Ian McEwan
British novelist and screenwriter
The BBC World Service followed by the dawn chorus.
What keeps you awake at night?
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A long-running fixed question in The Guardian's weekly Q&A questionnaire.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Sometimes the overwhelming realisation that I will one day die; but mostly that ShortList man from the tube throwing stones at my window.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 August 2014 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 196 →
John Simm
English musician and actor
A couple of years ago we moved to East Sussex – I had been living in London for 35 years – and couldn’t work out why I kept waking up and thinking, what’s that sound? It was actually silence.
Mathew Horne
English actor
Insomnia. I go to bed at 9.30pm and listen to Radio 4.
My impotence in the face of war.
More from Reece Shearsmith
View profile →Managing to find my wife and trapping her into marrying me.
There's a man at the tube who hands out ShortList magazine. He has never given up trying to make me take one. I admire that.
On my honeymoon in Lapland.
That I grew old.
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