Just who does Eddie Izzard think he is? Going on what we know so far, it’s a bit hard to tell.

Depending on your views, age and even memory, he’s either ‘that transvestite comedian’, ‘the bloke who ran all those marathons for Sport Relief’ (43 marathons in 51 days), or the voice of the TV recycling ad.

But then again he’s also an associate director of Crystal Palace FC, the ‘Lost Python’ (according to John Cleese) or possibly the man who will be running London following the mayoral elections in 2020, as he recently expressed a wish to stand there.

According to the man himself: “Eddie Izzard has been hailed as one of the foremost stand-ups of this generation. He takes ideas and situations and extrapolates them into bizarre tangential, absurd, and surreal comic narratives.

“He is the first to admit that he gets well paid for talking total b*******. The good pay is because unlike the b******* most of us talk, it’s funny.”

And he’s right. There’s a reason he’s sold out three nights in Bournemouth as part of his Force Majeure world tour, that takes in 25 countries including Russia, Australia, India, New Zealand, Nepal and the Far East.

He’s good.

Eddie is so good that he’s given his entire stand-up routine in French, to the French.

And made them laugh. Which is beyond amazing when you come to think of everything you know about the French sense of humour.

He’s also a good egg. Anyone who saw his incredible Sport Relief marathons could not have failed to be moved by the determination of a man who only trained for five weeks before embarking on such an excruciating mental and physical challenge.

But tracking him down to talk to is like nailing jelly to a wall. He’s ‘very busy’ according to his people.

Normally, when I’m told stuff like this, I feel like doing a complete hatchet job on the alleged celeb because no one should be too busy to talk to the local paper, when local people have paid good money to see them.

But I think it may be true because this is a man who drives himself so hard he doesn’t even live in a house anymore; apparently he’s away from it so much, his home is rented out.

And Eddie is very free with his time and his money; he made a generous donation to the Normandy Veterans Association so that comrades could travel to a ceremony in France and he then attended the NVA’s final London parade a few years back.

So I will just have to accept that I can’t ask him how he motivated himself to run all those marathons, and how he keeps his nails looking so perfect, and how long it takes him to write a mammoth tour like the one he’s on, and if he really is going to stand as London Mayor in 2020.

And I’d like to tell him that even though I don’t agree with loads of things he says and does (all that European integration stuff; he was reportedly one of the first people to spend a Euro in London) he is so fundamentally decent that of course I’d vote for him in any election he stood in.

It was the 2010 general election that last brought him to this county, campaigning to support MP Jim Knight as he battled to retain his South Dorset seat.

He signed autographs, chatted to parents and teachers at Conifers Primary School and breakfasted in Café Nero in Weymouth’s Thomas Street, to the delight of photo-snapping onlookers.

“I hope I can inspire people,” he told the Dorset Echo.

Mission accomplished, I’d say.