Seventy and beyond

The longest view available. Several of these people were asked the same question decades earlier, and answered it differently.

38 people · 1,093 answers

How would you describe what love feels like to you?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Julie Andrews

English actress, singer and author

Recorded · The Guardian · 2019

As you go through life, you discover so many forms of love – passionate, compassionate, familial, friendship. Love is hard to describe but it’s wonderful.
All 24 from seventy and beyond → or everyone who answered it

What disappointment has stayed with you longest?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Jacqueline Wilson

English novelist

Recorded · The Guardian · 2022

When I was in my 30s and taped myself singing. I always thought I had quite a sweet voice – my voice is terrible, I can’t hold a note.
George H. W. Bush

41st President of the United States, 1989–1993

Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1995

When I lost a race for the United States Senate, I thought the world was going to end for me politically, and 18 years later I was elected President of the United States.
PP Arnold

Recorded · The Guardian · 2023

It has been in myself, for allowing individuals who I relied on to make important decisions in my life that left me alone to pick up the pieces.
Matthew Kelly

Recorded · The Guardian · 2026

I didn’t get a part in a TV series for a writer that I’ve always wanted to work with, but I wasn’t right for it, if I’m truly honest.
All 55 from seventy and beyond → or everyone who answered it

What is the worst job you have ever had?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Rose Tremain

English writer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2022

Working as the assistant to an agony aunt on a women’s magazine. When we didn’t get enough heartbreaking letters, we made them up.
All 27 from seventy and beyond → or everyone who answered it

Everyone here · A–Z

Arlene Phillips, Bill Clinton, Charles Collingwood, Charles Dance, Charlie Munger, Chris Bonington, Ciarán Hinds, Desmond Tutu, Edmund Hillary, Frank Bowling, George H. W. Bush, Gloria Steinem, Graydon Carter, Henry Marsh, Isabel Allende, Jane Asher, Jimmy Carter, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, John Lewis, Jon Snow, Julian Lloyd Webber, Julie Andrews, Kellie Maloney, Lee Child, Marina Abramović, Mario Molina, Miriam Margolyes, Nigel Havers, Oliver Sacks, Paula Wilcox, Pauline Black, Philippa Gregory, Richard Schiff, Russell Mael, Shakin' Stevens, Stephanie Beacham, Su Pollard, Warren Buffett

Other ages

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