, right?
I wouldn't have chosen that.
I'd have chosen Hampstead. I did choose Hampstead.
It just took 45 years to be able to afford it.
Very different. Very different,
my upbringing to how I live now.
Now I live a privileged life.
Hampstead is ridiculous. It's a rarefied place.
It's like the grandchildren of poets and painters
and me, new money, right?
But, growing up, it was tough!
I don't know about now, but in my day, my estate was rough and scary.
It felt like wildlife.
I was weak and vulnerable.
There was danger round every corner.
My school was on my street and I ran there every day,
so I didn't get mugged or molested.
There weren't many pedophiles in Reading, the murderers had killed a lot.
But there was still a couple.
I moved to Hampstead. Oh my god! There's no crime!
I saw a knife once in Hampstead.
It was a palette knife.
Just a bloke, oil painting, in the middle of the street.
Broad daylight, no-one gobbing on it or calling him "bender". It was weird!
I know my life has changed drastically,
It wasn't always like that.
As a famous person, you read about yourself.
Gossip and Twitter and everything.
One thing kept cropping up, even as I prepared for this tour.
People kept saying, "He's out of touch.
He's so famous. He's rich. He's mega-rich."
I am. Right?
I could have this place burnt down for a laugh.
No, but they say things like, "He's an observational comedian.
How can he say things that relate to ordinary...
scum."
And I say..
I say, "Don't call them scum, right?"
But even the papers, they try and... get around to it.
I do interviews and they'll always say,
"Do you always fly first class?"
I go, "No. Often private." Right?
The number of times I've answered this question. They say,
"Do you know how much a pint of milk is?"
To make you look out of touch.
I don't know, but that's irrelevant.
Next time a journalist asks me, I'll say, "I don't know.
But here's a grand. Run and get me one."
Is that enough? That enough? Yeah.
Another question I always get,
particularly with the posh Sundays, doing a profile piece.