The question
How close have you come to dying?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Right after 9/11, Kenny and I went to perform for the troops in Pakistan and Uzbekistan. As we were flying in, an electronic voice went off: “Warning: missile launch! Warning: missile launch!” The Taliban had fired a rocket at us. I was waiting to see the back of the plane blow up, but it didn’t and we landed.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 November 2020 source ↗
I made a solo attempt at the Matterhorn in 1996 and came very close to falling. I waited until the dawn light came, so I could retrace my route, but I was hanging off my ice axes for 45 minutes.
I can dodge the bullets – I’m lucky.
In April 2015 I nearly died, as my heart was finding it too difficult to keep my smoke-destroyed lungs going.
When I had cancer. I was having a shave and thought: “Are you meant to have a big hard lump on one side of your neck?”
My teenage years in the Runaways: I was still naive enough to think good things about the world and life and people, and I was having fun playing rock’n’roll around the world, living the dream.
I had a cafeteria job, serving food, and some people were really nasty. There was a stack of nice, cool plates, and a stack of hotter plates that had just come out of the kitchen. So, if a person was an arsehole, I’d hand them a hot plate with a smile and watch them deal with it.
Amazing Grace, on bagpipes.
My buddy Kenny Laguna. He’s a person of extraordinary character, he’s intelligent, and a very good friend.
That my baseball team, Baltimore Orioles, is always in the basement.
I don’t think I’d change anything: the bad forms you more than the good.
Marc Almond, Andi Oliver, Suzanne Vega, Elaine Paige, Emma Bunton, Ronnie Wood
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