Maggie O'Farrell
Irish-British novelist
How long have you got? I have written a memoir and the subtitle is Seventeen Brushes with Death.
How close have you come to death?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I was an air display pilot for 15 years, and watched most of my friends die in crashes. When the children came along, I got out of it.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 July 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
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Mo Farah
British track and field athlete
When I was a kid, travelling from Ethiopia to the UK, the plane door opened, the oxygen masks came down and the plane did an emergency landing in Egypt.
I’ve had a few hairy scrapes as a scuba diver.
After a significant traumatic experience when I was looking for reasons to stay alive.
More from Gary Numan
View profile →Now. I enjoy what I do for a living, the children are here and I am still happily married after 25 years.
Yesterday, when Gemma, my wife, played me The End Of Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh when we were driving into Hollywood.
Not one of mine.
More on death & what remains
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- What song would you like played at your funeral? 178 answers
- If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing? 54 answers
- What happens when we die? 51 answers
- What would you like to leave your children? 44 answers
- How would you like to die? 44 answers
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