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
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
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.
On X, I am regularly called a traitor, a fraud, a grifter, a weakling, a narcissist, a coward and a child molester.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →“I have it on very good authority he’s a complete cunt.”
Felicity Jones
British actress
“You’re a reasonably intelligent girl,” by a teacher, and it drove me crazy and made me want to get into Oxford.
Bryn Terfel
Welsh bass-baritone singer
“You’re a wonderful musician but a terrible friend.” It was Daniel Barenboim, the famous conductor, because I didn’t have time in the calendar to work with him.
More from Rory Stewart
View profile →A painting of a man who was killed on the Dutch coast in 1600.
Moments of vanity, carelessness and unkindness.
I become very anxious if I think I’ve hurt someone.
Having somebody pull my judo trousers down at a competition when I was seven. And finding I wasn’t wearing any pants.
Surprise. Smiles. Courage. Safety.
Carelessness of truth and others.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 366 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 63 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
Also answered this
Zack Polanski, Keir Starmer, Desmond Tutu, Jon Snow, Clive Myrie, Chris Bryant
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