Martin Compston
Scottish actor
An ornate carved pool table. With travelling, I’ve not had a game on it in two years.
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What scares you about getting older?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this standing prompt, with minor contractions and word-order variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
My hybrid car. Not glamorous, not fast, but indispensable.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 197 →A Tesla for my former husband. He didn’t deserve it.
Rose Tremain
English writer
A cream suit from Chanel that cost almost as much as a small car.
Bernadine Evaristo
English author and academic
A pair of Russell & Bromley boots with studs. I have had them for eight years and wear them all the time.
More from Esther Rantzen
View profile →Alan Bates, Lord Arbuthnot and Nick Wallis for exposing the Post Office and Fujitsu and, let’s hope, for ensuring everyone is properly compensated.
Maybe I should have agreed to take the job of controller of BBC One when Bill Cotton offered it to me. I do feel a wimp; I would have been the first woman in the job.What do you consider your greatest achievement? I don’t really claim credit, I hope, for helping to launch Childline and the Silver Line and Silver Stories. It is an achievement that they all exist, but that is down to their amazing teams.
A teacher and a nightclub singer.
To everyone I’ve bored.
Possible dementia.
When I started as a researcher in the BBC, I was working for an editor who was a self-confessed misogynist. He used to practise shooting by aiming his air gun at an aerosol can balanced just over my head. I made it a matter of pride not to flinch as the pellets whizzed by.
More on money & investment
Also answered this
Suzi Quatro, Billy Crudup, Sofia Helin, Sheena Easton, Steph McGovern, Paul O'Grady
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All money & investment questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject