Being on a plane that is about to crash.
What is your greatest fear?
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My kids navigating the world as it is today – and daddy longlegs.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 August 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 256 →Drowning. The feeling of not being able to take a breath. I’m sure my therapist would have something to say about the deep psychological reasons for it.
Paul McKenna
British hypnotist and TV personality
My wife dying. I wouldn’t know how to go on.
Generally? Hurting someone’s feelings. Specifically? Being kidnapped while on vacation.
More from Fiona Allen
View profile →Growing three brains.
I think I had a close shave with the taxi driver John Worboys. I was in Soho and going back to Chiswick where I lived, and I got a black cab. This guy wouldn’t stop talking and he offered me champagne, and I said: “I don’t like champagne.” It went a bit quiet and I thought I’d offended him. Then I remember going: “Hang on a minute, you shouldn’t be drinking champagne if you’re driving.” And he said: “I’ve just won the lottery and I’m finished after this.” I had a lucky escape.
Passionate, gobby, flabby.
She was surprisingly good at the harpsichord.
A sports car. I was in my 20s; I’d fallen out with my boyfriend, so to cheer myself up I got myself a little silver and black Mazda and a matching jumper and jacket. And do you know what, it worked. I saw him do a double take.
Coldness, selfishness.
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- What is your idea of perfect happiness? 158 answers
- How would you describe yourself in three words? 111 answers
- What are you most proud of? 103 answers
Also answered this
Michael Flatley, Olivia de Havilland, Mike Skinner, John Malkovich, Bear Grylls, Maureen O'Hara
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