I’m astounded by the young activists, ecologists, poets, movement leaders, peaceful marchers, change makers everywhere. It’s like watching a garden bloom.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Question
Which book are you ashamed not to have read?
Taste & recommendation
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Julie Hesmondhalgh – she’s the kindest, brightest, most truthful woman. She’s so talented, works hard, cares about the right things, puts her energy in the right places. I adore her.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 406 →
Cybill Shepherd
American actress and former model
Jimmy Carter, for his wisdom and courage in going to meet Hamas.
Lorraine Pascale
British model and cook
Oprah – she's achieved so much.
My mum, for the way that she brought up her three children and managed to make her money work. She worked as a cleaner for all these families we went to church with. She would cycle there with my little sister on the back of her bike – we didn’t have a car. She had an amazing mind for planning and organising so that we got to do ballet, we went to Brownies.
More from Rebecca Lucy Taylor
View profile →I never finished The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.
People who can’t wait to argue.
I’d have gone solo sooner.
On stage at the Brixton Academy on the third night of the residency I did there. I walked out and could not stop crying, some sort of mad relief that it’s all paid off and it’s all been worth it.
I was recently made to feel that it’s my mental health that’s the problem and not the system.
Most of the people I dated between 23 and 33. It feels crazy to me that I ever thought that I could be anyone’s girlfriend before I figured out the things I’ve now figured out.
More on values & belief
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- What are you unwilling to optimise? 30 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 14 answers
- What is the most overrated virtue? 10 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 9 answers
Also answered this
Kevin Bacon, Ernest Borgnine, kd lang, Shirley Manson, Monica Lewinsky, Lily Tomlin
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- All values & belief questions
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