Shirley Ballas
English ballroom dancer
Getting the job on Strictly at the age of 56.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
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.
Retaining my sense of self in an insecure job.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 August 2020 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 192 →
Joseph Fiennes
English actor
Come back to me the night before I pop my clogs.
Iris Apfel
American interior designer and fashion icon
Lasting this long.
Jim Kerr
Scottish singer and songwriter
That’s easy. I’ve consistently punched above my weight.
More from Clara Amfo
View profile →When I was 11 and we got Sky TV.
I choked on a hard-boiled lemon sweet when I was 13. My brother Sam saved me.
Better bike lanes in London.
Run to the Sun by NERD. I’ve always loved that song. People always think that Pharrell [Williams] wrote it about a lover but it was about his grandmother, who passed away. My brother was a massive NERD fan – he got me into them and there’s something so pure and loving about that song. I want my funeral to be a joyous occasion, I want people to rave and to wear bright colours. But for the moment of reflection, I want that song.
I never said it out loud, but I had this “Why aren’t you like the other mums?” energy towards my mum. Now I am an adult, I am happy that she came here from Ghana and remained who she was, but for a long time I resented her.
More on craft & work
- What is the worst job you have done? 229 answers
- How do you know when a piece of work is finished? 67 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck? 66 answers
- How does a new work begin for you? 63 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 46 answers
- What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? 41 answers
Also answered this
Fatima Bhutto, Keren Woodward, Chris Bryant, Cressida Cowell, Alex Jones, Siobhán McSweeney
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject