I worked in a paper factory at five o’clock on a Saturday morning when I was in my early 20s. I’d go out raving the night before, get an hour’s sleep and then go to the factory. I was covered in paper cuts and used to think I heard people talking to me; they gave me a lot of breaks because they thought I was going mad.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
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What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
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Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
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What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
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What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I was a door-to-door carpet-cleaning salesman. I thought my life was going to end, so I binned that after a day.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 December 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 231 →
Viv Albertine
Australian-born British musician and writer
In my first job in film, a giant bloke dressed like a sumo wrestler asked me to get his G-string out of his arse. He said he couldn’t reach it.
Chris Hoy
British track cyclist, 1994–2013
Delivering papers in the freezing cold for my granny. I got paid in Panini football stickers, so it wasn’t all bad.
Lucy Worsley
English historian
In my teens, peeling garlic to make pie filling in a butcher’s shop.
More from du Beke
View profile →When the babies were born, in March 2017.
Convincing my wife to marry me and have children with me.
I don’t know, because I spend like a man with three arms. I am always spending on clothes; I like to have things made.
Not doing as well as I’d hoped in dancing competitions. I was massively competitive and massively disappointed most of the time. It’s the same now.
As a wonderful husband and a great father, and somebody who inspired others to pursue their own dreams, like Fred Astaire inspired me.
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