Racial and homophobic slurs – the F- and N-words. When I moved to London, people screamed the F-word from their cars, and that stings.
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
“Didn’t you used to be Graydon Carter?”
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 June 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 126 →
Julian Lloyd Webber
British cellist and conductor
When the surgeon told me I wouldn’t be able to play the cello again, in 2013. I have a herniated disc and it’s pressing on a nerve in my neck. I announced I was stopping playing in 2014. I absolutely did not want to stop.
Liev Schreiber
American actor
“Not interested.” Who? Many people.
Sharon Corr
Musical artist
I can’t disclose that because it’s not suitable for public airing, but it was truly awful; they’ve since said worse.
More from Graydon Carter
View profile →The metabolism I had in my 20s.
My first week in New York in 1978, when I was about to start as a writer at Time. And my first week in the south of France after retiring from my job of 25 years as editor of Vanity Fair.
Canadians are trained to say sorry to almost everything and everyone.
That I didn’t go to Turkey during the pandemic for one of those male hair treatments.
Content. Cheerful. Appreciative.
Be generous and kind. Honestly, those two things did everything for me.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 372 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 210 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 208 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 126 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 80 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 40 answers
Also answered this
Siobhán McSweeney, Katie Melua, Michelle Visage, Sharleen Spiteri, Meghann Fahy, Chris Bryant
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