The kids growing up is a separate strand to your life. However bad a day you've had, that's the most important thing, and you have to remember that.

I've always been blessed, or cursed, some might say, with an insatiable curiosity, a desire to find something out about a people and a place. That's where it all begins.

I wanted to be an explorer, but gradually found the world had been explored and that there was nowhere left, really. Once they climbed Everest in 1953, when I was 10 years old, I thought, 'Well, that's pretty much it now.' But the idea of travelling and exploring and adventure was very strong.

I've been lucky enough to stand on both poles, but the place that seemed the remotest to me was Butugychag, a former gulag in Siberia. It is completely cut off from the rest of the world.

We've got a first class leader at the moment. David Cameron is dealing with the issues that he was left by the last government very well indeed.

Boone Pickens should be commended for his leadership on American energy security, and for bringing Ted Turner along on some sensible approaches to enhancing it.

In government, our chief executives have been lawyers. The great majority of our cabinets and congresses are and have been men trained in the law. They have provided the leadership and the statecraft and the store of strength when it was needed.

To whatever degree you have as a celebrity or notoriety, there are people who see you as an opinion leader.