Having regrets.
What scares you about getting older?
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A newer fixed question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Seeing my kids getting older scares me.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 November 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 61 →
Maurice Sendak
Children's author and illustrator
I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... And so it's what I dread more than anything is the isolation.
Recorded
Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011
source ↗
I understand that you lose the register of hearing that enables you to hear crickets, and when I can’t hear crickets in the summer I’ll be really sad.
Am I enjoying it too much to find out?
More from Tom Fletcher
View profile →Complicated, chaotic, messy.
“You’re not in Busted any more.” I successfully auditioned to be in Busted and then a couple of days later I got a phone call to say that I was no longer needed as they were going to keep it as the three of them. But it ended up being OK.
I’m quite stubborn.
I was in Oliver! when I was 10 and I peed myself on stage in front of however many people the Palladium holds. It was the stuff of nightmares.
On stage with my band.
People who aren’t polite.
More on time & hindsight
- When were you happiest? 577 answers
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 137 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 77 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 28 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 23 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 22 answers
Also answered this
Dawn O’Porter, Andrew Ridgeley, Nuala McGovern, Paula Wilcox, Dervla Kirwan, Mario Molina
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