Once you become successful, people know where you live, the type of house you live in, the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, and so it would be patronising to go and talk like a welder. Welding’s a mystery to me now. You can’t go back, your life changes every day.

Connolly reflects on the social and psychological irreversibility of fame. Success makes one’s private life legible—home, possessions, style—so attempts to speak as if one were still a working-class tradesman risk sounding like performance or condescension. His reference to welding (a job he trained for before comedy) underscores how skills and identities can atrophy when life circumstances change; what once was ordinary becomes distant and even unknowable. The quote captures a bittersweet realism: upward mobility brings opportunity but also estrangement from one’s former self and community, and public recognition fixes you in a new role that is hard to step outside.