I was recently made to feel that it’s my mental health that’s the problem and not the system.
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
A fellow artist called me a flaneur!
The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →
Melanie Blatt
English singer
“Your career will be over if you have the baby.”To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why? My parents, for my teenage years. I tried to run away when I was 15. We lived in a fishing village in France and, with my boyfriend, I headed to Spain to sell arts and crafts on the beach. Mum came and took me home.
Belinda Carlisle
American singer
“You sing like a goat.” When I did my French album [Voila], this French woman – a supposed friend – said to my face: “It’s fantastic but, how come you sound like a chèvre?” It was like someone had hit me in the stomach.
Romesh Ranganathan
English actor and comedian
My wife when I tried out some new material on her, said: “I’m sure the people who like you would like that.”
More from Frank Bowling
View profile →A detective. Or a writer. Or a poet.
Needing order always.
Keep working, improving your step.
Recently, as people began to understand what I am trying to do in my painting.
In the 1950s I went to the Chelsea Arts Club’s New Year’s Eve ball at the Royal Albert Hall dressed as a Christmas pudding, with swimming trunks under my costume and holly in my hair.
In 2001, when my eldest son died.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 366 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
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Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Imogen Poots, Nick Frost, Rosalind Eleazar, Mark Radcliffe, Chris McCausland
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