The question
If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Fewer night shifts.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 November 2025 source ↗
I’d give myself some fashion sense.
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?
I wouldn't have been a bully and I'd have stood up to more bullies.
I would have thought more about exercise and a healthy lifestyle in my 20s, 30s and 40s.
Losing my husband. We are properly codependent.
In the Pet Shop Boys song Being Boring they’ve a great line that says “I never dreamed that I would get to be the creature that I always meant to be”. And I feel I am, so that’s great.
Too high an expectation of others and myself.
One time an engineer said, “I always forget your frequency is at the same level as a crying baby.” I think he was on to something, because I have been told to shush many times over the years.
Three times when I lived in New York, I missed seeing David Bowie in real life by moments.
I lived in New York during 9/11 and worked a couple of blocks away from the twin towers. I was looking when the first tower exploded and then when the second plane flew in and, before we had to evacuate, I did see people jump to their death.
Aidan Gillen, Courtney Pine, Paterson Joseph, Heather Graham, Rupert Graves, Lionel Shriver
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