A pair of Back to the Future shoes. They were auctioned off for Michael J Fox’s Parkinson’s charity, so I bid and I won. I am a huge fan of the films and if there was ever a pair of shoes I should own, it was those.
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
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
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.
All my clothes are secondhand, but I did buy a pair of new silver Vivienne Westwood shoes to get married in, which I still have.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 March 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
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Hayley Atwell
British American actress
Legal advice. It was worth it. Know your rights.
Cat Deeley
English television presenter
Art. I recently bought a Sean Scully painting, I have a Damien Hirst, a Tracey Emin, a Polly Morgan snake and a couple of Jonathan Yeos.
A holiday in New York for my son Arran’s 18th.
More from Maggie O'Farrell
View profile →Interrupting or talking over people. As a stammerer, I am particularly alert to this.
How long have you got? I have written a memoir and the subtitle is Seventeen Brushes with Death.
Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed George Floyd’s murder. It took astonishing courage to stand on the pavement in front of those policemen, and we all owe her so much.
To keep going and never give up, and to enjoy it to the absolute full because, at any moment, the curtain can fall.
Effervescence in the soul.
I started stammering badly the first time I was on live radio, on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. When I think about it now it brings me out in a cold sweat.
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