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In their sixties

Late enough to be looking back, close enough to still be doing the work. Most of the advice-to-your-younger-self answers here were given by someone in this decade or the next.

43 people · 1,345 answers

How would you describe what love feels like to you?

Originally asked

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

The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.

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

Viv Albertine

Australian-born British musician and writer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2020

It’s like digging a field together: it’s hard work, not very glamorous, but you can stand back and think, “We did that.”
Sandi Toksvig

Danish and British broadcaster, comedian and writer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2018

Like driving a Ford Mustang with the top down across the Golden Gate Bridge while the sun is setting and you have a dinner reservation in Sausalito.
Midge Ure

Recorded · The Guardian · 2023

It’s not all soft focus and wheat fields. Love songs can be about hate, fear, envy, lust and anger, because that’s part of love as well.
Kathy Lette

Australian-British author

Recorded · The Guardian · 2024

Falling in love is like going to the doctor and being told that you need to put on weight. You feel elated.
All 46 from in their sixties → or everyone who answered it

What disappointment has stayed with you longest?

Originally asked

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

This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.

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

Josette Simon

British actor

Recorded · The Guardian · 2022

That my parents and my siblings were so shocked and appalled by my changing my path, from university to deciding to be an actor, that they have never seen anything I’ve done.
Simon Mayo

English radio presenter and author

Recorded · The Guardian · 2020

Feeling as though I had to leave Radio 2 to get my life back on track.
All 73 from in their sixties → or everyone who answered it

What is the worst job you have ever had?

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.

Juliet Stevenson

Recorded · The Guardian · 2026

I worked in a supermarket on the Kings Road when I was 17, standing by the beers, wines and spirits to make sure people didn’t shoplift.
Rita Wilson

American actress, singer, and producer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2023

I was a ticket taker at the Universal Amphitheatre, an outdoor music venue. I saw everybody – Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young, the Eagles, Elton.
Anne Enright

Novelist and short-story writer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2024

When I was 17 I took on a class of six-year-olds for a week. When the Angelus rang at noon, they stood up in silence and I realised I was supposed to recite the prayer, which I did not know.
Elaine Paige

English singer and actress

Recorded · The Guardian · 2016

Maybe That’s Your Problem, a musical about premature ejaculation. It closed after only 18 performances.
Jack Dee

Recorded · The Guardian · 2024

When I was a kid I had a Saturday job in the stockroom of a supermarket. I remember everything in there being a little bit grubby and slightly sticky.
Adrian Edmondson

English actor, comedian, musician and writer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2018

I worked in the largest pork pie factory in Europe. I had a plastic mushroom-shaped thing and had to tamp down the meat into the pie base. It was a conveyor belt of pies from nine to five.
All 47 from in their sixties → or everyone who answered it

Everyone here · A–Z

Adam Clayton, Alison Steadman, Ally McCoist, Andrew Ridgeley, Arlene Phillips, Aung San Suu Kyi, Ben Okri, Bobbi Brown, Bruno Tonioli, Caroline Lucas, Charles Dance, Chris Bryant, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Clive Myrie, Esther Freud, Gloria Estefan, Jared Harris, Jimmy Carter, John Lewis, John Waters, Jon Sopel, Juliet Stevenson, Kathy Lette, Keir Starmer, Kelly Hoppen, Keren Woodward, Mariella Frostrup, Mario Molina, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Ball, Michael Flatley, Michelle Collins, Midge Ure, Milton Jones, Mohamed ElBaradei, Neil Gaiman, Oliver Sacks, Paul McKenna, Richard Feynman, Sandi Toksvig, Tony Judt, Warren Buffett, Winston Churchill

Other ages

Before thirty In their thirties In their forties In their fifties Seventy and beyond