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In their thirties

Old enough to have a view and young enough to still be arguing for it. A great deal of the working advice on this site was given at this age.

31 people · 1,032 answers

What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you?

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.

Hamza Yassin

Recorded · The Guardian · 2023

There’s a tweet somewhere saying, “If you like Africa so much, why don’t you go back there.” It was because I dedicated one of my dances to my three mothers – Mother Africa, Mother Nature…
Leona Lewis

Recorded · The Guardian · 2023

It happened when I was younger, somewhere outside London. We were on bikes, and this older girl pulled up and said something racist that I won’t repeat.
Meghann Fahy

Recorded · The Guardian · 2026

I had a casting director once stop me in the middle of an audition and tell me to go wash my face in the bathroom because she felt my makeup was too distracting, but I wasn’t wearing any.
All 21 from in their thirties → or everyone who answered it

Which book do you still mean to read, and why has it stayed on your list?

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.

Marina Diamandis

Recorded · The Guardian · 2025

None! We shouldn’t shame people for not having read “the greats”. There are always new greats emerging that may feel more relevant to our life experience, particularly female writers.
All 5 from in their thirties → or everyone who answered it

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.

Gemma Whelan

English actress

Recorded · The Guardian · 2020

I was very ill with anorexia when I was a teenager. I went into hospital voluntarily, otherwise they were going to section me.
Kate Nash

British musician

Recorded · The Guardian · 2019

I had heart surgery when I was 17. The other time was when I fell off my piano. My head was an inch away from a metal step.
Kevin Pietersen

English cricketer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2019

Being charged by a white rhino on a walking safari. It came running towards us and I froze, which is the right thing to do. If it had hit us, it would have been goodnight.
Emeli Sandé

British singer

Recorded · The Guardian · 2017

On a camping holiday in Scotland when I was nine: I was in an inflatable dinghy that drifted out to sea. A lifeboat had to come.
Rory Kinnear

English actor

Recorded · The Guardian · 2017

I inadvertently rubbed the milky residue of a toxic cactus plant into my eye while filming Women In Love in the desert in Namibia, and my body went into anaphylactic shock as the producer…
All 33 from in their thirties → or everyone who answered it

Everyone here · A–Z

Alex Lawther, Chris Hoy, Douglas Booth, Eleanor Tomlinson, Erin Doherty, Erin O'Connor, Giovanna Fletcher, Hamza Yassin, Jack Whitehall, James Norton, Jenna Coleman, Johannes Radebe, Joseph Fiennes, Katie Melua, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Layton Williams, Leona Lewis, Marcus Mumford, Marina Diamandis, Meghann Fahy, Mellody Hobson, Mike Skinner, Nish Kumar, Rebecca Ferguson, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Richard Feynman, Romola Garai, Rosalind Eleazar, Sarah Perry, Steve Jobs, Tuppence Middleton

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