The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Impatience and vanity.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2024 source ↗
I dislike my relationship with food. I wish I didn’t love food so much.
My personality.
I don’t think anyone should deplore anything about themselves. You can always improve things, but by deploring you’re putting yourself on a losing streak.
Outside my very close-knit group of friends, socially I’m terrible.
Every time I play tennis I come back with a fresh injury.
I’ve had motorcycle accidents – I had one where I ended up in intensive care. But if you are on a frontline – which I have been – and people start shooting at you – which they have done – you put yourself in quite considerable danger. So: on a moving frontline in northern Afghanistan in 2001.
Warm and embracing.
Arrogance and narcissism.
Not being a professional footballer.
Children’s underwear department at Marks & Spencer, Oxford Circus. I was 16 years old, earning money in my summer holidays.
Rory Stewart, Keir Starmer, Caroline Lucas, Jon Snow, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton
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