The question
How would you sum yourself up in three words?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Independent, curious and funny.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2026 source ↗
Middle-class wanker.
Complicated, chaotic, messy.
Eager to learn.
Funny, impatient, annoying.
I genuinely can’t remember crying.
My aeroplane, a Diamond DA42. It’s a twin-engine aircraft and I bought her brand new to fly around the world solo. Very sadly my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer about six weeks before I was due to take off, in May 2017, and she died early June. After that, I lost interest in doing it.
I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.
Like I would die for them in a nanosecond.
Living in a campervan for a week with Timmy Mallett for a children’s TV show about 40 years ago.
I still say yes to too many things.
Mark Steel, Charlie Higson, Esther Rantzen, Jack Davenport, Siobhán McSweeney, Nuala McGovern
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