I'm absolutely obsessed with boxing.

I don't know a lot about mountaineering. I once went walking in the Lake District with the legendary climber Chris Bonington and had to have emergency physio afterwards to regain sensation in my thighs.

I think communication should be fun and that we should all worry less about how we say things and more about what we say.

Sitting on a plastic chair at night listening to the sea lapping below while sipping a cold beer is about as good as life gets.

I'm ashamed to say, I've done hideous pen portraits of people I don't like in my novels. And they'll say, 'Oh, that person was hideous,' and I'm nodding, and I'm thinking, 'It's you, you fool!'

What I think is if the world is in some difficulty - about climate change, about economics - then we had better make sure that 100 per cent of every brain available on the planet is working at full pelt to try to sort these things out.

I'd love to be a joiner or a wood turner.

English is full of Scandinavian words. Margate, Ramsgate, Billingsgate, any town with a 'gate' on it takes their suffix from the Danish word 'gade' which simply means 'street.'

I know we don't all follow in the family footsteps, but you are, I suppose, more likely to consider becoming a butcher if you have spent your childhood watching a parent debone a pig.

Endless books claim that the brains of men and women are wired differently. They have titles such as 'Why Men Don't Iron' and set out to convince us that women are somehow biologically suited to getting the creases out of clothes while men peruse maps.

Because of my fighting for LGBT rights, I have seen the possibility of change. And that gives me heart to believe that it is possible to effect change.

I will try anything that doesn't involve a leotard.

I certainly wouldn't want to be a Mini Me of any of the people whose footsteps I've followed in.

I hope I don't have an ego.

I love 'Teach Yourself' books. I bought an old weaving loom and had no time for classes, but one 'Teach Yourself' later, and my bobbin is flying.

I'm political in the sense that there's much to be done, but I'm apolitical in the sense that I don't think there's a party that represents anything I believe in.

I have a son and two daughters, and I care equally about all three of them, and I want the world to be a better place for all of them.

I went to a physiotherapist, and she said something to me no one has ever said: 'Sandi, you have plantar fasciitis, because you're fat.' I left and sat in my car shaking. She'd told me the truth, which no one else had. It was painful, but I needed to hear it.

I had tried every diet out there - I would lose weight for a bit, then put it back on again.

I've played the Royal Albert Hall to 8,500 people, and there wasn't a nerve in my body.

When my three children were little, I took them to Rome. On our way to our destination, we went to see the Colosseum and returned to the car to find everything had been stolen. Trying to buy everything for a week, including clothing for three small, very tired children, was a low point in my life.

My ambition is to stop showing off. I'd love to be a tweedy academic. I'd be happy living in a croft. I like making jam. So why am I a semi-public figure?

I don't care if you're from the right or left of politics - there are core objectives we can all agree on: equal pay, equal representation on the media, equal representation at board level, politics, an end to domestic violence.

I think kids are in your temporary care, and that they probably arrive with pretty much the personalities they're going to have. I grew up in a perfectly traditional family and turned out how I did. I'm not sure there's much that the family can do except lots of love and lots of care and lots of chances for them to develop the best they can.

At my worst, I was a size 22, and at that size, you can't go down the high street and buy yourself things that make you feel good. Your shopping options are limited in a way they aren't when you are a size 12.

You want a kitchen put in, I'm your girl. I'm very handy, and I love a practical challenge. I fit all the stereotypes of the lesbian with power tools.

There are panel shows that struggle to get women on, and that's because the women feel marginalised and stupid and in the edit are often seen just laughing at the boys and not saying anything at all even though I know for a fact in the recording they were clever. I'm not shy at speaking up, but even I, on those shows, am silenced.

There was a really long period of time when, if the newspapers ever referred to me, even if I was talking about, I don't know, cake making, they would put 'lesbian Sandi Toksvig.'

I wish I was fitter.

My life won't have full quality until we achieve equality for all.

I get in a temper with inanimate objects. I can't bear plastic. I do get in a complete rage with something that's been shrink-wrapped.