Woman's Hour - Skin from Skunk Anansie

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

Skunk Anansie have brought out a new album 25LIVE@25 - a compilation of live recordings from the last 25 years. It was released on Jan 25th. The band ‘turn’ 25 this year. Skin talks to Jenni and sings live in the Woman's Hour studio.Women in Saudi Arabia are tracked and monitored via a large government database and an app called Absher. We look at how difficult and dangerous it makes it for them to flee. Is this theatre world doing enough to appeal to minority groups like young women and people of colour? Tobi Kyeremateng is the founder of the Black Ticket Project and Babylon Festival at the Bush Theatre - which both target a young, black audience. Tanika Gupta is a theatre writer with over 20 years of experience. Her work is often inspired by her Indian culture.Chef, cookbook author and broadcaster, Clodagh McKenna’s new book ‘Clodagh’s Suppers’ celebrates seasonal cooking and entertaining at home. She'll Cook the Perfect…Kale, Bean & Winter Roots Soup.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Bill Bostock Interviewed Guest: Rothna Begum Interviewed Guest: Tanika Gupta Interviewed Guest: Tobi Kyeremateng Interviewed Guest: Clodagh McKenna Interviewed Guest: Skin

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Friday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Now on a day like today, what you need for supper is a big bowl of something to warm you up. Clodagh McKenna joins us to cook the perfect kale bean and winter roots soup. The Black Ticket Project, a plan to encourage people of colour to go to the theatre. And it's 25 years since the formation of the band Skunk Anansi. Their lead singer, Skin, will sing live in celebration. Now it all seemed so positive last year when Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince announced that women would be allowed to drive cars.

Then we heard about activists being taken to prison and reports of them being tortured. Then there was the young Saudi woman who applied for asylum in Thailand after escaping her family in Saudi Arabia. Now we learn around 1,000 women attempt to flee Saudi Arabia every year, but a successful escape is nigh on impossible. The online newspaper Business Insider has been investigating the way in which technology is being used to enforce the country's guardianship rule, which requires that every woman must have a man who accompanies her or gives her permission to travel. They've discovered a government app called Absher. Rothner Begum is the Human Rights Watch women's rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa.

Bill Bostock is a journalist at Business Insider and explained how the app works. The Absher website and app is at first really innocuous and a very plain government website, much like we have in the UK with gov.uk websites used to register to vote or check your tax rebate. The way it works in Saudi Arabia is men under the guardianship system give women permission to travel. They log on with a password, a username and a code, a capture even, to check they're not a robot.

They then go through several stages, including clicking on, you know, dashboard, where you can manage lots of aspects like driving, your driving licence renewal or paying a parking ticket. But then there's a section which is called travel-dependent permissions, and that is where men have to give their dependents, i.e. women and children, permission to travel. With a few clicks, they can say a wife or daughter can travel for one journey,

two journeys between a specific airport, multiple journeys, or until the end of their passport term, which is five years. It's started out in 2011-2012 as a quite rudimentary website and has gained momentum over the last eight years and is really now starting to draw in more and more parts of civic life. The website is designed by the Ministry of the Interior, so the equivalent of our Home Office, and they have a branch called the National Office of Information who have built this. So, I mean, they're part of a government body who have built this,

and that's what it does in effect. Rathna, it's obviously been in operation for some time why have we been unaware of it well actually it came to the fore in 2012 because what had happened was some people didn't even know that it was exist it existed the government had automatically registered all these women dependents to their male guardians so couples had turned up to the airport and uh you know while male guardians. So couples had turned up to the airport and while both the husband and wife had turned up, he got an automatic notification saying that his wife was leaving the country.

They had no idea that they were supposed to be getting these kind of notifications. This led to a campaign, a backlash by women's rights activists saying this is absolutely demeaning and insulting. Why were men getting texts saying that they're the wives of the daughters who are leaving the country? And that led then to a slight change to that system. So in 2014, the government said it would no longer be a default as in a mandatory notification system, it would be an option. So what you now see is that the male guardians can decide to have a notification if their dependent decides to leave the country. So men can monitor if they so choose.

But what we're really seeing is Saudi Arabia loves the use of modern technology, but what they're doing is modernising or rather using modern technology to reinforce what is old forms of patriarchy. So what's happening, Bill? How does The Guardian practically keep tabs on the woman for whom he's responsible? If she has permission to travel and she goes to the airport, what actually happens? Well, yeah, those SMS alerts that Rothna mentioned, they would be if a woman used her passport at an airport,

a text message would come through between immediately at check-in, you know, you hand over your boarding pass and your passport when you're checking in a bag, or there might be a bit of a delay. The way that guardians and men check this is they can just log on to Abshah and they can see which permissions they've used, which they've given, rather.

So it's very easy to see if, I think a good example would be some Saudi women get offers to study abroad at foreign universities. They will then go and study. They will have permission granted on Absher to go to and from, it could be to and from, Jeddah or Riyadh to London or New York. But then it could be limited to that.

So the Guardian could just scroll up and down the list and see which journeys are being made, or he would receive these SMS alerts that Rothna just mentioned. So Rothna, how much has the technology actually strengthened the power of the guardian? Well, in some ways, it's done two things. One, it's meant that the guardian has complete knowledge of exactly where she's going

and an ability to be notified just as it's meant that the guardian has complete knowledge of exactly where she's going and an ability to be notified just as it's happening. So if a woman was trying to figure out a way of getting out the country, maybe through another way without forming them, it was difficult. But, you know, now they know or they can know because they have this notification system. On the other hand, it's meant that, you know, before what you had was what was a yellow piece of paper that you needed before you could get the permission to leave the country. Now women who are trying to escape, who are trying to leave especially abusive families, they would steal the password of their guardian, get into the phone, change the settings and the notification.

They turn off the notifications and then they'd immediately get to the airport and try to leave that way. So in a way, it's allowed some women to find ways to escape out of the country as well. But what about now? I mean, if she is given permission to travel, what are the chances of her getting very far if she's trying to escape? I mean, that's the thing. If she is somebody who's trying to escape and the guardian is being an abusive person, this is a person who will not give any permission, they will have turned it all off, they would have made all the notifications on so that if they did turn up at the airport, the authorities will know she's not allowed to travel.

The other thing to note is it's not just about whether you can travel abroad, because that's one aspect of it. You can't even obtain a passport without a male guardian permission. So they may not, you may not even have a passport to leave the country with. And even if you're inside the kingdom, right, so you're being abused at home, you want to leave the home from physical abuse, you can still be arrested and returned by the police. Or you end up confined to a shelter where it's basically you can't leave until you've then reconciled with the family or you choose to marry a man who then becomes your new male guardian. So that's the reality for the vast majority of women. There's only a few who are able to escape out of the system. Now, Bill, as Rafa said, the text messages that the guardians receive if the woman's traveling did cause controversy online in Saudi Arabia.

And the government did suggest it will be stopped. Do we know how that thinking is developing? Since that point, since that 2014 backlash was acted on, when we were reporting on the Abishare, we saw Twitter was full of men and women saying, is it ridiculous? I'm a business woman traveling to, you know, an expo in this city and my husband's getting a text. How sort of regularly are they still happening? It's really hard to say because we still hear reports of them coming in every time people travel, but sometimes it's not as clear as it once was back in 2012. As Rafa mentioned, it's like MBS and Saudi Arabia

are really technologically pushing forward. And so it wouldn't be... It seems to me like these sort of alerts definitely could still be happening. We did have this case that got a lot of notoriety, the young woman who went to Thailand. What impact is that case, the woman who managed to escape to Thailand, having on others who might want to follow her. I think Rahaf's case where she, basically how she left was that she was with her family on a visit to Kuwait, where they don't have the same restrictions. So she was able to board a plane and get to Thailand. But at that point, the Saudi authorities intervened and with the Thai officials were trying to forcibly return her back. What that showed, and you know, in her case, she did successfully escape,

and that was because she held onto her phone and documented everything live on social media. It is encouraging a lot of sad women to feel like they could do something similar. There's a lot more women. This has been happening the last few years anyway. We've been trying to document their escape live on social media, but this is the first time we're really seeing a successful attempt. The only problem is that while we're seeing more women wanting to do the same thing, the truth is it's still just as dangerous, if not more dangerous,

because now families are also aware that women could do this, which means that they may be more likely to ensure that they've got notification systems set up on their phone, that they don't give women the travel permission to leave the country, that they might not want to let them go out of the country in the first place. So it might be even more difficult for women to actually attempt the same thing as Rahaf did. And there are no moves to end the guardianship scheme. We saw an almost sliver of hope from the Saudi authorities in April 2017,

when the king decreed that they would review the male guardianship system, that they would end arbitrary restrictions on guardianship. But since then, we've seen nothing really. I mean, there've been very, very small steps. They've allowed women to drive, but inherently, the biggest impediment to women's rights in the kingdom, the male guardianship system, is still intact. Rasmus Begum, Bill Bostock, thank you both very much indeed for being with us. Now, I am, as you probably may have gathered, a pretty regular visitor to the theatre.

Not very long ago, I went to see Nine Nights, a play about a Jamaican family's mourning rituals on the death of their mother and something very unusual struck me. Around half the audience was black. It's extremely rare to sit in the stalls and be surrounded by anything other than what appears to be a group of white middle-class theatre goers. So what was going on? Well, it may have been the subject matter or it may have been the result of a plan called the Black Ticket Project, designed to encourage more people from ethnic minorities to discover live theatre. Watanika Gupta is a playwright.

Toby Kairomating is the founder of the project and she's running the Babylon Festival at the Bush Theatre in London's Shepherd's Bush. Toby why did you set up this project what inspired you to do something about it? I think it was when I went to see Barbershop Chronicles that was on before Nine Night and I saw it the first time it was at the National and it was still a very kind of National Theatre predominantly white audience for a story that I felt I personally related to a lot I sat in barber shops a lot with my brothers and my dad when I was younger and watching it I was just sort of like this is something that my brothers would want to see, my dad would want to see. Lots of people that I knew would want to see, but they're not here.

Why is that? And so I bought a bunch of tickets and just gave them to young black men, specifically to go and see the show. Because I think it's important. It's their story, it's pretty much. So they should be able to access them and see them and how far on have you managed to take it because you're not buying all the tickets that you're giving away now are you no definitely not um with nine night we did a crowdfunder um and which was

incredible and we raised enough money for 250 black young people to see that show. And since then, lots of people have been, we've received lots of free tickets from organisations, which has been amazing. But also people have been donating to us so we can pay for people's travel, cover other tickets. We get some young people saying, oh, I really want to see this show I've just

heard about it but I can't afford it and it it means that we can also act on an ad hoc basis as well. And Tanika you have worked in theatre I think for more than 20 years. Yes. What's your experience of the audience that comes to see your work? Well to be honest when I write I don't really think about the audience I just think about the. But I'm always interested in seeing who comes to see the shows. And certainly, if you put the play on, then the audience will come. So for example, Lions and Tigers, which was on a couple of years ago at the San Juanamaker at the Globe, I was really, really heartened to see that there was a very large South Asian audience that came who would not normally go to that theatre

and I think that actually it's about the plays that you put on. What drew you to theatre in the first place, Toby? I think culturally storytelling has always been a thing in my family and, yeah, kind of live storytelling I guess that that feeling of being in the moment something that's quite poetic um and so it for me it felt like quite quite a natural form to be a part of um yeah so I would say that's that's probably where it started for me. And Danika how easy has it been for you to get your work performed? Well, you know, if I was to say to you it's been really hard,

that would be a bit of a lie because actually I've had quite a good career. But I would say getting my plays on and with a good run in a main building has been very tough because what I always get told is that oh does it fit into our season and we've already done an Asian play and I go well it isn't an Asian play it's a play um and also we uh the thing that I've heard recently is it's very hard to get a South Asian audience into our into our theatre and I think but why do you have to kind of categorize and label everything why you know they're not all Asian people in this play. So it's been quite frustrating.

But on the other hand, there's nothing else I can do, so I just carry on. And the plays do get on, but there should be more, and it shouldn't just be one every season. So how much is it a vicious circle in a way, Toby, that if plays don't reflect your culture you won't go to the theatre? I think I think it's just a given that if you if something has historically excluded you um you're not just randomly want to wake up one day and go to it

um there's a level of trust that hasn't been built amongst those communities um and also just interest as well I don't think you know not everything I see is directly reflective of my identity the things I go through but um it got to a point where I was watching a lot of stuff that wasn't in any kind of relation to me and it it made me wonder why I was working in this industry um whether that was necessary um and as I exist as a human being why aren't I seeing myself on the stage um and so I think you can't historically exclude a bunch of groups from from an art form and then just expect and still expect them to engage with you in any kind of way so Janika what do you make of Toby's plan to get

theatres to provide a certain number of tickets for ethnic minorities and not in the gods but in the good seat I think it's fantastic I think it's fantastic how wonderful to be able to sit in the stalls and watch I mean to be honest for people work in theatre, it's pretty hard to get tickets in the stalls. I often see plays in the gods. But I think it's fantastic. And actually, I think, unfortunately, I think what Toby's doing is the work that the theatres should be doing, actually. I think they should be doing a lot more outreach work

and doing a lot more work in actually engaging their local communities in the theatre. We can think of many of the mainstream theatres that have not been doing that. They're very, very worried about bums on seats and not actually doing the work that they used to do even 20 years ago. But all power to Toby. I think it's fantastic.

