What is the best ‘freebie’ you have ever been given?
Birth.
David Isaacs, Sydney, Australia
• The unconditional love of my family.
Charlie Bamforth, Davis, California, US
• Not fully a “freebie”, but being moved to a first-class seat from economy between Vancouver and London.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Difficult to choose. Having grown up in the UK at a time when university tuition was free, my education could definitely qualify. But my time in Nigeria, courtesy of Voluntary Service Overseas, would probably be my first choice: free travel and accommodation that included life experience that could not be bought.
Avril Taylor, Dundas, Ontario, Canada
• My four grandchildren, notwithstanding the cost of raising their parents.
Rennis Witham, Williamstown, Victoria, Australia
• In 1998 I (a young American backpacker) visited Aberdare. Someone gave me a free ticket to a Tom Jones concert, where I met a Welsh carpenter, fell in love (not unusual), stayed in Wales and discovered the Guardian. Nearly 20 years on we’re still together, now in Australia – the Welshman, the Guardian and I.
Sarah Klenbort, Sydney, Australia
• The sun in the morning.
Richard Orlando, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Don’t wreck the other ones
Which planet would you choose to live on if you had the choice?
Isn’t it obvious? I am a woman. As you know: “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.”
Maria Linke, Munich, Germany
• Well, I do love snow, clouds, fireflies in a summer field, raspberries, swimming in the ocean, and my friends. I guess I would opt to stay put.
Doreen Forney, Pownal, Vermont, US
• When I find myself in a blue funk, I blast off to idyllic Basidium – the Mushroom Planet – an invisible asteroid orbiting the moon: my dream-world from Eleanor Cameron’s series of kids’ sci-fi. And no magic mushrooms there, glad to say.
R M Fransson, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
• If given a choice I would still choose to live on our wonderful planet Earth. My fear is that people will increasingly be given a chance to go and spoil other planets.
Margaret Wilkes, Perth, Western Australia
• Any one at all where there are fewer violent, unethical bastards than seem to inhabit this one.
Greg McCarry, Sydney, Australia
Sure, if I can get a free meal
Which famous person would you like to have dinner with?
André. Or else Louis Malle.
John Londesborough, Helsinki, Finland
• Depends who’s paying.
Jennifer Horat, Lengwil, Switzerland
• Germaine Greer for encyclopaedic knowledge, incisive comment, wit and humour.
Ursula Nixon, Bodalla, NSW, Australia
• Any who do not hang their prepositions.
Martin London, Christchurch, New Zealand
It will be scrawled in the loo
What was the first writing on the wall and what will be the last?
Whatever gets written, it’s destined to be found on the wall of a public toilet.
James Nyland, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Any answers?
Is there anything the matter with populism?
William Emigh, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
What would the world be like today if we never had the internet?
Sunil Bajaria, London, UK
• Send answers and more questions to weekly.nandq@theguardian.com
