My dream is to own a Hockney - I'm a Yorkshireman, and his vibrant colours are a good example of how the north-country people are vibrant and colourful.

My parents were so proud when I got a scholarship to go to theatre school - it was unheard of that a coal-miners son should go to drama school.

My dad was opening fast bowler for Yorkshire's second team and I couldn't believe he could die. He wasn't going to get better for at least six months, so I left school early to become the family breadwinner.

I met Picasso when I was a kid. I turned one of his drawings down which would be worth £37 million now. My dad wouldn't talk to me for a fortnight.

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.

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.

I'll never retire. The new millennium is the age of adventure as far as I am concerned. I'm going up a volcano and off into space.