The question
What disappointment has stayed with you longest?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
At the time, losing our business, home and all our possessions in 1991 after the failure of our jewellery company. But if that had not happened then other good things would not have happened, either.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 May 2018 source ↗
Receiving a letter saying I didn’t get into drama school. I felt like Billy Elliot. It was a crushing moment.
Not being active in my own desires.
I am always disappointed when I see myself on the screen.
Not doing Top Of The Pops when The Young Ones’ single went to number one.
I once had to dig a fire escape from a basement in a health club. It took two weeks.
Despite a stroke, cancer as a child and various dramas with chainsaws and tractors, the closest was probably when I choked on a lamb chop 25 years ago. Sarah performed the Heimlich manoeuvre and the lamb shot out.
A tractor, 12 years ago. Bright yellow and still brilliant.
My children. I was away an awful lot when they were little and not very good at being a father when I was around. I could have done better.
Getting my 21-year-old knees back.
Viv Albertine, Tony Ross, Rose Tremain, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nora Ephron
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