Jacqui Smith
British politician
Christmas Eve: shops closed, family all together!
When were you happiest?
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
After the birth of both my children, although Manchester United winning the treble in 1999 came pretty close.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 March 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 581 →The night my daughter was born, New York, December 29, 1997. After she emerged and I held her in the palm of my hand, I walked around Manhattan in a stupor of happiness.
Driving golf balls into the cricket pavilion on summer evenings in my pajamas.
Christy Turlington Burns
American model
Before kids, when I was 13 or so, on the back of my horse, running at full speed in an open pasture. Post kids, happiness happens often, but in more subtle ways. I now prefer the word “content”.
More from John Simm
View profile →Outliving my kids – and rats.
Professionally, becoming a relative success in a job that I love; and personally, helping to raise two wonderful children.
A couple of years ago we moved to East Sussex – I had been living in London for 35 years – and couldn’t work out why I kept waking up and thinking, what’s that sound? It was actually silence.
Arrogance, bullying, meanness – just try to be kind, it’s not difficult.
Live in the moment. Enjoy life because time cruelly speeds up as you get older and becomes scarily finite.
Working in a very busy bar in the West End when I was trying to pay my way through drama school. I had to dance in a cage in a vest and cycling shorts to Venus by Bananarama, Greased Lightnin’ and Y.M.C.A. every night. It was excruciating.
More on time & hindsight
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 141 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 82 answers
- What scares you about getting older? 63 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 31 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 24 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 23 answers
Also answered this
Stephen Merchant, Simon Callow, Oti Mabuse, Chris Addison, Ben Kingsley, Floella Benjamin
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject