Ralf Little: 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 Ralf Little said elsewhere, not written here

A watch that begins with an R.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 February 2020 source ↗

Others on this question

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Kiell Smith-Bynoe

An office in the garden.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 August 2023 source ↗

Julie Andrews English actress, singer and author

I saw a very expensive painting by a wonderful American painter called Charles Burchfield. I really loved it – it hit me in the solar plexus – and I thought if I did three extra concerts on tour, I might be able to afford it. And I did.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 October 2019 source ↗

Tom Fletcher

A pair of Back to the Future shoes. They were auctioned off for Michael J Fox’s Parkinson’s charity, so I bid and I won. I am a huge fan of the films and if there was ever a pair of shoes I should own, it was those.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 November 2025 source ↗

Gloria Steinem Writer and feminist organiser

In my 30s, I was staring at a pair of expensive boots in a shop window when the photographer Gordon Parks came up behind me. He instantly understood, because he grew up even poorer than me; he made me buy them on my credit card.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 March 2017 source ↗