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.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 September 2025 source ↗
When I was a 26-year-old news correspondent, the head of BBC news gathering, Chris Cramer, refused to let me take up a six-month attachment on the foreign affairs programme Correspondent. He said: “I think it’s too soon; you could do it later.” He’d never have said that to a man.
I don't dwell on disappointments.
That my first play, Red Velvet, took so many years to be done. It took me seven years to write and then five years to get to the stage.
The shocking decline of artistic quality in Hollywood movies over the past 15 years.
“Do you know what your problem is?” It was a dear friend of mine. They were referring to the fact that I’m impatient.
The notion that anything is possible.
John McCarthy, the journalist who was held captive for five years in Beirut. I’ve met him and he was so full of peace, humility and forgiveness – it was inspiring.
I was a guard on the Orient Express – however, only when it was stationed at a railway siding in Vauxhall.
I’m slightly impatient.
A Porsche 911 Turbo.
Alison Steadman, Esther Freud, Eleanor Tomlinson, Dominic Cooper, Fearne Cotton, Greta Scacchi
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