In the back of my mind I just assumed I’d be in a boyband at some point.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
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Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
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What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
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What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
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When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
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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
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My brother Pete passing on in 2005.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
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Alison Moyet
English singer
I am my biggest disappointment.
That I didn’t go to Turkey during the pandemic for one of those male hair treatments.
Mo Gilligan
British comedian
Not investing in bitcoin.
More from Kevin Rowland
View profile →Gerry Adams, because he’s got incredible integrity and vision, and he’s had to put up with so much flak.
I worked in the stores of Edgware hospital when I was about 17, and it was grey and depressing.
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
My dad said, “You’re going nowhere.” I was seven or eight.
On stage – the Old Vic in 1981 and Glastonbury last year.
I’d have stuck with the original Dexys Midnight Runners look we started in 1978, which became known as the New Romantic look a couple of years later. Our management and record label talked us out of it. Later, Duran Duran and Spandau came out with that look and that made us look old-fashioned.
More on failure & regret
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- Which moment embarrassed you most? 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
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