The first time I stood on top of the hill that I now live on, in 2007.
When were you happiest?
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
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
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
There are different flavours of happy, but I think my favourite is the quiet contentment when several generations of family are sitting together watching a crowd-pleaser like Harry Potter on the telly.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 February 2022 source ↗
Others on this question
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Neneh Cherry
Swedish singer
Whenever all my children and my grandchild are near.
Marian Keyes
Irish writer
Last Tuesday, lying on the couch, watching Schitt’s Creek with my husband. Happiness is the small, ordinary days, not the big, up-in-lights ones.
Edmund Hillary
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
Those years from 1953 to 1975 were extremely happy years for me. I did many adventurous activities. I got deeply involved in these aid programs for the people of the Himalayas. I had a nice family, we took our family into the out-of-doors, we camped and we swam and we clambered around the hills. For me, it was a very full and a very happy existence.
More from Lauren Laverne
View profile →I’d rather be enjoyed while I am still here.
The Strictly Come Dancing final almost destroyed me. I was howling all the way through – John and Johannes and then Rose and Giovanni. Oh my God.
I wanted to be like my dad, who was an academic, because he had an office packed full of books, always had loud music on, and seemed to get to do what he wanted.
My biggest disappointment is always myself. That’s my Catholic upbringing.
A caravan. I was brought up going on caravan holidays – but we quickly realised that a double-axle caravan was too much of a commitment and sold it.
It would have been lovely to have grown up in private like a lot of my friends.
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