Where to start with Sir Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, The Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, or Paddy Ashdown to those who know him? He has been a Royal Marine, a member of the elite Special Boat Service (SBS), diplomat, spy, author, politician and leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, EU High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and now he's a member of the House of Lords.
It's no surprise his autobiography is called A Fortunate Life.
'I don't claim wisdom because my life is different, my life just happened to me by accident. But on reflection, by the time I was 42 I had been a soldier, a spy, a diplomat, a businessman, unemployed and a youth worker. They were all magnificent apprenticeships for the job I then had to do. Politics has become professionalised and I greatly regret that,' Ashdown says.
'In my day people that had career paths like mine; people who had done real jobs in real life were not unusual. Now they're unheard of. You go into politics at 18 in short pants straight out of school and you've never done anything else. I think our politics is very much the poorer as a result.'
He arrives 10 minutes late at the Peers' Entrance - he was made a life peer in 2001 - to the Houses of Parliament and says he will have to rush off to vote at some point during the interview. As if on cue, the division bell rings, signalling eight minutes to go before voting begins. Asked if it is an interesting bill, Ashdown first waves his hand dismissively, then changes his mind, saying the bill is an important one on the funding of British political parties by foreign nationals.
Ashdown is a caricature of the no-nonsense military man. It is difficult to keep up as he strides ahead, curtly nodding to and dodging between less agile peers of the realm on the way to a quiet corner of the grandiose Royal Gallery.
He answers most questions in his slightly scratchy baritone in a practised, almost mechanical manner. It is only when explaining where he buried a few days' supply of food in 1968 - a time when Hong Kong authorities feared that the unrest in China could spill over the border - that he permits himself a chuckle. With no change to the deep creases in his forehead under a mop of white hair he recalls that time when, aged 27, he made the provisions for his family.
