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.
Lovely but useless.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 October 2024 source ↗
Curious, kind and frustrating – because I ask too many questions.
Imaginative, dull, amiable.
Happy, loyal and late.
Optimistic, creative, resilient.
I worked with Stephen Fry recently and we had a real heart-to-heart. I asked: “What was it like being in prison for being gay?” And thank God someone came in and he didn’t hear me say it. I was mixing him up with when he played Oscar Wilde. I could picture him in his cell.
Losing my makeup bag.
Thinking I’ve upset somebody.
I remember going to my auntie Pauline’s house in winter when I was eight or nine and she made me a roast beef sandwich. I ate it and fell asleep next to a fire. I felt like a cat, fed and left to nap.
I worked in a paper factory at five o’clock on a Saturday morning when I was in my early 20s. I’d go out raving the night before, get an hour’s sleep and then go to the factory. I was covered in paper cuts and used to think I heard people talking to me; they gave me a lot of breaks because they thought I was going mad.
Some man in the street stopped me and said: “If you were a few inches taller you’d be dangerous.” I’ve no idea what he meant.
Jack Dee, Chris Bonington, PP Arnold, Jon Snow, Esther Freud, Mark Radcliffe
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