Yeah, she's getting plenty of bums on seats, isn't she? What's going to be at the Babylon Festival? It's a mix of things. So there isn't any theater in it um because i wanted to use the building in a different way so we've got a range of music gigs live podcast shows cabaret panel discussions workshops um there's a um a radio station that's going to be based in the building for the week so i hope it's going to really transform the building. And how much Tanika will first experiences of theatre persuade people to shell out the price which is not cheap of the ticket to see a whole range of work besides

the stuff that they may think this is designed for me. I mean, I'm always surprised by audiences of theatres because actually they generally want to see different things. They don't only just want to see their own lives on stage. And I think actually what we forget is that we live in a very global society and we all live in, you know, in a very multicultural environment. I know that that's a sort of phrase that's overused, but certainly you just look at my own family, married to an Englishman, mixed-race kids. We don't all go and see plays that have only got mixed-race families on stage.

So I think that it's very important that we remember that actually people want a wider experience. They want to see these stories. And actually there is that interest. Grandparents go to see Hamilton stories and actually there is that interest grandparents go to the go to see hamilton with their with their grandchildren and enjoy it so i think that we need to be a little bit more open-minded about these things what's been the response from people to whom you have provided tickets are they saying oh actually i'd like to see a lot more of this and

it doesn't have to be about black people. Yeah, I think luckily the general response has been that people have really enjoyed it. I think there's been a general reaction of being like, oh, that character is definitely my mum, that's my auntie, I recognise these people, my family. I think with Black Ticket Project, the aim isn't that people then decide to go on and become writers or directors or producers or whatever that looks like.

If they want to, then that's great. And I think it's also important that they know that they can hate the work as well. And they can say, actually, I didn't enjoy that and this is why. And yeah, just being able to have that freedom to, I guess, choose. And some of them have decided to go back and have taken their parents to see stuff, and I think that's amazing as well. Toby Karamating, Tanika Gupta, thank you both very much indeed.

And we'd like to hear from you on this one. What plays have you gone to see and thought, hmm, yeah, I'd like to see more of this theatre? Thank you both very much. Thank you. Now, still to come in today's programme, Cook the Perfect Kale, Bean and Winter Root Soup with Clodagh McKenna.

And Skin from Skunk and Ansi, a live performance to celebrate 25 years as a band. And a reminder that you can find the latest Late Night Woman's Hour podcast on BBC Sounds where you can hear Clara Amfo and the journalist Ellen Coyne from The Times and Zoe Strimple from The Sunday Telegraph. After the debates around the Gillette advert, they discussed whether women's equality can be furthered by capitalism and big business. Zoe

first. This tension between feminism and capitalism is like really integral to the sort of last 50 years of feminist identity. And it's been uneasy the whole time. There's this sort of discomfort with sort of aligning with the market because the market is seen as a sort of patriarchal instrument. But I sort of think that ship has sailed when we could be in the 1970s. And you know, you had funding from all sorts of sources, you could live on the dole, you could squat and you didn't really need the market in the way we need it now. And I think that discomfort about capitalism producing political slogans is a very interesting one.

But I do think we've perhaps entered a new era in which we just have to kind of shrug and say, well, it's inevitable, really, that the market will be a political instrument. And actually, that then raises the bar to like, well, how can it use it in a sort of interesting way? And I think the advert succeeded quite well. Oh, for sure.

And you know what? I would rather, you know, a 10 year old girl being sold a t-shirt saying feminism is the future rather than, you know, like I have no brain. I'm just going to marry someone really rich. Exactly. I would rather that, you know, as icky as it may feel. Ellen, you brought this to our attention.

