Everything’s temporary, and how to make aioli.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Keep working, improving your step.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 137 →The best way to spend time is to waste it.
Stress is bad for your health.
That there is time. I doggedly prioritise and pursue tasks, and the day seems to open out and everything does get done. Chill.
More from Frank Bowling
View profile →In 2001, when my eldest son died.
Trying to exercise authority over one.
Needing order always.
The boozing. I started on rum as a child.
As a nice old man.
A detective. Or a writer. Or a poet.
More on time & hindsight
- When were you happiest? 577 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 77 answers
- What scares you about getting older? 61 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 28 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 23 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 22 answers
Also answered this
Shobna Gulati, Daryl McCormack, Rosalind Eleazar, Lemn Sissay, Esther Freud, PP Arnold
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject