Courtney Pine
British jazz musician
I would have spent more time practising and got a proper lawyer to sort out my first album contract.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I would never have gone on a diet. I would go back with the knowledge that not being perfect is fine.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 December 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
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Reggie Yates
British actor and media personality
How little confidence I had in my late teens and early 20s.
James Bay
English singer-songwriter and guitarist
I couldn’t do it. I realised recently that all the things that have gone wrong are just as important as all the things that went right.
Andy Roddick
American tennis player
I’d love to have won Wimbledon.
More from Harriet Walter
View profile →In some way your life is doubled. You’re you and the other person.
My mother, because I didn’t appreciate until after she’d gone that she was a vulnerable human being. I just expected her to know everything and be everything.
Everything. I’ve one of those brains that doesn’t quieten down.
I spent £600 on Rudolf Nureyev’s ballet shoes after he died. He was the biggest idol in my life and influenced me hugely.
When I got to 40 and realised I hadn’t read all the books I needed to read to understand the world.
Judith Clark, on whom I based my character in the prison trilogy. She has served over 35 years and turned herself around. She is an inspiration.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 366 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
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Patricia Hodge, Charlotte Church, Omid Djalili, Katherine Parkinson, Kiefer Sutherland, Eleanor Tomlinson
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