Let me just read what Gillette said, a little part of it. It says, you know as icky as it may feel ellen you brought this to our attention let me just read what gillette said a little part of it it says um you know we recognize we know not everyone agrees with us we respect all the different viewpoints we've heard conversations on these profound social issues can be difficult for all sides but we believe they're important and that by sparking the discussion we can play a part in creating meaningful and positive change they start the statement by saying we believe in the best in men. You're feeling ickier by the second. But Ellen, to you,

do you think they can create any meaningful and positive change? I believe they are giving some money actually to causes with regards to whatever they generate from this. I think that they can, because I think the people who were most hysterically upset and whinging about it were those men you were saying who kind of needed the advertisement the most. And it was almost pleasing to watch these men go,

you don't understand, you could never know. I'm basically being generalised because of my gender and you were like, you are so close to having a feminist breakthrough, but you actually can't get that bit further to understand that this is basically what it's like to be a woman all the time. We do have an Irish equivalent to Piers Morgan, who basically is, you get them all the time,

people who make a lucrative career from just coming on and going, feminism, do we need it? And he was like, I'm so upset. He was like, imagine if an advertisement was, like, pointing out flaws in women and telling them to do better. You're like, have you genuinely been living in the world for, like, four decades? Like, I've never seen an advertisement in your entire life. So, yes, OK, maybe these people lack the self-awareness to get it immediately.

Like they're not going to come away from a 15 second advert being like Gloria Steinem overnight. But it's certainly brought the ludicrousness of their views on certain feminist issues to the fore. And maybe that's helped marginally. And the latest Late Night Woman's Hour podcast is available for download now. Now you don't need me to tell you it has turned chilly and even in London we woke up to a significant covering of snow this morning nothing to compare with higher ground whether north or south west but still enough to make a warm and comforting supper

something to look forward to. And just at the right time I'm joined by Clodagh McKenna the author of Clodagh's Suppers, Ready to Cook the Perfect Kale, Bean and Winter Roots Soup. Clodagh, what winter roots do you use in this soup? This is one of my favourite

soups to make and especially at this time of year with the snow outside. The roots that I use are ones that are in season at the moment, which are delicious carrots and parsnips. I also have celery in there and I put some onion in there as the base and also some aromatic garlic. All of these, as I'm chopping them away, get chopped. That's the celery you're chopping now? That's the celery that I'm chopping now, which is delicious because it gives that lovely and seedy, licorice-y flavour to it which

I love and then when as I'm chopping along here at the end of it you know the kind of florets at the end of it never throw them out what you want to do is keep them and then add them into a pot with cold water and then bring that up to the boil and be adding in the bits of leftover carrots and everything and make a beautiful broth or stock for the soup as well. So there's no waste. What's the basis of the stock then? What's the best way to make a really good stock? Some people will want a vegetable, some people will want a meat stock.

Yeah, I mean, for vegetable stocks, you can get really great flavour out of vegetable stock. And the best way to do it is a couple of carrots, chopped up, a couple of onions, some herbs, whatever you have really, kind of nice woody herbs are whatever you have really, kind of nice woody herbs are always good, like thyme and rosemary. Celery is beautiful in a stock. Asparagus and the ends of asparagus, basically anything that won't get starchy. So things like potato

and parsnip don't work in it. But what I do is I put them in, I talk about this in my book, Clodagh Suppers, I put all of kind of the bits and bobs that I'd have left over from vegetables, I put them into a freezer bag and pop those into the fridge. And then every Saturday morning, it's my stock morning. And I love it. I put all of the leftover vegetables into the pot, fill it up with cold water, some pepper, the herbs, bring it to the boil, let it simmer for one hour,

and you've got beautiful stock for the whole weekend. You can drink cups of it, you can add soups, you you can make risottos it's great for casseroles and if you're making a meat stock i have to confess i am a bit lazy lazy i use stock cubes which you probably okay probably think is a disgrace um but if you're doing it with with meat what would you do if you're doing it with meat i mean the carcass of a chicken and that's why i always think i mean you know years ago when i was growing up we'd'd look in Ireland, we'd look at the chicken as something you'd have like once every six weeks or five weeks because you'd always buy good chicken, right? And so when you're getting your chicken, if you're getting a whole chicken

this weekend, you know, strip off, once you've roasted it, strip off all of the bits, any bits of fat and any bit of meat that's left in the carcass and then pop that into the saucepan like you would, just like I did the vegetable soup and hey ho, you've got a gorgeous chicken soup. But also what is beautiful with the chicken is in my book I also have a gorgeous recipe for a chicken casserole with all the vegetables in there and if you've made the stock like a vegetable stock, pouring that in over and And a great tip, actually, is when you make stock, is to get a freezer, you know, an ice cube tray. Pour the stock into the ice cube tray.

