Cerys Matthews: If you could edit your past, what would you change?

If you could edit 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.

Recorded Cerys Matthews said elsewhere, not written here

I’d be born a man and have a wife to run the house.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 July 2016 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 203 →

David Jason English actor

Not getting older at each birthday, but I appreciate it beats the alternative.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 May 2021 source ↗

Julia Stiles American actress

I’d have been less precocious as a child (you grow up fast in New York). I’d have prolonged the naivety.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 July 2015 source ↗

John Simpson English journalist

I would have behaved better to my first wife, and the girl I lived with afterwards. I was always away.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 December 2016 source ↗

Emma Barnett British broadcaster and journalist

Not being able to have a baby for two and a half years. Lots of people say it made me a better person; I think it made me worse. You go to a very dark place with your friends because they are having kids, and you want to be happy for them but you’re not.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 February 2021 source ↗