The question
How close have you come to death?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Writer and philosopher; founder of The School of Life
Some dodgy liver function tests in 2004.
Rosanna Greenstreet, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2009 source ↗
I was stabbed in my 20s. It was a late-night mugging and, while taking my wallet, they stabbed me in my chest.
I’m closer today than I was yesterday.
On the back of an angry Icelandic pony when I was filming a show called Spending Dave’s Money with Phil Tufnell.
When I got hit by a car in my home town.
failure. I dream of chapters I haven't written and things that I forgot to say in books I wrote three or seven years ago.
I’m prone to overexplaining things –- when my own understanding of them is shaky. The better I know something, the shorter my prose.
I came from a family where books were highly valued, and that set me on the path of reading. Also, my family got out there and did stuff, and so I grew up feeling that you could change things and get things done if you worked hard.
Impatience with difficult projects: panicking and giving up too quickly.
At 12, I wanted to be an architect, at 18, a writer, and now, at forty, an architect again. I’m powerfully drawn to everything related to building, but I also love ideas. These are my two passions.
Dying before my children are adults.
Margaret Atwood, Sandi Toksvig, Lance Black, Ronald Harwood, Irvine Welsh, Fatima Bhutto
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