Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
I worked in a call centre. I would go clubbing on a Saturday with my brother and my mates, get home for five or six in the morning, and then have to be at work at 8am.
Potato-picking in my home town, Ballarat.
I was a Harrods store detective for a day. I was so bad at it, one of the other detectives thought I looked suspicious and reported me.
When I was a kid I had a Saturday job in the stockroom of a supermarket. I remember everything in there being a little bit grubby and slightly sticky. We’d do things like play rugby with a swiss roll. I think of it every time I go shopping.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
With a wistful smile.
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”
Greg James, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Viv Albertine, Siri Hustvedt, Rose Tremain, Irvine Welsh
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