The question
What disappointment has stayed with you longest?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.
Not joining the circus.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 July 2026 source ↗
That things didn’t get better.
Some of my choices were mistakes, so I’d have to say myself.
That Al Gore was denied the American presidency in 2000.
Not yet being able to sing in a free Cuba.
An inability to see the other side.
I bumped into an old schoolteacher and her even more ancient and deaf sister, and she shouted to her, “Remember Esther? Now she writes books … ABOUT HERSELF.”
Small, determined, lucky.
Last week, when I decided to rewrite the children’s book I’ve been working on.
Life’s too short to take offence.
Did I behave in the right way?
Angela Eagle, Shaun White, Zack Polanski, Tracey Ullman, Sally Hawkins, Justin Hawkins
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