I’d be happier being myself younger.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Not applying myself enough at school.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 September 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 203 →
Ian Rankin
Scottish crime writer
I’d give myself some fashion sense.
Bill Bryson
American-British author
Nothing. It’s too risky. What if you eliminated a misjudged situation from your life and it turned out that one of your children wasn’t born, or you failed to meet your partner?
I would have been better with money.
More from Patricia Hodge
View profile →A ballet dancer, but it changed to being an actress when I got put in a school play.
Not having four children.
One of my favourite songs is Being Alive, from Company by Stephen Sondheim, but it would hardly be appropriate.
My piano, a boudoir grand. I’ve played since I was six.
I spent the earlier part of my life being late for everything, so there was a joke that my tombstone would read The Very Late Patricia Hodge.
The Queen. Her like has not been seen before and I doubt it will ever be again.
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- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
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