That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Show n Tell with Sandi Toksvig

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

For this week's nugget of joy, Sandi Toksvig wows us all with a piece of commemorative china! (it's not what you think, but it WILL make you laugh)Plus, she and Gaby discuss the Women's Equality Party, which Sandi set up with Catherine Mayer in 2015. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sandy Talks for a... So this is our Friday Extra Nugget of Joy. Yes. Where we ask our guest to bring in something that brings them joy. You've been... You have a little Marks and Spencer's cooler bag next to you. My wife packed it.

So she packed it. I have no idea. And you've been teasing me. Is it something you need in a cooler bag? No. I was just trying to make sure it doesn't get broken. Oh, okay. So this is one of my most precious things

and I toyed with not bringing it because it's so precious. Oh, okay. I hope it's okay. I have a very good friend of man called Bwanda, and Bwanda is Danish, she lives in London, and she runs the Scandinavian Kitchen, which is one of my favorite places. I love that place.

She's a fabulous chef, yeah, it's her place. And she texted me to say, I'm in Copenhagen, and I've seen something in a charity shop that I want to buy you. Do you want it? And I saw it, and I went, so first of all, it makes me think about friendship, that your friend might think of you while they're on their holidays. That lovely.

Okay. Now, one of, so this makes me laugh so much. Okay. So one of my big things, all of my life has been fighting for gender equality, fighting for women's equality. So women got the vote in Denmark on the 5th of June 1915. And this is a plate which commemorates that day. So for me it's very important because it's women's equality. It is a picture of a dozen men and it says on it to commemorate the men who got women the vote.

No! Oh, ma'am, I won't drop it, I promise. That is. It is fantastic. I love so much. We have it up in the kitchen at home. That's great. So it's all men with uncertain haircuts and moustaches.

And thank goodness. Thank goodness for them. Because I bet they fought like mad. I bet they were at the forefront of the marching to make that happen. That is fantastic. It's one of the most tone-deaf things I've ever seen in my whole life. That is brilliant. Thank you so much for bringing it in.

It might be the greatest thing that anybody has ever brought. I have to be honest. People have brought in their helmets and their dogs and their statues. This is glorious. This is glorious. How is the Women's Equality Party going? I mean, darling, we're a small party.

We could do with some money. But we carry on battling. You're lovely Catherine. I was there at the Green. Careful with that. I was at the Green Party Conference, me and Catherine. In fact, we were just coming back from the Green Party Conference. We saw each other on that.

Because the parties. Smaller parties need to work together. The fact is, I don't fight for women's equality just because I'm a woman. I have two daughters and a granddaughter, but I also have two grandsons and a son, and it's better for everybody. It would be better for everybody. Aren't we? Oh, we're so much better than we were on so many levels, and yet we still feel like we've got a long way to go with equality across everything.

you know, with gender, sexuality, religion, age, you know, all of these things still feels that the balance is not tipping the right way at the moment. But we're better than we were, aren't we? There are still five women currently charged with abortion crime in this country. There are still plenty of people, ourselves included, I'm sure, who don't get equal pay for the work that we do. So, and I think a lot of the discussion around LGBT plus issues are disgraceful, if I'm honest with you. But I also look at the world picture, and there is not a day I don't wake up wanting to cry for the women of Afghanistan

who are not allowed to sing, who are not allowed to raise their voices, who are not allowed to do what you and I are doing in this very moment. And so in my darker hours, I despair. but I still get up every day and hope to try and make... That's the word hope. Yeah. And it's interesting because you used it

in the first part of the podcast. You used the word hope a lot. And I get that from you that there's always hope. And I think it's really important that everybody, if they possibly can, and there are, you know, some really dark times for a lot of people.

For all sorts of reasons right now. I mean, people are struggling for me. many reasons, that if we could all still hold on to something and it's hope. But also, Gabby, the thing I genuinely believe, and I know this to be true, we can all do something. No matter your circumstances, we can all make a difference. Absolutely. Even if you just make a difference locally. Well, we did that at the BBC, I have to say, because I'm involved with the Make a Difference

Awards. And when you hear these incredible stories that the whole month of September, we're across it on all the local stations. and when you hear people who are making a difference in a very small way but wow their impact is huge and they always say but I'm only one person I only do no you're not you're huge everybody can do something when I lived in London which I've now moved up but when I lived in London

we had a street a perfectly ordinary London street with just some trees growing and a group of elderly people decided to plant flowers around the base of the trees and there wasn't even that you could particularly notice a lot of dirt there and the change in the neighbourhood was breathtaking. They can all do something. It's a detox for thank you.