Talk:Sandi Toksvig

Photo

I don't know how to replace it, but the photo that was here is her most recent publicity headshot - it's in Spotlight 2007, the industry directory of actors - and can therefore absolutely be used on this page but should be credited as "Photo: Catherine Shakespeare Lane" (who can be externally linked thus: http://uk.castingcallpro.com/u/79482). Photos in Spotlight are also the ones sent out if someone requests a signed photo from an agent, and thus are free for non-commercial use and already have the approval of the person in question. If the photo is lost now, I can upload it again if someone would be kind enough to tell me how.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.68.1.167 (talk) 13:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Question Time

Not a big deal really, but should this appearance necessarily be included in a section on her personal politics? Is it not just another TV appearance? Amo 01:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.32.131.61 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 10 October 2006.

Pronunciation

Most interesting to see what is presumably the Danish pronunciation. It would perhaps be of interest also to show how her name is pronounced by English-speakers (which is very different, including in terms of stress). Broad transcriptions should be in slashes, not brackets.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauldanon (talk • contribs) 18:04, 18 May 2007

I’ve added the English pronunciation now (at least as I’ve always heard it pronounced by English speakers) and corrected the Danish one. In terms of stress, they’re actually not very different: the first syllable of ‘Toksvig’ is accented in both languages. The only real difference in that regard is that English assigns full stress to the first name as well, which Danish doesn’t.

Including English IPA for ‘Sandi’ seemed redundant, though, so the English pronunciation currently only includes ‘Toksvig’, while the Danish pronunciation is given for ‘Sandi Toksvig’ as a whole. This is a bit unbalanced, but seemed the best compromise to me.

I considered altering the Danish pronunciation to Danish pronunciation: [ˈsand̥ʁɑ b̥iɐ̯ˈg̊id̥ə ˈtˢʌg̊sʋiːˀ], but that seemed like overkill (especially since she’s never known by that name).

Kokoshneta (talk) 23:28, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Joke about Wikipedia editing

Sandi's joke on the Newsquiz about editing historical entries on Wikipedia was a joke, several attempts have been made to add it to the main wikipage as if it was a fact. Please don't. Ashley VH 07:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The inclusion of this fact on the page does rather look like another example of Wikipedia's self-obsession. Sandi Toksvig has made many, many jokes - she is a comedian. The fact that one of those was Wikipedia related makes it no more significant. Tompagenet (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Why can't this article be anon-edited?

It seems to be missing the edit tab but there's no notice. Sbwoodside 23:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:LGBT tag

Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies includes prominent LGBT people, i.e. notable gay, lesbian or bisexual people. Toksvig can be included in that list of notable, out LGBT people; hence placement of the tag on this discussion page as part of the Wikiproject. The tag should not be removed. Any questions or suggestions about the tag itself or criteria for inclusion in the project should be directed to the LGBT noticeboard, where more qualified editors can help. Cheers, GeneralBelly (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. The article itself is appropriately tagged or WP policies on the marking of articles for this. My issue is with your marking of the talk page (as I explained on your talk page) which states that Sandi Toksvig per se as an LBGT issue. Poor thing! She is nothing of the sort! I cannot revert this now because of 3RRR but I would ask you (and other editors) to consider this again. Toksvig herself is NOT a LGBT issue IMHO.--Tom (talk) 18:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Tom. As previously noted, this is not a question of opinion or anyone's desire to make Toksvig an "issue". The purpose of adding the WP:LGBT template is to include her in that WikiProject because - as an out gay personality - she fits the criteria. Any further discussion should take place on that WikiProject's Talkpage and not here, since nothing we say here will change the fact that she meets the criteria for inclusion. Again, this has nothing to do with Toksvig being an "LGBT issue", but rather an LGBT-identifying person. Best regards, GeneralBelly (talk) 19:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's somewhat demeaning to begin the article by pointing out that she's gay. Sounds very derogatory. One might expect homosexuals to be offended (maybe) by this blatant labelling? Why should her sexuality be so important? It's not like you start every other article with "so and so is a straight rock musician" or similar? 152.78.219.29 (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

That was vandalism, and was removed soon after you saw it (it wasn't added that long before you, either). Cycle~ (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. What is vandalism is relegating an important and central part of her character to near the bottom to the page. So many heterosexual's identity is up front, ie married with children. The first section should be a brief overview of the entire person, and their sexuality is essential, if they are opening gay. 180.200.145.136 (talk) 04:36, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

But the first section should not be about their personal life (gay or straight) unless that's what they're famous for. 213.1.18.245 (talk) 21:26, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Citizenship

What citizenship(s) does she currently hold? If she does have British citizenship, when did she acquire it? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Her mother, Julie Anne Toksvig (née Brett) is (was?) British (in fact, her parents met in Britain and were married in Reigate) and she spent a considerable amount of her childhood as a British resident, so she could have acquired British citizenship - by means of either lex sanguinis or registration - at almost any time, and could even have been a dual national since birth (only if she had been born in Britain (which she wasn't) would Danish nationality laws (which require you to renounce all other nationalities in order to acquire Danish nationality) have forced her to chose between one nationality and the other. --navlebeskuelse (talk) 14:12, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

It is clear from this 2009 interview with Scan magazine (see pages 10 and 11) that Sandi Toksvig isn't in fact a British citizen and has just stuck with the citizenship of her birth. navlebeskuelse (talk) 14:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

After just reading that it is clear she should be referred to as Danish rather than Danish born. Sue De Nimes (talk) 14:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

She is currently described in the article lede as "an Anglo-Danish writer ..." How can this be correct? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

As far as I remember it is perfectly possible to have two passports, one from each of >one country, even if both countries are within the EU. You simply inherit one passport from Mom and the other from Dad, and then send off your ever fatter check/cheque every five or ten years to get the thing replaced. IF ST does that - and no one here seems to have the faintest idea what she does in respect of her passports - then it would seem reasonable to describe her as Anglo-Danish. How else should one describe her? Or have I misunderstood the unwritten assumptions underlying your superficially innocent and simple question?

There are glorious layers of complexity arising from the fact that the national legal positions that have grown up in each county do not interface cleanly with each other. Do you acquire your nationality because of where your father was from? or your mother / or because of where you were born? Do you acquire it automatically, by default, by sitting an exam to see if you know the words of Rule Britannia? The messiness of the interface between the way different countries define nationality is part of a glorious cacophony of messy interfaces between the different ways different states define the same term in a whole range of areas where disagreement can arise. It's a wonderful source of endless employment for a certain type of lawyer. But for an entry on Ms Toksvig it probably takes us way too far into the wrong kind of "long grass".

For wikipedia purposes, I guess you simply have to define her nationality in terms of the least unreliable of the available sources. I think I've probably several times heard her defining herself as Danish on British talk radio, but I wasn't taking notes at the time, so I'm not sure that would count as a sufficient source. I wonder what she told the folks at "Who's Who" about this.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 06:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Apparently she became a British citizen in 2013. I can't find many reliable sources describing her as "Anglo-Danish", so suggest that we replace this with "British-Danish". Cordless Larry (talk) 06:49, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

What this source does not say is whether she was required to surrender Danish citizenship in order to acquire British citizenship. I suspect she may have been, but for this (though it sticks in my throat/fingers to write these words under almost any circumstances) we really need a lawyer. Charles01 (talk) 06:55, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Britain allows dual citizenship, although Denmark doesn't at present (it will do as of next month though, it seems). However, even if she is no longer a Danish citizen, I would argue that identity is about more than citizenship, and there are still plenty of sources describing her as Danish. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:58, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't Danish-British be more precise, as she was born in Denmark? Does anyone object? --TonyIsTheWoman (talk) 11:46, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Name

Sandi is actually just a familiar name, or nickname, which she has chosen to work under. Her full given name is Sandra Birgitte Toksvig, as evidenced by:

1. Her National Portrait Gallery sitters entry, for the Mary McCartney portrait of her, which was included in the recent Gay Icons exhibition: Sandra Birgitte ('Sandi') Toksvig (1958-), Writer, broadcaster and comedian. Sitter in 1 portrait.
2. The name under which she stood for election as Chancellor of Oxford University: Ms Sandra Toksvig.

--navlebeskuelse (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Is her middle name actually Brigitte or Birgitte?

Neither variation of her full name gets many hits on Google (and none lead to properly trustworthy sources) … anyone know how to find out for sure?

Kokoshneta (talk) 23:52, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Comedian / comedienne ?

Does Wikipedia have a policy / style guide on whether female comedians should be referred to as 'comedians' or 'comediennes' ? I note that Sandi Toksvig is referred to as a comedian, but there are references to 'other comediennes' in the Career section. My personal preference is for 'comedian' but didn't want to edit it without opening this up for discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.12.58.179 (talk) 22:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I see someome has changed the references to "comedienne". I think that word has fallen out of general use and in biographical material, Toksvig seems to use the word "comedian". I think sticking to comedian would be better. Dean B (talk) 08:06, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, it's not a massive deal really. But I don't think many people actually say comedienne. We could debate all day whether comedian or comedienne is more common, but maybe the easiest way to sort it is that Sandi herself has expressed a preference for comedian. As no-one but Sandi is likely to particularly care, makes sense to say comedian, although we should then make this article consistent with itself. 144.32.128.14 (talk) 13:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually when I was going to be consistent the only other use of comedienne is specifically referring to females. And I can't deny that "comedienne" is less cumbersome than "female comedians", so I'm reluctant to change it. However, I think the problem is that sentence itself. It says she presented a quiz show that also featured other females. Is that notable? If it were solo, sure that'd be worth a comment, if it were all female, I can see that'd be worth pointing out, but a three series panel show that has featured a mix of men and women? If we're going to make every observation, no matter how trivial, this is going to be a dull read...144.32.128.14 (talk) 13:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Her death reported 12-2-2011 ?

Tokswig's death on 2011-2-12 was reported in an edit dated the same day. As I read the entry I was listening to her programme on Radio 4. As BBC policy would be to drop such programmes on the death of a celebrity, or at very least announce it beforehand, I am inclined to doubt the claim. There is also no mention of her death on any news page I could find. I propose unless it is verified very soon it should be removed. Cerddaf 2011-2-12 13:00 (UTC).

Unsourced claims of someone's death should be removed immediately - as this now has been. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:10, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

What her last name means

As a Swede, I was curious if anyone knows what her last name means. As for now, Toksvig means "Fool's agile" which is just nonsense, so I wonder if the K has changed during the years from a R, which makes the name - Torsvig - mean "Lightning of Thor". It's just a theory from my side. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.182.236.91 (talk) 06:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Vig is the Danish form of Swedish vik, meaning ‘bay’. Tok doesn’t really mean anything on its own, but is, according to Ordbog over det danske sprog, an alternative form of the word tokke, meaning “a piece or strip of land outside the measured plots in a village (often of poorer quality, overgrown by copse or scrub, or consisting of meadow or marshland, etc.)”.

So most likely, the name means something like ‘the bay by the unarable outback land’. Probably a place that someone rather unfortunate were forced to move out to at some point.

Kokoshneta (talk) 23:45, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

external links

Removed from the article; put here in case anyone can use them as sources.

• MusicalTalk Podcast featuring interview with Sandi Toksvig and Bonnie Langford
• Profile at the Now You're Talking speaker agency
• LBC 97.3 radio show related blog (no longer maintained)
• 'Great Women'. A fanfare of Fabulous Females by Sandi Toksvig & Sandy Nightingale
• On-line serialised version of 'The Travels of Lady Bulldog Burton' by Sandi Toksvig & Sandy Nightingale

BrainyBabe (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Credits?

Found this old wording, which got mangled with repeated edits, leading to plenty of pieces of Sandi's work getting dropped from the article. Perhaps this (and other sources) might form the basis of a new section (many TV and film entries have a filmography or similar list). Just a thought.

Her television career has included presenting the children's series No. 73 (1982–1986) as an old woman called Ethel Davis, also presenting the Sandwich Quiz, The Saturday Starship, Motormouth and Gilbert's Fridge, and on factual programmes such as the archaeological Channel 4 series Time Team, and Island Race and The Talking Show, produced by Open Media for Channel 4. She has appeared as a panellist in shows such as Call My Bluff, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Mock the Week, QI and Have I Got News for You. She appeared in the very first episode of Have I Got News For You in 1990.

AnOpenMedium (talk) 10:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Reinserted the currently missing bit of this back into the article. AnOpenMedium (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

References

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Why is the fact that she is openly lesbian/gay only hinted at rather then stated outright in the article?

The article implies she is gay but never actually use the word gay or lesbian even though she is openly so. I think the article should state both in the lead somewhere and in the personal life section that she is openly lesbian/gay. This is a notable fact about her and deserves more then mere implication in the article. As it stands, this fact seems as if it is being downplayed like it is some sort of badge of shame. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 02:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

If someone is known for their LGBT activism or their sexuality is related to their notability in some other way, then I agree that it might be something that should be mentioned in the introduction, but if not, I'm not really sure we should be making a big deal out of someone's sexuality, other than simply noting it in the personal life section. We wouldn't mention someone being straight in an article introduction, would we? Cordless Larry (talk) 08:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

In fact, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Sexuality, which says pretty much the same thing. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:23, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I've re-worked this, with new refs. --Carbon Caryatid (talk) 01:31, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

It's not correct to say that she was the first woman in British public life to come out as a lesbian. In 1970 Dusty Springfield said "Many other people say I'm bent, and I've heard it so many times that I've almost learned to accept it ... I know I'm perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don't see why I shouldn't". This statement did cause her a lot of problems at the time. I think it would be more correct to say that Sandy Toksvig was one of the first women to come out as gay in British public life. Richerman (talk) 10:44, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't have said that Dusty's self-description there was typically that of "a lesbian"! Rather of someome who was bisexual, or even just unsure. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:02, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

How many articles about heterosexuals clearly state that they are heterosexuals? None? 86.168.200.230 (talk) 00:36, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Too few women with entries in Wikipedia

Sandi's comments regarding the severe under-representation of entries about women in Wikipedia is noted. Count me in, to work on addressing this issue. Starting today. KerryMay (talk) 05:30, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, KerryMay. Do check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red if you haven't seen it already. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:39, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Tattoo on Wrist

@28:45 Sandy has a runic tattoo on her wrist! Tiwaz Mannaz Elhaz - Youtube: f86tPV1D0us?t=1725 Her kids are Megan, Jesse, and Theo, and her wife is Peta

205.206.229.157 (talk) 04:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge missing

Could someone please add that she became the host of "The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge" in 2022, the show's first season? Minicarmen (talk) 20:20, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Residence

At a live taping of QI that I attended she mentioned that she lived in Copenhagen and would be heading back after filming. Can't find an online source but this is opposed to what the article currently says about her living in London. Roturgxte (talk) 13:12, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

When was that taping? But hearing her mention something in a show is not WP:RS, alas. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

It was in February this year. Without a recording it's useless so that's why I added here in case there is a source. Roturgxte (talk) 14:23, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:25, 8 October 2024 (UTC)