Roger McGough: What trait do you most dislike in other people?

The question

What trait do you most dislike in other people?

Originally asked

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

A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.

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

Roger McGough

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I’m irritated by critics and academics who dismiss poetry that is popular, comprehensible or humorous.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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Martha Stewart

Indecision and wishy-washiness.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2009 source ↗

Charlie Munger Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, 1978–2023

Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought. Self-pity gets pretty close to paranoia and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity.

Recorded USC Gould School of Law commencement, 2007, Speakola, 2007 source ↗

Stanley Tucci

Cruelty. I don’t see the point.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, October 2024 source ↗

Jane Asher English actress and author

Mental cruelty.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 May 2023 source ↗

More from Roger McGough

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Question What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy? Time & hindsight

Last Sunday when all the family came round to celebrate my 88th birthday. (Or was it Saturday. Or the week before, perhaps?)

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗

Question How close have you come to dying? Death & what remains

A picnic on the beach at Seaforth during the war. Somehow I managed to wriggle through a barbed-wire fence and run across a minefield. My teenage aunt Kat bravely followed suit and rescued me.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