sir ranulph fiennes, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. to me, your entire life, you have spent testing yourself, challenging yourself. why this preoccupation with tests? it doesn't come about in that particular way, it comes about because of being brought up in south africa, arriving in the uk, not getting a—levels — that's what it comes from, because that's not what i wanted to do, it's what my dad had done, commanding the royal scots‘ greatest tank regiment when he was killed in the second world war, and i wanted to command that same wonderful scottish regiment, but in his day, it didn't require a—levels to get sandhurst. in my time, you did, and i couldn't, and therefore i had a second grade of cadet school and would never become colonel of the regiment, so ijoined the regiment but had only eight years of army service before you were thrown out. and so i didn't do what i wanted to do, and i did as long as i could in the army, then i found myself with no income, i married my wife, jenny, who had virtually no income, and so we thought we