MS
Scarlet fever, 1962. Hypothermia, 1974. Lightning strike, 1986.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 January 2020 source ↗
The question
How close have you come to dying?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.
Others on this question
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Joseph Fiennes
English actor
Climbing in Tibet, surfing in Australia and a moment ago by a courgette cutter as I dithered over one of these questions.
Monty Don
English horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer
Despite a stroke, cancer as a child and various dramas with chainsaws and tractors, the closest was probably when I choked on a lamb chop 25 years ago. Sarah performed the Heimlich manoeuvre and the lamb shot out.
Before I was DPP, I did a lot of work trying to get rid of the death penalty in various countries, and one was Malawi. We’d been in court in Zomba and had to get a plane in Lilongwe, about 200 miles away. We got a local taxi: the guy changed his wheels for the journey because the car wasn’t roadworthy and then hurtled at speed, mostly on the wrong side of the road. I’ve never been so terrified.
Catching Covid. I don’t think any of us know what we’re messing with still to this day.
More from Michael Stipe
View profile →Archaeologist, pop star, store cashier.
As kind, unafraid and boldly vulnerable – and immensely talented, like, mega supernova level. And super hot. And tall. With great skin.
Heady, dizzying, magical. Time stops.
A page from Jim Morrison’s final notebook – I bought it as a birthday gift for a friend.
Anyone I slept with before the age of 27, because I was a selfish, cold-ass bitch.
Can I say: maybe tomorrow?
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