The question
If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?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’d be happier being myself younger.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗
I couldn’t do it. I realised recently that all the things that have gone wrong are just as important as all the things that went right.
I don’t have anything that I want to change. I’m sure I did in the past but I can’t recall, which means it wasn’t that big a deal.
I made too much money in my 30s, and it distorted my writing and made me less hungry. Then, in my 40s, I spent all the money on daily life – and now I don’t have it.
I’d stop my teenage self worrying about how my life was going to pan out.
People singing in the street.
Catastrophising.
I think we’re definitely gone, but I do think people leave traces everywhere from what they did in life, and live on and continue to make an impact through the ripple effect of that.
Pigeons. One got stuck in my flat once for quite a long time and it really changed how I feel about them.
Like nothing’s a problem.
Everything’s temporary, and how to make aioli.
Burt Reynolds, Rachel Whiteread, Alison Steadman, Brandi Carlile, Eddie Marsan, Adam Kay
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