Bicycle courier: it was literally dicing with death on a minute-to-minute basis for 12 hours a day. It was terrifying and exhausting.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I worked on a kibbutz in Israel and had to clean out the chicken run. It was like an oven. Inside were rows and rows of chickens that had been shitting for months – the whole floor was six inches deep in chicken shit.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 February 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 232 →Looking after the flowerbed on my windowsill.
Liam Gallagher
English singer-songwriter
Digging holes in Manchester in January.
Julie Hesmondhalgh
English actress and narrator
I cleaned for a very posh lady in Knightsbridge who made me handwash her knickers. I’d advertised myself in The Lady as a dog walker, so I’m not sure how I ended up there.
More from Jared Harris
View profile →On the interstate. Anyone who has driven in the United States will know that you are always very close to death – it is like the wild west on the freeways.
I remember really wanting to go into space. I liked the idea of flying.
A successful marriage, my third.
I’d like my parents to be alive – I miss them.
I’m happy whenever I’m with my wife, Allegra.
It’s like arriving somewhere that you’ve always wanted to be.
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- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 50 answers
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