13 Questions: Chris McCausland

Writing a show which I'm performing next week and doing gigs to make sure the material is working. It doesn't matter whether a show is ready or not, it will always get changed up to 10 minutes before.

Blind. Before I start the comedy their assumption is, "oh God, this is going to be a load of blind jokes". It happens in every walk of life. There's nothing more boring than a black guy doing only black jokes, or a fat man doing only fat jokes.

Taps that stop when you take your hand off them in toilets. Nothing annoys me more than washing one hand and then having to swap over.

Sold conkers to blind kids when I was young, because they couldn't get them themselves. I went to Worcester College for blind and partially sighted people, but could see quite a bit. I lost all the useful stuff 10 years ago. Now I dream of going conker hunting.

When you go home after a few drinks, never ever try to light a cigarette off a George Foreman grill. I burnt my face.

Action films. I still like Die Hard 1, 2 and 3 because I know what happens, but I watched 4 after I went blind and it was just one long action scene. It's the same with super hero films. Even if there is audio description on the DVD, they are just like an audio book. Now, give me a good old courtroom drama ...

Losing things. This weekend in Glasgow, I lost a bag with my stick in it. I had to spend the whole journey home explaining to people that I can't see. I'm not really a tappy tappy stick person, so I tend to leave them all over the place. I often think that when people find them they must wonder, "how did this bloke get home?"

At home. I'm self employed and do all my work from there. I'm only away when I have gigs. Getting to work, I either meet up with other guys on the bill, or there is the wonderful world of Access to Work. At first when I put in an application, they didn't have a clue where to go with it. None of their forms applied to me. The people in the office were great. We made a new form. They pay for somebody's time to drive me to gigs, help out, and then drive me back.

Delivering the Mersey Mart for 1.2 pence a paper when I was 13 years old. A few years ago, I applied to work as a spy with MI5 and got down to the last 30 out of 3 thousand. The reason I failed was because I was unable to go through an inbox of photos and assess the risk quickly enough. If Waterloo was about to be blown up and I didn't spot it, the DDA wouldn't really help me.

Gin and tonic. I know it is slightly camp, but I'm past the age of caring.

More hassle than it could be. However, it is also a unique selling point. As far as I am aware I'm the only blind person that makes a living from it.

Means that I don't compere gigs, because it involves a lot of talking to the crowd. I did it once and just pointed at people and said, "Your haircut's sh*t". If you've got 300 people in the room and you tell a joke, a hundred laugh, a hundred smile and a hundred don't know what you are talking about. Smilers are no good to me.

Any form of self-deprecating humour is good in moderation. It shows that you are willing to take the piss out of yourself. The audience warm to you, which gives you more room to move on and talk about anything else you like.

• Chris McCausland will be at the Soho Theatre between 15 and 18 October. He plays in Manchester and Liverpool early next year.