Throat and neck cancer in 2018. They told me six to eight months if it hadn’t been caught.
How close have you come to death?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Modelling in South Korea, aged 19. After a party, I flopped into bed, lit a big candle and balanced it on top of a massive box of matches. I created my own firework display when the candle burnt down and set fire to it. It made the biggest noise ever which, luckily, woke me from my slightly boozy slumber.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 August 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 209 →
Cat Deeley
English television presenter
Horse riding in a steep canyon in Los Angeles. A couple of paparazzi had hidden under camouflage blankets and when a horse sees a lens, he thinks it’s the eye of a predator. My horse flipped out. When he landed, I ended up on his neck; that was pretty close.
When I was drinking, there were many times when I was out for the night and didn’t come back for a week.
Joseph Fiennes
English actor
Climbing in Tibet, surfing in Australia and a moment ago by a courgette cutter as I dithered over one of these questions.
More from Sara Cox
View profile →As an adult, not having my own horse yet.
My half-electric Volvo.
The ability to walk in high heels.
Getting a daily show on Radio 2, because that was an ambition for so long.
For making people’s journeys on the M6 a bit easier.
The Hovis ad music.
More on death & what remains
- What would you like to be remembered for? 215 answers
- What song would you like played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing? 54 answers
- What happens when we die? 51 answers
- What would you like to leave your children? 45 answers
- How would you like to die? 44 answers
Also answered this
Andrea Bocelli, Louis Theroux, Paapa Essiedu, Warren Zevon, Adrian Edmondson, Robert Carlyle
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All death & what remains questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject