When I was younger, I signed up to a job agency and thought I would be doing secretarial work, but they assigned me to clean toilets in a factory in Oldham.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 October 2025 source ↗
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
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.
The failed attempt at a home perm on myself in the 80s. I wanted to look like Kelly McGillis in Top Gun.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 229 →
Carlos Acosta
Cuban ballet dancer
Selling stolen mangoes to pay for a cinema ticket, aged eight.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 September 2018 source ↗
Brendan Gleeson
Irish actor and director
Fixing a municipal sewer pipe.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 December 2016 source ↗
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 ↗
More from Zoe Ball
View profile →As Naughty Grandma – you know, the one who is always causing mischief at Christmas.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
Being mum to my awesome children, Woody and Nelly. They make my day, every day. I do joke with them that I’m happy to pay for the therapy they’ll inevitably need in later years due to my terrible parenting.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
My son playing drum’n’bass.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
All the NHS workers, care home staff and teachers who are the real superheroes of 2020.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
That’s All by Mel Tormé.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
I only ever wanted to be Barbra Streisand. I probably still do.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 December 2020 source ↗
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