Richard Coles

I still feel a spike of anticipation when 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' strikes up and, in these andropausal years, I am unexpectedly moved by 'Away in a Manger'.

My means of entry to 'Christianity was singing in a choir. As a boy chorister, I grew up with Ancient and Modern, the evening canticles, versicles and responses, and carols.

A certain check to the sentimentality and commercialism of Christmas is the cluster of bereavements that often arrives towards the end of the year.

One of the pleasures of living in London is the opportunity to do things that are only possible in a city of its size.

I just looked preposterous. It would be 'King Lear' and I'd walk on with Cordelia's dead body in my arms and the audience would hoot with laughter. The only time they didn't laugh was when I was doing comedy.

I am loathe to say I have a strategy in the broadcasting work I do, but I do think it is possible to be a priest who has something to contribute to mainstream media as long as you aren't completely mad.

What I wear identifies me as a priest. I don't agree with all this trying to appear 'normal'. If you want that to be normal, don't take off your dog collar and then put it on again, because what you're doing is playing along with the view that wearing one makes you odd.

The dog collar is fascinating to people, when it doesn't repel. I've got used to being shouted at in the street.

In corporate life, I have noticed, it is getting harder and harder to say that things are bad.

I was licensed and installed as 59th Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Finedon, in Northamptonshire, in 2011.

Trying to do Christianity properly is tough. Life as a priest is rigorous and disciplined. It involves sacrifices.

I will be doing a lot of human interest interviews. It involves empathising and listening. Which is a lot of what my day job is about. And, frankly, the priesthood isn't without its element of showbusiness.

The thing I worry about with religion isn't to do much with forgetting Christmas. It's to do with religion being angry and violent.

I frequently find myself praying for punk, for something to come along and upset everybody and ignite a few fires and behave disreputably.

I wanted to put together a Christmas album that went back to the stable in Bethlehem and the source of it all. It kind of gets lost sometimes.

I don't think of myself as a maverick at all. Quite the opposite - I really think of myself as quite conventional but dispersed over unusual territory.

I'm looking for some centrist political party to find a home in and it's not there, actually.

The thought of having sclerosis of the synapses is alarming. I wonder if in later life I will pay the price for having overstimulated my mental apparatus in my twenties.

In my opinion, the best of the knockout cookery series is 'MasterChef', which I have watched since Loyd Grossman's day, back in the 1990s.

Food as sport is nothing new. To a vicar, especially, church catering has represented the conduct of war by other means for many years.