Vic, my wife, has over the years reduced my impatience, but anybody who has been in a traffic jam with me will know that she hasn’t completed the task yet.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗
The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Vic, my wife, has over the years reduced my impatience, but anybody who has been in a traffic jam with me will know that she hasn’t completed the task yet.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗
Procrastination.
My difficulty to forgive.
Short-term memory.
Thinking that I am less-than. That thinking is cunning, baffling, and insidious, and I must guard against it every hour of every day.
Having more time to spend with Vic and the kids.
Before I was DPP, I did a lot of work trying to get rid of the death penalty in various countries, and one was Malawi. We’d been in court in Zomba and had to get a plane in Lilongwe, about 200 miles away. We got a local taxi: the guy changed his wheels for the journey because the car wasn’t roadworthy and then hurtled at speed, mostly on the wrong side of the road. I’ve never been so terrified.
Leader of the opposition. I worked with the police service in Northern Ireland and then ran the Crown Prosecution Service. In each of those jobs, if something needed fixing, I could fix it. As leader of the opposition, you are not in power and it’s the most frustrating job I’ve ever had, and a job I hope I don’t have for much longer.
Disrespect. My dad was a toolmaker and worked in a factory all his life, and he felt looked down on, and it really affected him. And so all my life I’ve loathed disrespect and valued respect.
There are yards and yards and yards of abuse every day. I ignore the lot of it.
Failure. I hate losing, particularly at football and politics. I play five-a-side every week – middle of midfield, barking orders. Some people say it’s the taking part that counts. I am not in that camp. It’s the winning that counts.
Bob Schieffer, Jon Snow, Barack Obama, Zack Polanski, George H. W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi
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