Pop it into your freezer. And it's so great, Jenny, because every once in a while, then you know you just need a little bit of stock to flavour your gravy or sauce. Pop it out from the ice cube and you've got delicious flavour added into your sauce. So how do you go about putting this soup together? You're chopping carrots and celery and stuff. But obviously beans cook a lot quicker, kale cooks a lot quicker. Kale cooks a lot quicker, so basically on over here in my little kitchenette, I've got my pan on and I'm putting in a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of butter together and then

I'm putting in all the lovely carrots and celeries, In they go. And then I'm going to pop the garlic in on top, the onion and the parsnip. That needs to sweat down. And that's the most important step in a soup is that you build up all this gorgeous flavour. How long do you sweat it down for? So I've set it down for about 15 minutes and a very low heat and that's why you can't really hear it sizzle because it's all been gently cooked right now and you want it pretty much nearly kind of cooked. Then you add in the stock and some fresh rosemary and I've got my stock adding in here.

I'm just going to add in the stock. So my lovely stock I'm adding into it. It even looks good, Clodagh. Well, it's just the kind of thing you want today. I think people are going to be listening and going, oh, I need to make this for my supper tonight because it's so yummy. You know, everything is available all year round these days. I know.

Why are you so keen on cooking seasonally? Well, Jo, for a few different reasons. You know, from my background, I grew up in the country and I trained as a chef and work chef in Ballymaloe in Cork under Dwayne Allen. And from there, then I went on and I ran and I developed farmers markets across the country for three years, a project. We opened up over 100 of them. And I was really passionate about that. I had my own stalls there and I built up a great grove, which in Ireland we call a love for farmers and I guess the land.

And cooking in season, you're supporting the farmers, first of all. You're supporting your local farmers because they grow seasonally. That's a number important. Two, it tastes so much better. Food like parsnips at this year, because with the frost, they build up that sugariness, that starchiness in the ground itself. So parsnips taste so good at this time of the year. You know, they're nutty and gorgeous in flavour. Just the smell coming off the pan at the moment is absolutely gorgeous.

It's really powerful. Yeah, and it's so simple. And that's what the whole book is about, Clodagh Suppers, is all about. It's all about really simple, seasonal food that's good for you and nourishing. And that doesn't actually take that much time to actually make. Why a cookery book about suppers and entertaining? Suppers are really important to me. I call it suppers as opposed to dinners because suppers are much more relaxed and I really wanted to create a handbook for anybody who wants to cook more at home and to take the fear and the stress out of it. And so everything from 20 years of cooking professionally, I wanted to put down all of my knowledge on how to cook ahead, all the checklists that I do in it, also the tablescaping and to put the pleasure back into it. But menus in there, because sometimes you sit down at menus and and maybe they

mightn't be so balanced you know or the host would be stressed because she's making everything last minute the cook ahead and they're getting organized is so important to enjoy it and to make a magical moment around the table at home now we do have some on there which uh mercifully you made earlier so i can actually try it yes Yes you can. We're going to get Paula to pass some over so that I've added some kale into it. Let me just check when you've sweated all the the vegetables. Yes. What about the beans and what kind of beans are they? Yeah so they're cannellini beans so when I sweated down all the vegetables I then added in yeah out of the tin drained and rinsed. I sweated down the vegetables and I added the stock and then I pureed it.

So you just mix it to get a lovely, smooth consistency. And then I added in chopped kale. It could be Tuscan kale, it could be Cavalinero. And then I added in the beans, reheated it all. And I've got my delicious, I can't go anywhere without my rosemary cloder bread, which is like a soda bread. That's very impressive bread, yes. Isn't it yummy? I made it yesterday.

So I'm going to put a bit of chunk there and a thingy. Come on, let's have a quick taste of it. Do you want me to give, I'll run it over with this knack as well. And I should probably finish it off later during, ooh, it's really quite thick, isn't it? It's so thick. So the idea of it is that you can have it for a starter but you can also have it for a lovely fireside supper tonight. What do you think?

What does Jenny think? It's very... Is it good? Very good. Oh, yummy, yay! What's the slight spiciness there? Rosemary. That's just the rosemary?

Yeah, it's just the rosemary. Isn't it lovely? And rosemary is so good for you. In fact, I was in Marrakesh last week and I wasn't feeling very well and somebody gave me a mug with fresh rosemary in it and filled it with water to drink throughout the day. And my gosh, I couldn't believe it. Actually, my tummy felt so much better from it.

