Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim recurring question in The Guardian's Q&A series.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗
Playing a pregnant woman, and not being able to find the padding - I shoved a cardie under my dress, and spent the whole play walking around with a sleeve dragging along the floor.
Giving a speech in high school at a pep rally that wasn’t going so well and the dean unplugged the mic. Apparently, I was rambling and the spirit of the cafeteria was being weighed down.
I was doing a photoshoot right after an awards show and I was talking about someone whose makeup I really didn’t like. I said: “She’s gorgeous, I don’t understand how a makeup artist could encourage that?” And the makeup artist on the photoshoot said: “I did her makeup.”
An earthquake in Peru forced me and a young man into the street, where he had to introduce me to his family at three in the morning.
There are yards and yards and yards of abuse every day. I ignore the lot of it.
Vic, my wife, has over the years reduced my impatience, but anybody who has been in a traffic jam with me will know that she hasn’t completed the task yet.
My mum died in her early 70s, and for the last six or seven years of her life she couldn’t move, didn’t speak. By the time our children were born, she was too ill to communicate. I haven’t many regrets in life, but I do regret that they never got to know her, even though she was still alive for a few years. They couldn’t see her warmth, her spirit, her courage.
Failure. I hate losing, particularly at football and politics. I play five-a-side every week – middle of midfield, barking orders. Some people say it’s the taking part that counts. I am not in that camp. It’s the winning that counts.
Before I was DPP, I did a lot of work trying to get rid of the death penalty in various countries, and one was Malawi. We’d been in court in Zomba and had to get a plane in Lilongwe, about 200 miles away. We got a local taxi: the guy changed his wheels for the journey because the car wasn’t roadworthy and then hurtled at speed, mostly on the wrong side of the road. I’ve never been so terrified.
Having more time to spend with Vic and the kids.
Zack Polanski, Jon Snow, Kellie Maloney, Clive Myrie, Chris Bryant, Rory Stewart
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