Broadcaster
Some famous people. I am not giving you names.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2020
One question · 6 of 366 answers to it
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Irish actor
Not having come from a class that understands how the world works.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2022
English rapper
Realising that success wasn't going to keep me happy all my life.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2009
English actor, comedian, musician and writer
Not doing Top Of The Pops when The Young Ones’ single went to number one.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
English artistic gymnast
Not taking more time out from work for holidays.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2013
British athlete
I try not to have disappointments, because a lot of the bad things that happen in life teach you things.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
What is the worst job you have done?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Clearing up someone’s sick – it was on police duty.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
Magician’s assistant on a cruise ship for two weeks when I was 19.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
Telesales – having to sell terrible kitchens. I thought, maybe I’m not a good actor because I can’t even convince myself that these kitchens are worth paying for.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
What problem are you still trying to solve?
Originally asked
Lifehacker, to people about their working day, How I Work
Lifehacker repeatedly used this exact closing prompt in its named How I Work questionnaire.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Stem cell biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2012
we can select one gene out of those 20,000 genes, and completely destroy that one particular gene so that we can understand the function of that particular gene.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2008
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
I think most of our major challenges are not going to be in the physical field at all.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Radio astronomer; discoverer of pulsars
They have a lot of extreme physics going on inside them and scientists use them to test theories of relativity on a cosmic scale. Einstein’s theories are checking out pretty well so far.
Recorded · University of Cambridge · 2020
What do you need to believe in order to get through the day?
Originally asked
Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017
Vox used this exact prompt throughout its named 9 Questions series on intellectual habits.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Historian and essayist
During the day I can at least request a scratch, an adjustment, a drink, or simply a gratuitous re-placement of my limbs—since enforced stillness for hours on end is not only physically…
Recorded · The New York Review of Books · 2010
Civil-rights activist
I try to not think of those things that we cannot control, but I think if we continue to work with positive attitudes, conditions will be better for more people.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
I sing yes sure and I garden, I have a large garden and I really recreate myself by doing gardening and thinking about something else so that when your mind gets free from all the burden of…
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2003
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 105
- Arts and letters 1205
- Politics and public life 132
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 46
- Sport 108
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Adrian Edmondson, Andrew Weil, Anna Friel, Archie Panjabi, Benjamin Zephaniah, Ben Okri, Bobby Womack, Bruno Tonioli, Chuck Jones, Coretta Scott King, Dan Harris, David Baddiel, David Hockney, Ed O'Brien, Florence Welch, Halla Tómasdóttir, Julien Macdonald, Justin Chon, Kelsey Grammer, Kim Wilde, Kofi Annan, Lucy Worsley, Luke Pritchard, Madhur Jaffrey, Marc Quinn, Marcus Rashford, Mellody Hobson, Neel Patel, Patricia Smith, Pelle Almqvist, Philip Johnson, Philip Oakey, Ram Dass, Robert De Niro, Robert S. Langer, Roger Moore, Sally Field, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Terry Gross, Tom Stoppard
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,671
- Answers
- 7,149
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.