Clodagh McKenna, I shall finish that off later. Thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning and everybody, try it tonight. You need it. Now, 25 years ago, a band called Skunk Anansi was formed in a club in King's Cross in London and became huge

during the 90s. They disbanded in 2001, reformed in 2009 and they've now produced an album called 25 live at 25 it's a collection of live performances to celebrate their 25 years in the business and their lead singer is skin welcome back skin just just remind us where the name of the band came from um oh well skunk is just skunk the animal, black and white animal in the jungle. Nobody messes with a skunk because, you know,

it may not be a big animal, but it sprays you, you're done for. I quite like that. It's kind of like being a bit clever about stuff. And Nancy the Spider-Man is a character in Jamaican folklore, half man, half spider, gets up to lots of tricks in the jungle with all the other animals. So it's, I mean, at the time everybody was Britpop. So all these bands were like, they're this and they're something

or one name words, you know, blow oasis and stuff. And so I guess we just want to be different and stand out a bit more. And how did Deborah become Skin? That's a long story. I mean, to be honest, when I was a kid, I was like super skinny, you know, oh, the days. And it was just, my nickname was Skinny. And that was not a good thing when you're kind of a Brixton black girl,

because, you know, everyone's calling you Marga. And, you know, to be skinny is not a good thing. So it was a bit of a harsh nickname. And when I got into the band, it just got shortened to Skin. It's kind of hooky, I guess. What prompted you to want to become a professional musician? Because I know you studied interior design at Teesside University. Yeah, art college, design college and stuff like that.

Do you know, I started singing my second year. My first year I studied really hard and did quite well. Second year I kind of just like got involved in Students' Union and I joined a band there. And yeah, it all kind of went from there. That's where I got the stage bug. And then third year, I went back to studying, got my degree. And I came back to London, started singing in jazz clubs originally

because I love jazz. But I just knew it wasn't my journey, you know. I saw myself like with a mic in the hand, front in a rock band going. But how did that interior design background then play into the work with the band and its look um i guess um you know when you've been to art school and design school into college first and then you know i think you're just aware i mean ace over here is actually um a graphic designer who's going to play the guitar exactly he's an actual graphic designer as well so i mean between the two between the two of us, we're kind of into that side of things,

into design, into the look of the band. You know, we came up with the ideas for the album covers and stuff like that. I mean, I think that all the arts are kind of linked, you know, literature, film, music. These things, as an artist, you don't just kind of just do music. You know, you're just aware of everything from stage clothes to graphic design to film everything they're all linked up for me for us you were often described as androgynous in in days really before that became yeah a thing for everybody to talk about how did you respond to that description of you oh with great pleasure I mean I it's because I shaved my head and that

was a very very strange thing to do at the beginning of the 90s I mean, it's because I shaved my head and that was a very, very strange thing to do at the beginning of the 90s. I mean, there were very few shaven-headed black girls in London, you know, maybe in other countries. And it was just a bit weird for everybody, but it suited me, it worked. And I think people at that time felt if you didn't have hair, you were kind of trying to look like a boy

or trying to be androgynous. I just found a hairstyle that worked for me because I was too lazy to... You know, by that time I'd had curly perm, I'd had straight, relaxed hair, and I was, like, done with that stuff. I was done. I was just like, femininity and being a woman

doesn't have to all be kind of caught up in your hair. I felt like it kind of... I shaved my head and it accentuated my face. I can't see whether you've got any hair or not now. There you go. You haven't. I'm shaving my head you know. Clearly fantastic

woolly hat which was required for today. Required attire for today, yeah. I spoke to Mel B recently and she talked about the isolation. That was the word she used. Yes. She felt as the only black person in the room

when the Spice Girls were really, really big. How does that compare with your experience? I mean, I would have to agree with her, really. I mean, the only black person, the only gay girl, and the only woman at the time. Especially when you're in rock music, you know, it's really perceived as like, you know, a white man's domain. And so, you know, I got used to it.

