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.
Outside my very close-knit group of friends, socially I’m terrible.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 January 2026 source ↗
Oversensitivity.
The way I allow myself to talk to myself.
I am unable to use scissors.
I never let it go.
A house in west London.
When I was about two, I accidentally knocked a boiled kettle on myself. I am scarred, in many ways, from that.
I got sacked from TK Maxx for falling asleep under the coats.
Certainty. I also can’t stand it when someone calls you and then says, “Wait, I need to put my headphones in.”
I did say sorry to my mum, for being the way I was when I was a teenager. You become a parent and go, “Oh my God, this is what they were doing.”
A comedian or the guy who drives the little truck around airports that takes old ladies to their gate.
Ben Okri, Sofia Coppola, Alex Hassell, Helena Bonham Carter, Adrian Dunbar, Vick Hope
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