I think I had a close shave with the taxi driver John Worboys. I was in Soho and going back to Chiswick where I lived, and I got a black cab. This guy wouldn’t stop talking and he offered me champagne, and I said: “I don’t like champagne.” It went a bit quiet and I thought I’d offended him. Then I remember going: “Hang on a minute, you shouldn’t be drinking champagne if you’re driving.” And he said: “I’ve just won the lottery and I’m finished after this.” I had a lucky escape.
How close have you come to death?
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Five years ago, a concrete plug, a little bigger than a baseball, fell off a building on Hollywood Boulevard when I was riding in an open convertible. It shattered the windshield. It really shook me. I still have it on my mantel.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 July 2021 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 210 →
Laurence Fox
English actor and activist
A motorbike crash. I broke my shoulder and ribs and was so scared I didn’t ride for two years.
Gary Numan
British musician
I was an air display pilot for 15 years, and watched most of my friends die in crashes. When the children came along, I got out of it.
When I was about two, I accidentally knocked a boiled kettle on myself. I am scarred, in many ways, from that.
More from Jake Shears
View profile →Getting older and dying.
It would definitely involve lots of sex. I would spend the afternoon having some crazy passionate declarative sex with my husband.
A Henry Darger painting. Sadly, I lost it in the divorce, but it was a great parting gift.
To the Scissor Sisters. Back in the day, I could be an absolute monster; I was a real asshole.
The realisation that I am no longer young.
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- What would you like to leave your children? 48 answers
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