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.

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!

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.

When I was a child, I wanted to... go into space! To go to Mars. I wanted to explore and explore and explore. I wanted to go to the Lost World in South America - I was heartbroken to discover there were no dinosaurs; I still don't accept it.

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.

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 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.