Mike Skinner: How close have you come to death?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Mike Skinner said elsewhere, not written here

We used to have one of those gat guns that shot pellets. My friend pretty much had the thing at point-blank range to my temple. It popped out and completed its trajectory about a millimetre from my head.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 January 2009 source ↗

Others on this question

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Rebecca Lucy Taylor

I had some gynaecological issues that were very sudden, about 18 months ago, and felt that I might be dying. I wasn’t but it was quite serious.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗

Suzanne Vega American singer-songwriter

A death threat at Glastonbury festival in 1989. The police told me not to go on, but I said I had to because I was headlining. So I wore a bullet-proof vest. It seemed unlikely that I would be assassinated, but it was shocking and very stressful.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 September 2017 source ↗

Ronald Harwood South African playwright and novelist

Having a heart attack two days after my wife’s funeral.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 November 2016 source ↗

Cory Taylor Novelist and screenwriter

How many times I could have died before now, and in how many different ways. And yet I came close only once: a speeding sedan ran a red light, hit three other vehicles, and jack-knifed into my rear wheel split second after I’d stepped out of my parked car. A bystander described the scene to me later. “You were a millimetre away from losing your legs,” he said.

Recorded Edited extract from Dying: A Memoir, Text Publishing, The Guardian, 17 May 2016 source ↗