Nicola Walker: Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?

Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this standing prompt, with minor contractions and word-order variation.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Nicola Walker said elsewhere, not written here

Ten years ago I bought a painting. I lived with it for a year before realising I didn’t like it at all. So it’s on my wall, mocking me daily.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 January 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

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Helen George English actress

A grandfather clock for my partner’s birthday.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 January 2023 source ↗

Bella Freud British fashion designer

An Andy Warhol Polaroid of Debbie Harry.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 September 2017 source ↗

Alex Lawther

My partner was doing a play in Hong Kong last year and I went to visit him, and I bought him a beautiful teacup. But I didn’t look at the price tag before I took it to the till and it was £100, the most expensive teacup imaginable.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 September 2025 source ↗

Emma Barnett British broadcaster and journalist

A wedding, in 2012.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 February 2021 source ↗

More from Nicola Walker

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Question How close have you come to death? Death & what remains

Swimming off the north Cornish coast eight years ago. I remember thinking, “Why did they teach you how to inflate your pyjamas in life-saving classes at school, when they could have just told you what to do in a riptide?”

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 January 2017 source ↗