British comedian
I don’t own a property. The carpet in our flat; it’s not fancy or anything.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2020
One question · 6 of 201 answers to it
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this standing prompt, with minor contractions and word-order variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
American rapper
I bought myself a diamond pinky ring for two million dollars.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2020
Welsh actor
Airline tickets. I spend a lot on flying because I’ve three kids in the UK.What would your superpower be?To drink as much beer as I can without putting on weight.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2021
Welsh actress, producer, and writer
A bed from Savoir Beds. People spend loads of money on cars, but spend more of their lives sleeping than driving. The maths is wrong, if you ask me.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
New Zealand actress
My husband and I own some art, but we are not huge spenders.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2019
Scottish radio DJ and television presenter
A pair of Balenciaga boots. They were extortionate, but that has to be at least 10 years ago and I still wear them.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2021
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
How would you describe yourself in three words?
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.
Can I have more than three? Creative, kind, a grafter, engaging, loyal, fun and generous.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
Financier; co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
it’s that grit, that determination, that fortitude, that gets you through what you set out to do.
Recorded · Voices of Oklahoma · 2019
Fiercely loyal, funny, easy-going. I’m sure my daughter and stepdaughters wouldn’t agree with the last bit, but I think I am.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
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.
British track cyclist, 1994–2013
Scotland’s rugby captain. My hero Gavin Hastings was captain when he came to our school for a training session when I was 10 or 11. I met him and was blown away.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2018
Scottish actress and narrator
I did want to be an actor from an early age although I briefly dabbled with the idea of being a vet until I realised you had to stick your hand up a cow’s arse.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2017
First, I wanted to be a historian, then a drummer, and after that I just wanted to be employed. And I still do.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
What is your greatest fear?
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Couples who have to be sat side by side at L.A. dinner parties. What is that all about?!
Recorded · Vanity Fair · 2020
Writer
I’m always afraid of false certainty about things
Recorded · Longreads · 2019
Attorney and politician; Director of the Office of Management and Budget, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense
The greatest fear I always had in the jobs I was in was that some son of a bitch I never knew or met was going to screw up, and I was going to get blamed for it. [laughs]
Recorded · Miller Center · 2021
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 105
- Arts and letters 1211
- Politics and public life 132
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 47
- Sport 109
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Alice Eve, Arthur Ashkin, Ben Bradlee, Bill Sellanga, Clare Sestanovich, Dan Pallotta, Dax Shepard, Dervla Kirwan, Drew Houston, Eddie Glaude Jr., Elton John, Greg Mendez, Greta Scacchi, Guy Garvey, Ian Rankin, Jodie Foster, Jodi Picoult, Kate Mosse, Lauren Laverne, Lolita Chakrabarti, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Meera Syal, Mel Giedroyc, Michael Palin, Niamh Cusack, Nicholas Kristof, Nicola Walker, Paula Scher, Ramona Ausubel, Rebecca Ferguson, Ricardo Semler, Robert Ballard, Robert Ballard, Robin Gibb, Roddy Doyle, Sue Johnston, Susan Butcher, Taja Cheek, Tommy Hilfiger, Tony Judt
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,679
- Answers
- 7,485
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.