You learn so much about how far you can push yourself and what you can do. How an experience like Antarctica helps you, it boosts your confidence.

I would hide behind my parents' legs at social events, I was even shy in front of my sisters. I was a really, really ridiculously shy boy. But the one thing I took from my public school education was confidence.

When I was on Taransay, I loved being part of a community, I loved that everyone knew what I was doing, where I was going. I loved that. I liked knowing that if I wasn't back at a certain time people would start worrying a little bit about me, I loved the whole community thing, sitting for hours and chatting to people.

We as humans, we're not solitary people, we're like dogs, we like to live in packs and know about one another. And, if anything, fame is people trying to attain community on a mass scale, because when you become famous wherever you go people know about what you've done and what you're about to do.

Without risk you can't experience life. There have to be risks, physically and mentally, taken by everyone.

I failed my exams and my driving test. I failed to get into the Foreign Office and drama school. The big F was dominant in my early years.

In the presenting area, there's nothing that really sets me apart from anyone else. It's something I enjoy but I was never going to set the world on fire.

I loathed my first term boarding at Bryanston school in Dorset. I hated being away from home; I think I had my parents in tears every time I spoke to them. I regret being so spoilt because within two terms I loved it.

Although I'm a city boy, I am a rural person at heart - and that comes from school. I'd lived near Marble Arch in London and it was fantastic to be surrounded by fields and trees.