Successful like my two uncles, who were paper industry magnates.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2020 source ↗
The question
As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Successful like my two uncles, who were paper industry magnates.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2020 source ↗
Anything and everything. I watched the Olympics and wanted to be an 800m runner. If I watched Inspector Morse, I wanted to be a pathologist.
Sounds cliched, but I always wanted to be an actor.
An astronaut, a writer, a dancer.
I wanted my own ice-cream van and to be a lollipop lady.
Bill Gates. Not only did he build Microsoft, he went on with his wife to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They support the, in my view, single most important factor in making the world a better place – empowerment of women and girls.
Nothing, really. But without little sleeping pills, I’d go crazy.
My surname. You have no idea how many versions I’ve read and heard. It was especially irritating during my Abba years. You can imagine someone calling our hotel and saying: “I’d like to speak to one of the guys in Abba.” Who do you think the receptionist called, Andersson or Ulvaeus?
A cabaret act with Agnetha, Frida and Benny. It was in a nightclub in Gothenburg and one night we had seven in the audience. It was before we found out that we were a pop group.
If it wasn’t for coronavirus, it would be right now. All my life I’ve felt a pressure to achieve. It’s gone now, and that gives me a sense of freedom. Whenever I, for short moments, forget about corona and climate change, I’m happy.
It’s a calm and secure feeling of deep loyalty.
Suzanne Vega, Joss Stone, James Blunt, Kim Wilde, Jennifer Hudson, Emeli Sandé
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