I can be a people-pleaser, to the detriment of my own needs sometimes.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I’m embarrassed when I get people’s names wrong.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
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Ina Garten
Cookery writer and shop owner
I worry that if I don’t challenge myself professionally I’ll lie on the sofa and watch old episodes of Law & Order all day.
My tendency to be avoidant.
I can’t stand the way my voice will crack if I’m making a speech. I hate public speaking and the emotion it dredges up.
More from Roger McGough
View profile →I had dreams of becoming the first scouse pope. Unfortunately, the girls got to me first.
A picnic on the beach at Seaforth during the war. Somehow I managed to wriggle through a barbed-wire fence and run across a minefield. My teenage aunt Kat bravely followed suit and rescued me.
Unimpeachable, nonpareil, self‑effacing.
Last Sunday when all the family came round to celebrate my 88th birthday. (Or was it Saturday. Or the week before, perhaps?)
I’m irritated by critics and academics who dismiss poetry that is popular, comprehensible or humorous.
A lady came up to me in Tesco last year and said, “Excuse me, but didn’t you used to be Roger McGough?”
More on identity & self
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Robert De Niro, Eugene Levy, Paapa Essiedu, Judy Blume, Indira Varma, Craig Charles
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