The question
How close have you come to dying?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Rock climbing in Oslo. During abseiling, I hadn’t tied a knot at the end of the rope and almost slid out. I saw the end of the rope at the last second, so I stopped abseiling.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 April 2026 source ↗
About 40 years ago I drove off an embankment and tumbled down a huge hill. I was standing in the field with my car smashed like a can, saying, “Am I dead?” because I had seen myself dead in the car. Then someone said, “Are you OK?” and I didn’t have a scratch. I believe it was an angel experience.
Before transitioning, I had a severe eating disorder. The doctor said, “Your body’s shutting down and if you don’t improve your mental and physical wellbeing, you’ll die.” Shortly after that, I started transitioning medically and my eating disorder resolved.
A flight from Paraguay to South Africa that went badly wrong. The plane nearly fell out of the sky and the oxygen masks dropped. People were screaming but the pilot saved the day, and then apparently never flew again.
The birth of my daughter.
I worked on a trawler and I was seasick the whole time.
Exultation, fear, quiet comfort and even hate.
I wanted to play for Tottenham.
The world doesn’t consist of bad and good people; it consists of people seeing things in a different way.
Tottenham this season.
As a nice guy, but I’m not sure that is going to happen.
Sara Pascoe, Christopher Hitchens, Ian McEwan, Adrian Edmondson, Maggie O'Farrell, Meera Syal
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