John Simpson
English journalist
Reading the news. It’s a dull job.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 December 2016 source ↗
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
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.
Cleaning around the feet of John Malkovich with industrial carpet cleaner while he was trying to learn lines in the foyer of a theatre.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 229 →
Charles Dance
British actor
Treating a flock of sheep for foot rot when I was a farm labourer.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 November 2024 source ↗
I quite enjoyed all my retail jobs (I worked in H&M and Gap), but the worst times were the sale periods. The summer sales – awful.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 December 2023 source ↗
Adeel Akhtar
British actor
In Brooklyn, I was a dishwasher in a sandwich shop.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 May 2018 source ↗
More from Aidan Gillen
View profile →The floral waistcoat and shocking-pink shirt combo I wore on my 21st.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
Last year, driving in California, I found myself on the wrong side of the road. I was 30 seconds away from hitting two cars coming the other way.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
Pyramid Song, by Radiohead, live.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
I won a local art competition aged 10 – the first time I’d won anything.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
A stuntman. Evel Knievel was an icon.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
Foxes making love: it’s a very unsettling sound.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2017 source ↗
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