I say it seems the same in Edinburgh, where gossip travels fast. "Well, you come from New York," he parries. "What there is here is some vestige of community. I went to London recently, after not being there for months, and was shocked by the city - as if I’d never been before. I got on the tube, which is inhuman! You’re stuck together like parts of a clock, you can’t even rotate. There was a guy behind me eating a kebab. And this stench of long-dead whale, or whatever it was, had toxified everybody. All you could do was pucker up to the ceiling to try and get air.

"I went into a shop, and this was a shock - coming from Edinburgh where people say good afternoon, goodbye, all that. The girl looked at me, slack-jawed, and didn’t even say ‘Cheers’, the typical London valediction. Yes, I’d lived there, but I’d forgotten. You forget. So, you don’t have to fight here, which is great. I like community. It’s unequivocally a good thing as far as I’m concerned."

Goodness. Here’s Dylan Moran, whose public persona is synonymous with misanthropy, extolling the virtues of community. Savour this moment. And reflect: isn’t it true that we’re most scathing when we feel something or someone we care about has let us down? Don’t they say the best defence against revealing vulnerability is a strong offence?

Is he more of a pessimist or an optimist, then?

"I think both positions are probably as false as the other," he says, pondering this a moment. "It makes absolutely no impact on reality whether you’re one or the other, assuming, that is, that you’re not deluded. I’ve been wondering lately whether it’s a thing of age, the way where the world seems to get worse with time."

Has the world gotten any worse? Or isn’t it a fact that evil’s been around forever, we simply broadcast it more nowadays? "But that is the issue, that the world is plugged in top to bottom and it hums day and night. This was not the case until very recently. That is the new reality. It’s a bad reality. This freedom through technology is an absolute con, because it’s one of the things that contributes to the disintegration of community.

"I’m not saying it’s better for there to be two groups of people separated by a mountain. But you can’t expect the world to suddenly be harmonious if you’re trying to throw the whole caboodle into a blender. It’s not going to happen, and it’s bulls**t to pursue it. That is one of the falsities that’s given rise to phenomena like the PC culture. This is unsustainable. People are going to disagree. People are going to dislike each other. They’re going to dislike each other for spurious reasons as well, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It might not be enlightened, but neither is the way you talk to the person you live with over breakfast sometimes."

The hair-smoothing picks up momentum, and Moran turns sideways in his chair as he builds up a head of steam. But these aren’t the ravings of a professional curmudgeon, or a man steering toward a facile punchline. It’s clear he has spent time in contemplation. This matters to him. "This is human reality," he continues. "This is the condition. To try to suddenly paper over it and give everybody a code of conduct is the worst kind of fallacy. And because we’re all so dependent on these gizmos, it has created a new ulterior reality that people get confused about all the time. They try to match what they see with their own eyes and what’s being reported. They’re on an information highway that goes nowhere except right back up their own ass. Learning nothing. I think the internet is all bulls**t. I have no truck with it.

"I’m animated now," he laughs self-consciously. "You’re told you cannot survive without this stuff. It’s your survival pack. But you don’t need it."

My own sense is that most people simply don’t know how to be alone with themselves. "That’s exactly it," he concurs. "PlayStations. Grown men with PlayStations - it makes me want to weep. This whole retreat into fantasy is not an accident. These things are linked."

To what? The fact that the world’s a brutal place? "Well, okay, that’s bigger. But these machines people cling to, it’s a universal experience. If you’re not a believer in a religion, your secular fantasies are going to be PlayStations - pornography, in other words. Porn, because it’s a waste of your time. In the same way that porn gives you no human story, just the act. It’s the equivalent of gourmets watching tapes of people eating. This retreat into fantasy generated by the media - with the scare-mongering of paedophiles and so on - it gives people drama. It’s head-weather for them to talk about and be animated by. This child-killing here, this war there. And it’s not real. These events happened but the reportage of them is not the event, and I think they’re being confused. It offers you a place in the drama. How do you feel about the child-killer? How do you feel about the war? You don’t f**king matter. You don’t feature yet you’re being asked about your feelings.

"But it’s a real challenge to zone out from the din and blare that surrounds you. I’m not giving anybody a hard time." Having said that, does he watch the news? "I do. You get to the age of 30 and suddenly you’re watching the news," he admits.

I can’t help wondering if his melancholic, misanthropic persona - which is rarely in evidence this morning - ever feels restrictive. Does he never fancy bouncing out on stage radiating bonhomie? "Uh. Probably some of that is from being wound up about going on. In the second half I’m probably not so mirror-cracking in my demeanour. I’ve remembered more things. But I don’t really give a damn one way or another about public perception. You can’t do anything about it."

Fans will have a chance to test this theory on Tuesday night, and again in February when Moran embarks upon a national tour. And while we’re waiting for the third series of Black Books to air, we can catch Moran on the big screen in The Actors, a film scripted and directed by Conor McPherson. In it Moran stars alongside Michael Caine as a pair of thespians who steal money from a group of gangsters headed up by Michael Gambon. Terrified, they attempt to return the cash surreptitiously, using their professional expertise with costumes, accents and make-up to keep their identities a secret. "I couldn’t have asked for a better plunge at the deep end," says Moran. "It was a great experience."

As was our coffee morning - so much so that I’m hoping to schedule a rematch over lunch one day. When it’s time to depart, I notice Moran is settling in for a day’s work. Fresh caffeine infusions are on order and a notebook has appeared, with "Stand Up 2002-2003" inked on the spine. I guess it’s true what they say: "Dying’s easy, comedy’s hard." Thankfully, Moran rises to the challenge.

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