A soldier and adventure guy.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I had dreams of becoming the first scouse pope. Unfortunately, the girls got to me first.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 222 →
Warwick Davis
English actor
I didn’t have a chance to want to be anything – I became an actor at 11.
Emma Barnett
British broadcaster and journalist
A fishmonger, then a surgeon.
Marie Kondo
Japanese organizing consultant, author, and television show host
Housewife and mother of three, which I am now.
More from Roger McGough
View profile →I’m irritated by critics and academics who dismiss poetry that is popular, comprehensible or humorous.
Unimpeachable, nonpareil, self‑effacing.
Losing track (see above).
Last Sunday when all the family came round to celebrate my 88th birthday. (Or was it Saturday. Or the week before, perhaps?)
A lady came up to me in Tesco last year and said, “Excuse me, but didn’t you used to be Roger McGough?”
I’m embarrassed when I get people’s names wrong.
More on identity & self
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Belinda Carlisle, Isabelle Huppert, Jo Nesbø, Rick Astley, Sue Perkins, Joanna Scanlan
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