Transcript
A (0:00)
Hi, everyone. I'm Conor, head of programming at Intelligence Squared. As we head into the festive season, what is for many of us, a time of comfort, celebration and gatherings round a table. Most of us won't think twice about the clean water running from our taps that make it all possible. But for millions of people around the world, this is something they simply don't have. That's why here at the Intelligence Squared podcast, we're proud to partner with WaterAid, a charity working to change this and to shine a spotlight on something that connects us all. In a special episode of our podcast, journalist Coco Khan speaks to Amica Godfrey, Water AIDS Executive Director of International Programs. Amica has spent more than 25 years working across the world in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. She shares powerful stories about how clean water keeps children in school, helps mothers support their families or run businesses and and unlocks potential for entire communities. To hear the full conversation, just search Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and listen to the episode titled Everything Starts with water, released on 17 December. Listen to the full episode now on the Intelligence Squared podcast.
B (1:17)
When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season, and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. For this episode, we're rejoining for part two of our recent live event with author, poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen. Rosen joined us live at the Shore Theater to explore grief recovery and the everyday moments that give us joy and and meaning. He was in conversation with presenter and broadcaster El Osili Wood. If you haven't heard part one, do just jump back an episode and get up to speed. But now let's rejoin the conversation live at the Shaw Theatre in London.
C (2:14)
I feel like that leads very nicely into the next chapter. I want to talk about where you talk about the balance of the ideal and the good enough. You know, not necessarily just about bathwater, but in life. And I think so many of us struggle with, you know, that feeling of do we settle for the good enough or do we reach for perfection? So how do you find that balance?
D (2:34)
Yes, we will do that. That's under H for hummus. That's right. I was just going to say my mother, I did say about my mother was that she did see things slightly sideways and say Things that you never quite knew whether she was being serious or not. So I can remember my dad was out of the room, right. And her turning to me and saying, ask your father what he's doing and tell him to stop it. Did she mean that? Did she mean that? Anyway, yeah. So hummus is very, very important to me. Hummus, well, it's everything, really. I can't think of anything else other than hummus. I have to have hummus every day. Now, the point about hummus, I have an ideal hummus. So a little few moments on for me, the ideal. I'm not saying it's yours. My ideal hummus. My ideal hummus is gritty. Now, I thought might get groans there, but never mind. So my ideal hummus is rough, it's gritty. Not too much tahini. Can have tahini, but not too much. Okay. Olive oil. I want to be able to taste the olive oil, taste the lemon juice, taste the garlic. I've got to get all those tastes, okay? And then I want some paprika on the top and some broadleaf parsley. That is my ideal hummus. But there's another kind of hummus, and that's the hummus you've got. And the point about the hummus you've got is that it is good enough. And so I can hold these two things in my head at the same time. I'm not saying that I'm particularly clever for doing that, but I do hold those two things in my head. So, for example, the Turkish cafe just round the corner from us makes hummus. It's very nice and it's lovely with Turkish bread, but for my first taste, it's got a bit too much tahini in it. But as it's the hummus I'm having, it's great. It's the hummus in the restaurant I'm having it. It's really nice with the Turkish bread or the pita bread, it's absolutely great. It's absolutely fine. But at other times, if I'm on the hunt for the perfect hummus, some people say, well, why don't you bloody make it yourself? Well, the simple reason is I can never make it good as the best hummus I can buy. That's another thing I also have to reconcile with myself. And so, as it happens, I've found the perfect hummus. It's sold in Ronnie's at the end of the road, so it's absolutely fine. But it's holding those two. What's really three things in my head at the same Time. And it's. It is a sort of philosophy in life, isn't it, that if you only ever yearn for the best, you will never. Well, you'll only be happy maybe about three times in your life because you'll never get it. So it's learning how to accept that what you've got may well be good enough because you've got it. Saying that when I was in hospital, yes, when I was in Hospital in 2020, Emma wasn't allowed to bring in hummus. This wasn't a singular act of cruelty I just directed personally at me. It's because there was lockdown and nobody could bring in everything, anything. And I think Emma had an interesting non relationship with the chaplain. I think some people were bribing the chaplain to take things in. But anyway, basically I never got hummus. All I got was, well, do you know what? Last night I met the nutritionist and I was actually quite angry with her. No, no, no, I mean she. Very, very cruel woman. Because she had come to my bedside and said, what would you most like right now? And I said, a cold smoothie, A cold berry smoothie, preferably with a sort of black currant taste to it. She said, I can do that for you. I thought, God blimey, they do call them angels, don't they? Even the nutritionists, for Christ's sake. And she came back and you know what she came back with? Warm sick. Seriously, a little bottle of warm sick. And she said, there you are. And I said, oh, that's great. I said, oh, it's feel very cold. And she said, we'd really like you to drink all of that. And I went and it was called something like, it's all in here or everything you'll need to stand up, which you may well do sometime in the next year. It was called things like that. Now wait a minute, what's it called? Ensure. Oh, yeah, there's some nurses here. Yeah, nutritionists, they're going to gang up on me any minute now. They're going to rush the stage and tell me that I'm being cruel to nutritionists. Anyway, it wasn't even cold and it tasted of sick. It did. And they said, would you like it banana flavored or banana flavored? I said, I don't care what it is, it's sick. Whether it's banana taste or non banana say it still tastes of sick. Anyway. And they kept bringing it to me and said I had to if I wanted to grow up and be a big boy or something like that. And, and this nutritionist last night, she was all beaming and happy and thought, I think she was nice. And I said, no, it was one of the cruelest things that have ever happened to me. Yeah, so that wasn't good enough. But I did think up a story while I was there. I was lying in bed and I thought of a cat who loved pasta. Is related. Anyway, so the cat loves pasta, and the parents. No, the two women who are looking after the cat, they go away and forget to tell the boy who's looking after the cat. They forget to tell him that the cat likes pasta. So he gives the cat the cat food, which is called. Sorry about this. Good muse. Anyway, so I sat there making up this story, and then I started thinking, well, how would the cat get hold of pasta? Would he go around to an Italian restaurant? All right. Anyway, I kind of more or less made up this story while I was lying in the geriatric ward. Why did they put me in a geriatric ward? Did they think I was terminal and didn't tell me? I don't know. So incredible. I came out of a coma and they bunged me in a geriatric ward. And I was just around the corner. I could hear them dying around the corner. I could hear. Like that. And one night the male nurse got drunk with one of them and I could hear them going, It's terrible. Anyway, and I came home and I thought, I'm going to see whether my brain's working because it was by no means clear whether my brain was working. And I came home and I wrote a book called Rigatoni the Pastor Cat. And it did. I wrote it and it's come out. It is. It's a book. It's called. And I figured out after it came out that really the book is about me longing for hummus, which Emma cruelly prevented me. No, Emma did try to get. But the chaplain said no. I think he. I don't know, maybe he said that it was not religious enough or something. Or the wrong religion or something. Anyway, Emma tried to explain it to me, but. Haven't understood. But anyway. But anyway, Rigatoni, the pastor cat came out of it. So it's, you know, an ill wind. And as we say.
