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 ?

Sorry, I was all ready to agree with you, OP, until you got to Janice Turner and Giles Coren. I would read books worth of Caitlin in preference to those two (and I am far from her biggest fan).

Oh she IS a true 21st century feminist, in my book, despite her failings!

I still like her, I remember reading her in the Melody Maker years ago. She's bright and articulate. Maybe she does come across as a 30 something mum still trying to be down, that's fine by me!

I find her utterly odious. HTBaW was utter tripe IMO

I don't mind her writing but have seen a few interviews with her - most recently at the Hay Festival - and she was soooo gobby and talkative like she was on coke. It was irritating and really turned me off.

Sadly I think a lot of 'personality-based' journalists quickly become caricatures of themselves...

she's very talented, but tries too hard to be young, fun and cool. I'd like her to be serious on occasion. Sometimes you need to calm the fuck down and grow up a little.

I find her very irritating and don't bother to read most of her articles. I inwardly groan a bit when I see the amount of space she is given some weeks.

I like her.

Also find her massively overrated. Amusing sometimes admittedly, but there it ends. Find How to be a Woman very depressing.

Initially I found HTBAW quite funny esp the bit about a fanny tax but by the end of it OH MY GOD I found her INTENSELY irritating and SO smug, I wanted to punch her. Her attitude came across as cavalier and trite when she wrote about having an abortion.

Think she tries too hard, can't bear her on twitter esp the chummy banter between her and her hampstead luvvie mates.

Don't believe for a minute that her home-schooling upbringing was as 'oh look at me, am working class me' as she makes out either. Think she's got a TV sitcom or series coming out soon, raised by wolves, god help us

I was very unimpressed with HTBAW but I loved Moranthology. I found it intelligent, perceptive and very witty.

I also don't think what she looks like is relevant at all.

YANBU. She's trying too hard to be young & cool & just comes across as irritating. I only read excerpts from HTBAW & that was more than enough. She's a grown woman writing in the style of an over-excited teenager and I find her extremely annoying.

YABU - she's brilliant. Compare the throwaway TV reviews with, for example, her article about library closures. Or even the non-throwaway TV reviews such as the Sri Lankan killings.

I had to unfollow her on Twitter due to the endless banter with Hampstead luvvie mates as well. My feed was cluttered up with her and Lauren Laverne talking to each other and it drove me NUTS. Use private messaging! Or email! Just... something private!

I like her! I think How To Be A Woman is a decent pop feminism book- wish it was around when I was a teenager. I used to read Melody Maker a lot as a kid so have kind of grown up with her. Agree that she can come across as a bit of a knob sometimes and the luvvie banter with her contemporaries can grate, but I reckon she'd be a lot of fun to hang out with. Not sure why her appearance is relevant but for what it's worth I like her style. Is there some sort of unwritten rule that as soon as a woman hits her 30s and has kids she suddenly has to whip out the Boden catalogue?

Love her on twitter (apart from the constant chat between her and Lauren Laverne!), can't get through How to be a Woman, refuse to buy the Times (just can't relate to it these days) so don't read her in there.

Yawn though at the debate on here about whether she is a proper feminist or not. What? Don't get it. Does she want equal rights for women and girls ... yes. Do I want equal rights for women and girls ... yes. Do "proper feminists" want equal rights for women and girls ... yes. We're all feminists. Let's not lose the point by getting tied up in pointless differentiating technicalities.

I enjoy her writing.

You don't.

Many other people do.

Many other people do not.

Yet more people have no opinion.

Where's the question of reasonableness?

Luckypeach, have you got reasons for suggesting that she's exaggerating the 'working class-ness' of her upbringing?

Accidentally self parodying. It seems to be hard to escape this with the tireless over promotion by those she is contracted to.

More seriously when she referred to 'Mentals' in a column after writing about her friend with Schizophrenia in a previous one was the day I stopped reading the hypocritical confused little dear. I took the mentals comment as a gesture of support for her little friend India seeing as it was published around that time.

I used to LOVE her. proper fangirl, I was. Then...

She was a wanker with India Knight about mental health and she seems to have started to believe her own hype a bit so I have gone off her. And she was a wanker to someone I am friends with, when she was trying to prove herself at MM. The "apology" in the introduction of Moranthology didn't quite cut it either, Caitlin.

But didn't you all know CM taught womankind to masturbate whilst wearing eyeliner.....

What did we all do before her.....?

The 'mentals' references have pushed things over the edge a bit. I think she and India have both developed a bit of a 'don't you know who I am?' complex in response to any criticism even when they are in the wrong.

Marmalade I agree about believing the hype - shame as I think HTBAW has some good points - the sections about children, or not having children, and abortion are good, the bit about having to pay to have a vagina is really good as a focused argument to present to younger women - and overall is a good popular book about feminism. But the publicity around it was so hagiographic at times that it just became cringeworthy. The line on the blurb about it being 'The Female Eunuch rewritten from a bar stool', for instance, plus, among the slew of articles the Guardian published on it was the one with someone saying the history of feminism would now refer to 'Before Caitlin' and 'After Caitlin'. Come on!

I have met her a few times and she is like the school show off