The question
Excluding property, what is the most expensive thing you have ever bought?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.
In my 30s, I was staring at a pair of expensive boots in a shop window when the photographer Gordon Parks came up behind me. He instantly understood, because he grew up even poorer than me; he made me buy them on my credit card.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 March 2017 source ↗
A mink coat in 1975 (it was the done thing then). It cost me £5,500.
A walk-on part for my mum in Les Misérables. It was in a charity auction. She always dreamed of being in a West End show.
A designer green jacket from Selfridges I bought in my 20s for £700, a ridiculous amount of money. My family and friends said I looked like a peace activist and I never wore it again.
The concept of New Labour.
First a horse rancher, then a dancer.
As someone who left the world around me a little kinder and less hierarchical.
I would love to have a good memory. I’m at an age when remembering something right away is as good as an orgasm.
Sometimes when I’m on a plane, as I often am, the weather is rough and we’re worried about going down. I think: If I hold the hand of the person next to me, I’ll be holding everyone’s hand. Like my dear friend, the late Wilma Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, I want to know: I’m going to the other side of the mountain.
Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.
I behaved badly with two old lovers. Years later, when I took one to lunch to apologise, it made it worse.
Emma Barnett, Rory Stewart, Anita Rani, Kellie Maloney, John Lewis, John Prescott
Search the directory for somebody in particular.