You ask the questions

Comedian David Baddiel, 36, was born in New York but moved to England when he was four months old. While studying English Literature at Cambridge University, Baddiel became vice-president of the influential Cambridge Footlights comedy team. Shortly after graduating with a double first he teamed up with Rob Newman and started performing on the London comedy circuit. Together they created The Mary Whitehouse Experience, which was first broadcast on Radio 1 before transferring to BBC2. In 1993 Newman and Baddiel became the first British comedians to sell out Wembley Arena. A year later Baddiel started working with Frank Skinner, with whom he created Fantasy Football League as well as recording the single "Three Lions (It's Coming Home)", which went straight in at number one during the Euro 1996 football tournament. Baddiel has written two novels, Time For Bed and Whatever Love Means. He is currently in an unscripted comedy show called Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned (four nigh

Comedian David Baddiel, 36, was born in New York but moved to England when he was four months old. While studying English Literature at Cambridge University, Baddiel became vice-president of the influential Cambridge Footlights comedy team. Shortly after graduating with a double first he teamed up with Rob Newman and started performing on the London comedy circuit. Together they created The Mary Whitehouse Experience, which was first broadcast on Radio 1 before transferring to BBC2. In 1993 Newman and Baddiel became the first British comedians to sell out Wembley Arena. A year later Baddiel started working with Frank Skinner, with whom he created Fantasy Football League as well as recording the single "Three Lions (It's Coming Home)", which went straight in at number one during the Euro 1996 football tournament. Baddiel has written two novels, Time For Bed and Whatever Love Means. He is currently in an unscripted comedy show called Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned (four nights a week) as well as Baddiel Syndrome, an American-style sitcom about a man in therapy (Sunday, Sky One at 10pm).

Do you honestly think that beards are attractive? K Terry, London

On women, definitely not. The only reason I have my goatee is that I am very much a man who puts on fat in the face: therefore I use my goatee to create the illusion that I have a single chin. Essentially, it's a false jaw made out of hair. This illusion works very well as long as I am never seen in profile.

Whatever happened to Rob Newman? Carla Fielding, by e-mail

He became Robert Newman, the novelist and global satirist-cum-eco-warrior. He remains arguably the most wildly talented person I have ever worked with.

Has football become too middle-class and are you partly responsible for that? M Best, Cambridge

Ticket prices at football are far too expensive and should come down. However, the idea that football has always been and should always be purely a working-class sport is held mainly by middle-class journalists desperate to prove that they're not. In fact, most middle-class men of my generation have always been interested in football. The Johnny-Come-Lately middle-class football fan who only goes to the game because he thinks it's fashionable is a creation of fortysomething style magazine writers desperate to find something to oppose.

Can anything beat "Three Lions" and the long, hot summer of Euro '96? Linsay Maloney, Bristol

Not for me, I don't think. I hope to do a lot more stuff in my career, but I can't imagine anything actually beating the experience of being at Wembley, seeing England beat Holland 4-1, and then hearing the whole crowd sing words I co-wrote. My manager was with me at the time, and I remember him saying to me, "Whatever else happens to you - even if you win an Oscar - it won't be better than this." And I think he was right.

What does therapy do for you? Maya Wilcox, by e-mail

I don't know actually. The Freudian idea of therapy - that if you have a psychological problem, you must be repressing something and once you realise what that is through therapy, you can unrepress it and then you'll be fine - is obviously bollocks. Knowing what's wrong is not curative, psychologically, any more than it is physically: no more so than realising you've got cancer is going to cure you of it. Having said that, it's still an interesting process and it allows me me to talk about myself for 50 minutes without being accused of self-obsession.

You've claimed people slag you off because you're Jewish? What makes you think that's the case? J Conran, Cardiff

I didn't claim that. I was made to look like I'd claimed that through misquoting by a Daily Telegraph interviewer. What I actually said was that people who slag me off probably just don't like me, but that very occasionally - very occasionally - the level of vitriol I get directed at me by journalists is so great that I think some other form of hatred might be going on unconsciously. Ben Elton once told me he thought he suffered from the same thing, and at the time I contested it, but every so often since I have noticed that the negative vocabulary used to describe us is startlingly similar. Smug, clever-clever, smart-alec: try adding the word "Jew" to those adjectives and see how easily it fits.

What was the latest album you bought and what do you think of the current state of the British pop charts? Katherine Law, Manchester

Last album I bought (I think) was Coldplay's. It's good for an ageing indie kid like myself. I am of course a massive fan of the present British pop charts, especially Westlife, who must have given hope to every fat bloke who ever worked at B&Q.

What do you do during your long, sleepless nights? Alan Duffy, by e-mail

I consider the endless ennui of existence; I wrestle with the sphinx of eternity; I read, mainly Borges and Gerard Manley Hopkins; and of course I try and break all previously held world-records for self-abuse.

Tell us a joke. Russ Walker, Norwich

My grandfather died today at the age of 94. It was a great shame as we were only halfway through giving him the bumps. That was a joke I wrote in about 1987, only to see Shane Ritchie do it on some big ITV variety show some years later. I wish now officially to claim it back.

I have a signed, limited edition print of Chelsea's most prolific player, Ron "Chopper' Harris. How much (hypothetically) would you pay for this treasure? Nicholas E Gough, Swindon

Anything up to 50 pence. Ron was never my favourite player. Now if you'd said Charlie Cooke... I might have gone up to two pounds.

How on earth did you get through a second series of Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned? K Webb, by e-mail

Six and a half million viewers watched the first show last Sunday. That's how.

'Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned' continues tonight at 10.30pm on ITV