Irvine Welsh
Scottish novelist
Artists who do their own thing, without compromise: Ken Loach, Bob Dylan and James Kelman.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Stevie Wonder: he’s brought so much joy to the world for so many years.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 January 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
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Gloria Steinem
Writer and feminist organiser
Dr Denis Mukwege, because he is to sexualised violence against females what Mandela was to apartheid.
Alison Steadman
British actress
I have great hopes for Barack Obama.
Any homosexual or transgender people fighting for their rights anywhere in the world.
More from Emeli Sandé
View profile →I was a perfume girl at a department store in Aberdeen. I was so bad at it, I didn’t make it to the end of the day.
Freedom: it’s euphoric.
On a camping holiday in Scotland when I was nine: I was in an inflatable dinghy that drifted out to sea. A lifeboat had to come.
I always wanted to be a singer, but I also wanted to be a doctor. I almost got there: I did four years and got my neuroscience BSc.
Last night, on stage in New York.
I would instil confidence in my younger self.
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