Pettiness, arrogance, boorishness.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Question
What scares you about getting older?
Time & hindsight
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Jealousy. It’s the thief of joy.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 197 →
Jason Derulo
American singer and songwriter
The need to put other people down.
Entitlement or a lack of manners. Though I find they often flock together.
Comparing themselves to other people.
More from Helen Skelton
View profile →Losing my eyesight – I live for the view, and the sunset and the sunrise.
After the 2012 Olympics I hosted the parade. I had on a little skirt and when the prime minister came on everyone cheered. I thought: “Oh my God, they love David Cameron,” but they were cheering because my skirt had blown up, and I’d flashed my knickers at him.
More sleep – my children do not sleep.
Getting to the end and thinking that I haven’t laughed enough.
That you get out of life what you put in. When you grow up on a farm you literally reap what you sow.
To Gorka Márquez, who was my Strictly partner, for not winning the glitterball in 2022.
More on values & belief
- Which living person do you most admire, and why? 406 answers
- What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong? 79 answers
- What are you unwilling to optimise? 30 answers
- What have you come to understand about what it means to be human? 14 answers
- What is the most overrated virtue? 10 answers
- What do you need to believe in order to get through the day? 9 answers
Also answered this
Alex Lawther, Erin O'Connor, Meghan Trainor, Anthony Hopkins, Rose Tremain, Douglas Stuart
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All values & belief questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject