You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest.

The greatest danger in life is not taking chances. There are so many negative people wanting to grind you down, but you can't let them. If people say you are mad, you know you're on the right track.

In the news this week, the polls continue to slide for Gordon Brown and some people are saying he's dead and buried. But I think the opposite - I say GORDON'S ALIVE!

In the Arctic I met some Russian sailors on a submarine and they chorused, "Gordon's alive!"

There will be no funeral! Before I get too old and ill, I'll go to South America and live among the Pemon people and meditate. When the time is right, they can throw my body into the volcano.

I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertakers assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Ninety nine per cent of the time, for anyone who wins or makes money, it makes them happy.