Fainting as a chorister in Winchester Cathedral in the middle of a service.
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim recurring question in The Guardian's Q&A series.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I started stammering badly the first time I was on live radio, on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. When I think about it now it brings me out in a cold sweat.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 March 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →When my trousers split on stage in Burn the Floor in Australia. I had always been warned to wear my flesh underwear and I did not that day.
Harlan Coben
American author
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
Throwing up all over the red velvet seats in the House of Lords on a school trip, aged nine.
More from Maggie O'Farrell
View profile →Interrupting or talking over people. As a stammerer, I am particularly alert to this.
Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed George Floyd’s murder. It took astonishing courage to stand on the pavement in front of those policemen, and we all owe her so much.
How long have you got? I have written a memoir and the subtitle is Seventeen Brushes with Death.
Last summer, swimming in a waterfall in Cumbria with my daughters.
“You’ll never walk again.” This was when I was eight or nine and recovering from viral encephalitis.
Effervescence in the soul.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 219 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 61 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
Also answered this · A–Z
Fay Ripley, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Harlan Coben, Jack Whitehall, Jane Asher, Kathy Lette
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