Rhod's hands are silky soft. He's better suited to typing and stroking dogs than operating heavy machinery or sweating it out with intense physical labour. So how will he get on at the UK's largest open cast mine in Merthyr Tydfil, where he'll be tested on everything from driving a 25-tonne truck to handling explosives. Moving onto Europe's deepest mine, Rhod has to learn to work nine kilometres under the North Sea with a foreman who has no time for his whingeing.