I was a guard on the Orient Express – however, only when it was stationed at a railway siding in Vauxhall.
What is the worst job you have done?
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What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
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When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
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What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
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Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
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What does love feel like?
Relationships
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How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
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.
Laying down slabs for the council.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 December 2016 source ↗
Others on this question
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Alison Moyet
English singer
A 12-hour nightshift at a toy factory in Southend.
Simone Biles
United States artistic gymnast
Picking up dog poop at home: my sister and I used to take turns.
I didn’t enjoy a bar job and glass collecting – people could be really rude.
More from Irvine Welsh
View profile →There’s been the odd beauty on the dance floor I really ought to have gone home with.
Happiness is mostly intrinsic: you’re either a happy soul or a miserable bastard. Fortunately, I’m the former.
I haven’t achieved anything of note yet.
Artists who do their own thing, without compromise: Ken Loach, Bob Dylan and James Kelman.
When you can barely stand to look at someone without turning away to catch your breath.
When a pal grabbed hold of me as I fell into an unbanistered stairwell at a rave. Would have been curtains, but for his sharp reaction.
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