And, you know, luckily I had Kath in the band as well. So he's there with his big dreadlocks. So, you know, I wasn't the only black person at the time. But, you know, I just kind of, this is what I want to do. I loved rock music. I mean, rock music comes from comes from blues you know it's as black as they come in the roots of everybody from Mick Jagger to Robert Plant will talk about their favorite guitarists and singers being blues guys so for me it always felt you know like black music to me um it's just kind of I guess you know with cock rock it got kind of taken into a

different vibe and then brit pop accentuated that but i'm very rude sorry you know i didn't make that term up i didn't in america i remember this you were banned from a venue because they thought you were a nazi band do you know... How did that happen? We're this thing, you know, we get off the tour bus. The venue had been changed like a few days before. And we thought, oh, that's weird to change the venue at the last minute. And then we got off the tour bus. We go straight into a radio station at nine in the morning, Breakfast Radio in Arkansas or somewhere like that.

And it's basically like, oh, we heard that you're a skinhead, which you are, you know, we heard the band was called Skunk and Artsy, which it isn't. And you have a song called Little Baby Swastika, which we do. You know, it's like pre-social media, you know, that nobody bothered to look at the album cover or saw the album cover. They just Chinese whispers on those three things. I should say Chinese whispers, you know, kind know, people kind of like taking a little bit of information and going somewhere else with it.

And then, yeah, we were banned from the venue. And it was weird because it was a great little venue we were supposed to be playing at, a legendary place. Got banned from there because they thought we were a Nazi band. And I'm like, no,

Little Baby Swastika is an anti-fascist song, guys. And I'm black and so is the bass player. And it's like Anansi the Spider-Man. The Spider-Man. Now, we've got Ace sitting over here with his guitar all ready. You're going to play Hedonism for us. Skin, you're going to sing it. You're standing at the microphone now.

Are you ready to go? Yes. Go. Go. Go. Oh. I hope you're feeling happy now. I see you feel no pain, but all it seems. I wonder what you're doing now. I wonder if you think of pain but all it seems i wonder what you're doing now i wonder if you think of me at

all do you still play the same moves now i was talking to skin of skunk and ansi and i'm sorry we weren't able to give you the whole of her live performance copyright reasons podcast you know now thanks for all your comments on today's programme on the importance of diversity in the theatre. Someone wrote on Twitter, I was at my ninth too and the ethnic mix was noticeable. I'm usually in a tiny minority. I went to Hamilton the week before

where there was a better ethnic mix on stage than in the stalls. Sunita Crowley also tweeted to say, I've loved theatre for 30 years, but usually I'm the only non-white person in the audience, often in venues with dwindling audiences. And Caroline Edwards emailed to say, it's great to know there's an attempt to get black people into the theatre. I used to live in London and was an avid theatre girl from the 70s to the early 2000s, but I now live on a pension and outside London. I was not just astonished, but also ultimately depressed to find how expensive tickets can be. By the time I've paid for a train ticket and maybe a drink and a snack,

we're talking a lot of money for one individual to go to the theatre. It's depressing because I'm a huge fan and supporter of theatre and I feel as if I'm in some sort of underclass to whom theatre is taboo. On the skunk and antsy and my conversation with skin, Bryony from Barnsley said on email, I had the best 14th birthday when I went to see skunk and antsy with skin. Bryony from Barnsley said on email, I had the best 14th birthday when I went to see Skunk Anansi in Manchester. She asked for fans to get on stage and dance and sing with her and I was one of the lucky ones.

We crowded round the mic and sang Little Baby Swastika and I asked the bass player for her sweat towel which he gave me and I still have it today. Although my mum insisted on washing it eventually. And then someone else said on Twitter, I've never felt more empowered by female presence than at a Skunk Anansi concert. She's electric. Now do join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour, when we'll be talking about feeding babies,

how you choose how to feed your baby and how it makes you feel. There'll be part of a phone-in which we had in combination with BBC Radio Sheffield. We'll also discuss Janu Hairy and that month-long campaign to try and persuade us not to shave our legs or our armpits or any other part of our body. And we'll discuss when it was that women's hair became such an important political issue. Join me tomorrow, four o'clock in the afternoon. Until then, bye-bye. It's 1994 and two pop stars are flying to a remote Scottish island. Is your seatbelt on, Jimmy? With two suitcases, each containing half a million pounds.

Do not think what you pull around yourself and it looks like it's fastened. They're about to do something really stupid. Shall I take your suitcases? Or really clever? No! You decide. This is the story of two men who burned a million pounds of their own money. Why?

Why would you do that? How to Burn a Million Quid by Sean Grundy and Cara Jennings. Download the free BBC Sounds app and subscribe or visit bbc.co.uk slash sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.