The question
Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
It’s hard to beat David Attenborough. Everything he does is quality. I like people who make me proud to be British.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 January 2019 source ↗
Dolly Parton. I love how she does what she wants, and lives how she wants, keeping her life so private. Also, she helped fund Covid vaccine research.
Billie Jean King. She’s the reason tennis is such an equal sport in terms of opportunity for women.
My wife, because of the lessons we’ve learned and what we have overcome over the course of our time together.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Maybe if we all admire her hard enough, she’ll live beyond this incredibly disturbing era.
I wanted to be a footballer and then a squash player – I was in with a chance because I was very good. But I fell out of love with that by 14 or 15 and joined a youth theatre.
When I am in Italy with the family, not thinking about work.
I say it a lot to my kids when I’ve lost my temper, and I’ll save up a big one for when they are 18.
I love clothes and accoutrements, so it would be either a suit or a watch. I love Mark Powell in Soho, and Paul Smith.
A really careful lobotomy, to switch off bits of my brain.
The Wimpy in Kingston when I was 16. I’d recently become vegetarian, and there weren’t many veggie burgers in 1988.
Julian Sands, Dolly Parton, Meera Syal, Stephen Graham, Rita Wilson, Ethan Hawke
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