Steady, reaching, bewildered.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 May 2026 source ↗
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.
Steady, reaching, bewildered.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 May 2026 source ↗
Honest, empathetic, daring.
Optimistic, nurturing, enquiring.
Needing order always.
Loving, considerate and loyal.
It’s usually a slight feeling that, having got through the day, I didn’t get any time to do any writing or something creative – it was a lot of admin, exhaustion from that and rumination.
A running accident when I was 14 or 15. I fainted but I was a bit of a jester and they thought I was taking the piss, so I was left for a bit. I woke up in hospital.
Putting chocolate mousse in my agent’s face. Somebody had done it to me – that thing where they go, “Smell this, it smells funny”, and then they put it in your nose. A year later I was in this French restaurant with a very 1980s-style dessert trolley and, before I knew it, I had a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me. And my agent went, “What’s that smell?”, and it felt impossible not to … I immediately felt awful and tried to apologise. He, of course, said that he found it funny. But I knew he didn’t.
To be stuck in the past.
I’ve not always been great friend material. I’ve tried to get better at that, so to be remembered as reliable by a few would be great.
You reach a certain point in life and suddenly know a lot of dead people, and I’ve noticed you don’t stop getting to know people who are dead. Those relationships continue and I like that.
Neil Gaiman, Sarah Perry, Tony Christie, Clare Bailey Mosley, Dervla Kirwan, Penny Lancaster
Search the directory for somebody in particular.