The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I’m monstrously judgmental. It’s like talking to the pope.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 March 2026 source ↗
I can’t say no. I am a people-pleaser, and it means that I burn myself out because I take on too much.
My complete lack of organisation that affects all part of my life – my living space, my being in touch with people, everything. I am a walking shitshow.
I repeat stories (like my mum used to).
Laziness, wasting time. I’d like to be able to make films faster.
Like it’s worth being alive.
My A-level results in 1998. I flunked my history A-level and lost my place at Cambridge. It broke my heart for years; now I’m really glad, because I pull out the whole “I went to a polytechnic” thing. But at the time for a teenager who was rather pleased with herself, it was absolutely devastating.
Not being loved.
Every single morning the sun comes up and you get to try again.
I’ve a deplorable tendency to become entrenched in my own prejudices: If I dislike an artist, an art form, or an idea (jazz, ballet, certain kinds of fiction) it is extremely difficult to get me to change my mind, and all evidence presented to the contrary will be discarded and very likely mocked. Of course, nobody suffers but me.
I have never been able to become an atheist and, even though I know it is completely irrational and cannot be backed up, I think when I die I’m going to glory.
Norman Lear, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, David Chang, Tina Turner, Jim Kerr, Phoebe Dynevor
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