to not understand appeal of Caitlin Moran writing for The Times?

[ARealDame]

She always has at least a couple of articles in The Times on Saturday, including her TV reviews, and seems to be heavily promoted there at the moment.

But I often find her writing cringeworthy e.g. this Saturday TV reviewing The White Queen headlines "She Makes Ingrid Bergman look like Someone Stuck Tits on a Turnip". Last Saturday, reviewing exactly the same programme (did anyone at The Times notice ?) the review headlined Battles, Castles and Tons of Fruity Historical Humping. Is she just being crass/offensive for the sake of it? And I find so much of her writing self-adulating plus impossible to make any sense of, a jumble of thoughtless sentences stuck together ... almost like a teenager on speed.

It seems a shame when The Times on Saturday has some enjoyable journalism e.g. the often brilliant Janice Turner, Matthew Paris, Giles Coran, plus some great review stuff of the Arts.

My heart just sinks when I see her bylines and picture. AIBU ?

Here, even.

Because SHE LOVES THE ECLAMATION MARK!!!
And trying to pretend SHE'S ONE OF US!!!

That book was so dire. Really terrible. I don't get the appeal.

I liked her on here years ago. I think she's lovely in rl. Just THE STYLE MAN

YABU - I don't read the Times, and had never read any CM stuff, but got a copy of Moranthology from MN, and LOVE it! Possibly reading several columns by her a week would grate, but I haven't found out yet.

I like her writing style anyway, but I guess there will be other newspaper columnists whose style I don't (Tim Dowling, for example - DH loves his writing, I find it pretty tedious).

Ditto, greenshadow, I remember her from when she was writing as a teenager.

I like her, I generally find her very funny - the other week's column about how she would console herself if her husband died by focusing on how much space she would be able to reclaim in the fridge made me chuckle. And I like her TV reviews. But I do agree that occasionally she is a bit OTT and some of her comparisons are a bit silly and stressed, probably because they are what she is known for and she feels she has to put them in.

When I was in labour the one mantra I focused on was her comment about labour being the one good pain, the one pain that is meant to happen and has a definite end point and a good reason for happening. I like her honesty about labour, and also when she admitted she had chosen to have an abortion.

"emperors new clothes" - she's been around for 20 years!

Personally I like her style, as does my 70something mum, but it is qute a distinct and quirky style so I can see that it won't appeal to everyone.

Like her on the whole, v witty and admire how she's got herself where she is entirely on her own merit!! Hardly typical for a broad-sheet journalist.. However, hate her childish SHOUTY CAPItALS.

Hermione that's not what I meant by 'Emperor's new clothes' - this saying means that many people agree that something is wonderful but they are only saying that because they feel they have to agree with the general consensus or appear stupid.

I think she must be tiresome to be around.

Well, Chunderella, I'd say only about 30% of Spiked writers are cunts, which is a lot lower than, say, the percentage of Times writers who are cunts.

The Spiked article is very funny and its writer is an extremely talented woman. Only a handful of writers in England today could write such a pitch-perfect satire.

SCREAM! I like her

Somewhere I have a clipping of her first ever column, written for the Observer when she won their Young reporter of the year in 1991 (?)

I have stopped paying for the Times so don't get my weekly fix anymore

She is the one reason that might make me join Twitter one day...

Disclaimer: my husband is an occasional contributor to Spiked (but isn't Fifi Adelsmythe). He is not remotely cuntish.

Haven't read her book, but rather like her columns. I find her quite a bit less obnoxious and self-congratulatory than most columnists.

I bought How To Be A Woman on Kindle when it was half price or something.

I can't seem to get through it.

I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it.

I am a bit meh about CM - neither particularly like nor dislike her.

Her writing is mildly enjoyable and mildly irritating in equal measure.

But I have seen a recent photo of her that I loathe, she is acting all twee and cutesy and has her tongue stuck between her teeth like a three year old.

She looks so pretentious in it, it makes me want to bleurgh.

So at the moment I feel I bit vomitus when I think of Caitlin Moran

I found the book akin to an overtired 9 year old who had been allowed to stay up late at a dinner party.

Think Hadley Freeman rather more interesting, mature and thoughtful and writing in similar vein.

Agree, she's overrated and quite annoying with it. I tried to like her. I WANTED to like her.

I hate the stupid, gurning "I'm mad, me!" face she pulls in every photo taken of her, ever.

Chunderella, fair enough. I do believe the very obviousness of the piece is just right in a satire of Moran. But if you don't like it, then you don't like. Personally, I can't read the phrase "knicker-shittingly hilarious" without a good guffaw.

This particular writer ("Fifi") is someone I quite admire. I thought she held her own in the recent shit-storm over a very different sort of piece. Anyway, she's ten times the feminist Moran is, in my opinion.

Anyway, back to the original topic: Moran is rubbish.

The thinner she gets the more she indulges that cutesy nonsense Hypocritical

Another CM defender here. I really like her and have recommended How To Be A Woman to many of the older girls at my school (16+, but I think some of the Y10s could get a lot out of it) as a sort of beginner's guide to feminism. She's witty, honest and accessible. And unlike so many writers, doesn't take herself too seriously.

Feminist? I think some true feminists would dispute that