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.
Being offered a lift by James Acaster.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 April 2025 source ↗
The print size in my mind decreased with time’s incremental decline, and as I arrived at the last word – weeks – it suddenly struck me, with all the force of the fullest sense of the word ‘struck’, that this could actually be his answer and not just the logical next time period in my sentence. Every cell in my body, except those responsible for maintaining a reasonable, calm exterior, was now lindy-hopping at that possibility, the only one that hadn’t occurred to me until that moment.
Diving in the Virgin Islands. I lost sight of the boat and had to swim to a tiny, deserted island. After a great deal of time, the rescue boat saw me waving for my life on the rocks.
I went on a private jet with David Hasselhoff, and it was so turbulent between LA and Vegas I thought it was going down. I also thought: “The headline won’t be about me; it will be: David Hasselhoff and friend.”
I can dodge the bullets – I’m lucky.
A Pot Noodle on a cold day.
By people smiling or shaking their heads. I’ll even take rolling their eyes.
Always trying to turn things into a joke.
Three degrees: I paid my kids’ uni fees.
When I hired two private detectives and got them to follow each other.
Ambulances – I live near a hospital.
Tracey Ullman, Ray Mears, Desmond Tutu, Sofia Helin, David Hasselhoff, Shirley Ballas
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