The contentment I have now.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
The question
What accomplishment matters most to you?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The contentment I have now.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 August 2025 source ↗
Being dad to my kids and having a family.
Still being married to Annabel.
Getting elected as MP for the Rhondda in 2001 despite everyone saying I was too “exotic” or “flamboyant”, ie gay.
The six Olympic gold medals, because at school I was never great at sport. When I look back on my career I think, how on Earth did that happen?
I’d have stuck with the original Dexys Midnight Runners look we started in 1978, which became known as the New Romantic look a couple of years later. Our management and record label talked us out of it. Later, Duran Duran and Spandau came out with that look and that made us look old-fashioned.
Insanity. I am on a recovery programme – clean from drugs and drink for many years – and if I stopped doing all that stuff I’d go crazy pretty quick and pick up drugs again, because I was a real fucking addict.
Gerry Adams, because he’s got incredible integrity and vision, and he’s had to put up with so much flak.
On stage – the Old Vic in 1981 and Glastonbury last year.
Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – I think that’s true.
My brother Pete passing on in 2005.
Shakin' Stevens, Michael Stipe, Jim Kerr, Sheena Easton, Phil Daniels, Bryn Terfel
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