The question
What accomplishment matters most to you?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Being able to paint the way I do.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2026 source ↗
Getting to challenge the status quo by being myself, just existing openly and honestly and boldly on a public level. It hasn’t always been easy, and it came with its fair set of challenges and sacrifices, and I am proud of that.
Waking people up.
Lasting this long.
Doing the spacewalk to fix a solar panel at the furthest edge of the ISS. You have no idea if you are going to get a chance to do a spacewalk when you go into space. I was fortunate. There’s a real juxtaposition between floating, completely serene and calm, looking down at Earth and the universe, and being aware that you are in this hostile environment.
Needing order always.
As a nice old man.
My work. What shape will it take?
A detective. Or a writer. Or a poet.
A fellow artist called me a flaneur!
In 2001, when my eldest son died.
Mark Radcliffe, Mellody Hobson, Gloria Steinem, Michelle Collins, John Grisham, Caroline Lucas
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