Danny Alexander
British banker
Not playing first-class cricket.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Relapsing. I usually spend eight, nine, 10 months sober, then I’ll spend a day relapsing and I get disappointed. But it never lasts too long. I get back up and try again.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 August 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 368 →
Adrian Edmondson
English actor, comedian, musician and writer
Not doing Top Of The Pops when The Young Ones’ single went to number one.
kd lang
Canadian musician
My limited capacity to learn.
Björn Ulvaeus
Swedish musician
In my professional life, the musical Chess on Broadway. It was a resounding fiasco and played for two months. The butcher of Broadway, Frank Rich of the New York Times, was probably very pleased: I’ve never seen such a bad review in my life.
More from Jonathan Rhys Meyers
View profile →Two days as a labourer in my 15th summer.
I’ve been in six car accidents – none of them while I was driving.
My collection of paintings. I have some by William Burroughs.
The public mistakes I’ve made. Most recently, I tried to light an e-cigarette on an aeroplane and was told to put it out. I completely forgot I was on a plane. I’d had, like, three drinks, but it only takes three. I stopped as soon as I got off and I got straight back into my programme, because that’s what I do.
An incredibly long one – maybe the entire St Matthew Passion – just so everybody would have to sit in the church for hours.
As a complex and brilliant man.
More on failure & regret
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- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 205 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 124 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 124 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 74 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 38 answers
Also answered this
Eddie Marsan, Simon Bird, Rupert Graves, David Jason, Patricia Hodge, Billy Porter
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