Cerys Matthews
Welsh singer-songwriter
I’d be born a man and have a wife to run the house.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 203 →
Sheena Easton
Scottish singer
I read too much science fiction to mess with anything. I’d be terrified that, by changing something, my kids wouldn’t be mine.
kd lang
Canadian musician
When I was working hard, I was going so fast that I didn’t absorb a lot.
Julian Clary
English actor, comedian, novelist and presenter
My education. Benedictine monks didn’t really prepare me for the life I have lived.
More from Harlan Coben
View profile →I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
With a wistful smile.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 218 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- 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? 60 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 35 answers
Also answered this · A–Z
Adam Clayton, Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Adrian Edmondson, Adrian Scarborough
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