Stephen Merchant: What has been your biggest disappointment?

What has been your biggest disappointment?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Stephen Merchant said elsewhere, not written here

Failing to get anything in the New Year honours, not even a poxy CBE.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 November 2013 source ↗

Others on this question

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Ranulph Fiennes English explorer

An angina attack 300 metres below the summit ridge of Everest in 2005, having spent 72 days getting that far.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2008 source ↗

Sandy Powell British costume designer

Not meeting David Bowie, but then they say it’s best not to meet your heroes.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 September 2019 source ↗

Gloria Estefan Cuban-American singer and songwriter

Not yet being able to sing in a free Cuba.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 June 2019 source ↗

Barack Obama 44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008

If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings. … And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing. But it is not something that I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months.

Recorded Jon Sopel, BBC News interview, the White House, 24 July 2015 source ↗