Discrimination, for any reason.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What scares you about getting older?
Time & hindsight
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Mistaking shyness for not having anything to say.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 September 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 197 →
Robert De Niro
Actor
Self-importance, arrogance.
People who can’t wait to argue.
Clive Myrie
British journalist, newsreader, and presenter
Cruelty, bullying, selfishness.
More from Alex Lawther
View profile →I spent about five years living in Paris thinking I would become Kristin Scott Thomas, and it didn’t happen.
My partner was doing a play in Hong Kong last year and I went to visit him, and I bought him a beautiful teacup. But I didn’t look at the price tag before I took it to the till and it was £100, the most expensive teacup imaginable.
My failed driving test a few months ago. I got three majors and by the end of it the examiner couldn’t wait to get out of the car.
A receding hairline.
Last year, during four days in January, when I directed Rhoda, my second short film, in a tiny house in Camberwell with Juliet Stevenson and Emma D’Arcy.
Not getting to the point.
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