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I am what I am: Sue Perkins

Sue Perkins 39, is a comedian and TV presenter. Her new show, The Big Food Fight, starts on Tuesday on Channel 4. She lives between London and Cornwall

My mother was a secretary and my father worked in a car dealership. It shows how little your job description resonates with who you really are. My mum's side is creative and my dad's side analytical. To me, what I do is not a great leap from them.

I was a very nervous, shy child - (my stammer) was a physiological response. I still struggle with looking people in the eye, wondering if they think I'm an idiot. I find it easier to work with strangers; I get a mania talking to them. I didn't manage to express myself properly as a child. Now I talk too much.

I love a quiz, but I'm not competitive - I crave information. A child's first understanding of competition is through sport, and I was terrible. Kids sense almost primally who they want on their team - you learn Darwin much later than you experience survival of the fittest. I would always go and read a book.

The Supersizers taught me that nobody should weigh themselves. As a nation we are overconcerned with data and not tuned in to how we feel.

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(Big Brother) was a great way of coming out to 4.4m people. The relief is brilliant. Isn't it awful that we still say, "It's getting better, we're almost considered normal people"? But I think it is. I hope it is.

The likelihood of bearing a child is fading, but that doesn't mean I won't become a mother. I may foster. I would like to recycle, as it were - to be environmentally sound in how I create my family.

Cornwall is a great leveller. We're surrounded by farmers and fishermen - people who still interact with sea, mud, stones. I've learnt to be a much more exterior person with a lot less in my head.