Alison Moyet: How close have you come to death?

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.

Recorded Alison Moyet said elsewhere, not written here

When I was doing my gold swimming badge. I had to get undressed in a swimming pool and had forgotten my gym kit, so the teacher gave me a kit two sizes too small. In the water, I got my arms up over my head to get the shirt off and they locked. I sank to the bottom of the pool and sat there until a girl jumped in and dragged me back up again.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 June 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

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Jenny Diski Novelist and essayist

The print size in my mind decreased with time’s incremental decline, and as I arrived at the last word – weeks – it suddenly struck me, with all the force of the fullest sense of the word ‘struck’, that this could actually be his answer and not just the logical next time period in my sentence. Every cell in my body, except those responsible for maintaining a reasonable, calm exterior, was now lindy-hopping at that possibility, the only one that hadn’t occurred to me until that moment.

Recorded London Review of Books, 11 September 2014 source ↗

Simone Biles United States artistic gymnast

In dreams, but that’s about it.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 February 2017 source ↗

Marcus Mumford

Rolling a quad bike.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 February 2026 source ↗

Omid Djalili British stand-up comedian and actor

I had spinal meningitis when I was 13.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 August 2010 source ↗