Sandi Toksvig

You've just stepped down from the news quiz, you are helping to start a new political party, and you have lost four stones in weight. How would you rate those in order of importance and are they interrelated?

They are interrelated. I would not be able to keep going at the pace that I do if I had continued at the weight that I was. I'm 57. I was beginning to get issues with my feet, possible high blood pressure and so on. And I decided I've lived in my brain for so long, I needed to live in my body as well and connect somewhere at the neck. And I feel so much better. ... I eat better, I sleep better, I actually enjoy exercise. And it was partly because there's still so much that I want to do. And uh change in the world, that would be on my list. And I am really tired of the battle between the left and the right. I'm bored now. And I wanted to start a non-partisan political party. So we're not from the left, we're not from the right. And the idea is to focus on equality in this country.

You have said, 'I don't know where I came from', and children like familiarity. What long-term impact do you think that has had on you?

Well, I'm a cultural mongrel, I think they call it now. And I think it means that I am able to find comfort in almost any place that I settle down. I like to think I could live probably anywhere. What my father instilled in us is a very strong sense of our Danish roots. So wherever we were in the world, we celebrated Danish Christmas. We ate Danish food. And there was a strong sense of the homeland that carried with us.

In the nineteen eighties, being gay or lesbian was considered something of an event and for many people something of a problem. How was it for you?

Um, honestly, I I went through some very dark times. And people say, When did you decide you were gay and you think when did you decide you were heterosexual? It's not a decision. Uh it's something you gradually begin to realize about yourself. Um and it's who I am. So I didn't have a problem. Society seemed to have a problem. None of my friends had a problem. My family didn't have a problem. ... Did you indeed have to tell your family, or was it just I did, but they were not remotely surprised. And I have to say, I never forget my father. My father and I used to take the the whole family would take the ferry from England to Denmark. And my dad's favourite thing to do with me was the two of us would stand at the back of the boat and watch the wake. And I remember standing there with him after I had talked to him about being gay, and he put his arm round me and said, About this about this thing. I just want you to know it's made me love you more. And that's the only time he ever mentioned it. And it was because my father was a a believer in passion. ... And up until then I was twenty three I seemed to have shown no signs of passion, and he couldn't bear it, and he'd much rather I was passionate about a woman than not passionate at all.