The question
Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them?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.
On a personal level, the friend who is a single mum raising two kids by herself during this Covid era. She is a real hero. If a historical personality, I choose Mikhail Gorbachev, who probably saved the world from world war three.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 October 2021 source ↗
Harry Evans. My opportunities to admire him are many since I am – at time of writing – still married to him.
People who have done really well in their sports: in tennis, Steffi Graf; in ice hockey, Wayne Gretzky.
All the Paralympic athletes.
Tristan Harris.
When my dog died a couple of years ago. We were in Greece on vacation and a friend was watching her at home, and she was bitten by a snake. We rushed home, but we were too late by a few hours.
Now. I’ve learned to adjust my expectations to reality better than when I was 20 or 10.
When I was 16, at the beginning of the summer vacation, I worked in a factory that made industrial valves and I was a much worse industrial valve producer than historian.
I was almost run over by a bus when I was 13. And in 1991, in the Gulf war, an Iraqi missile hit close to my house.
That I still don’t understand life. When I was young, I thought at some point I would find somebody who does. I am 45, and there is a good chance that I’ll never meet somebody like that.
I would like to come out at 16 or 17, and not 21.
David Hasselhoff, Vicky McClure, Suzi Quatro, Ray Mears, Desmond Tutu, Jackie Chan
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