My aeroplane, a Diamond DA42. It’s a twin-engine aircraft and I bought her brand new to fly around the world solo. Very sadly my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer about six weeks before I was due to take off, in May 2017, and she died early June. After that, I lost interest in doing it.
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What scares you about getting older?
Time & hindsight
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What would you like to leave your children?
Death & what remains
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.
Three degrees: I paid my kids’ uni fees.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 April 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 197 →My beautiful silver Jaguar XKR soft-top.
An education for my child.
Marina Abramović
Performance artist
A cashmere shawl.
More from Milton Jones
View profile →Not being able to laugh at themselves.
Having conversations with young people who you remember being born.
By people smiling or shaking their heads. I’ll even take rolling their eyes.
When I hired two private detectives and got them to follow each other.
Being offered a lift by James Acaster.
A book of passwords for all the electrical stuff in the house.
More on money & investment
Also answered this
Julien Macdonald, Midge Ure, Kellie Maloney, Róisín Murphy, Paul Merson, Lesley Sharp
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All money & investment questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject