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 ?

Think she wants to be friends with Cara Delevigne hence all that tragic tongue poking.....

I liked her for a while but now have gone off her. Not too sure why but I think Noddy has it.

Although I do think HTBAW is worth reading, especially for younger women.

Pray, tell, nodders...

But I haven't been able to bring myself to buy Moranthology. Will wait for it in the charity shop.

I bought How to be a Woman after the rave reviews on here. What a pile of shit! Lady Gaga as a feminist icon? really? I don't believe for one minute that Caitlin came from the kind of background she portrays in the book either.

I love her

Find her totally obnoxious!

I do quite like her, but recently I've got annoyed at how she has to remind us that she smokes "fags" in every single column, like she's too cool for school

I've never heard her speak.
I've just youtubed her.
Oh Dear.

'She may be annoying in rl, but what she says ought to be said.'

This pretty much sums up how I feel about her. I thought 'How To Be A Woman' was full of incredibly brave and honest stuff which needed saying and good for her for doing so and for talking about feminism in a way that appeals to younger women. And by the by, I love her dress sense!

However...... She really is Chief Arselicker To The Stars, which I find properly cringey. The constant references to fags and booze are really tiresome and a bit worrying. She's in that little Twitter clique full of fellow journos who all seem to behave like they're in Mean Girls. Whenever I see/hear her interviewed, she comes across to me as someone who is extremely insecure and fragile, but feels she has to cover it by being noisy and sweary and in-yer-face. I can understand this (I have done it myself) but it just doesn't sit right. And I do think she's extremely overrated as a writer.

I like her writing.

I find it funny and often close to the bone. I'm glad she says some of the things she does. Someone needs to.

Her use of CAPS LOCK and !!!!!! can get a bit repetitive, but that's her style. So why should she change it?

No one has to read what she says, of course.

'No one has to read what she says, of course'

Eh no, but people can still have an opinion on what she writes!

I like her writing and I liked most of HTBAW.

However, I think she's overexposed now (I guess that's always going to happen as writers need to churn it out while they're popular). Is Moranthology very similar to HTBAW?

I find it slightly at odds that she fashions herself as alternative / rootsy and then chooses to write for a mainstream establishment newspaper. And doing the TV reviews - that's just cheap - she's got interesting things to say and she challenges convention (admittedly often in an annoying way) why the duck would she agree to do TV reviews - IMO TV reviews should be what the work experiences cut their teeth on. I suppose she's being paid for it....

She should also acknowledge that while her roots may be genuinely working class / non-fee paying education / no university etc and she did very admirably break into the media world without mummy and daddy's help (see Giles Coren, Toby Young, Daisy Waugh....lots more) she's now a hugely cliquey journo hoovering up the freebies and the column inches with the best of them. It's ok to change like that, but why not be honest about where your life focuses now as opposed to how your life was growing up?

Hand I think the telly reviews section is a job she likes! She's the first to admit how much telly she watches and how much she likes it.

Plus journos don't get paid much. They take whatever gigs come their way. Can't afford not to.

Journos don't get paid much? That's so untrue. Unless you're talking about local press. National newspaper journos, in particular columnists like Moran, are VERY well paid indeed.

Not unless they do quite a few gigs, they don't!

One column will not usually keep a family in London.

I disagree.
I know someone (not Moran) doing this and she earns more than enough and has holiday home abroad and is sole breadwinner on it too.

and no family money, no connections!

And how many columns do they write?

Has been interesting to see others' comments. Just for clarity, I print here a random extract from her "TV review" (and I use the term loosely) of The White Queen from previous week:

"By the time Grey's walking down a shady country lane, a certain level of alarm rose in the viewer. F*ing hell - this is basically turning into the medieval version of the video of Peter Kay's The Way to Amarillo. They're not going to stop until she's walked past a beach, a funfair and a plague pit, joined by Bernie Clifton and Shakin' Stevens.

But no! For, on finding a particular tree - a massive oak- Elizabeth finally stops and waits. Why? Is this huge treat actually a massive Elizabeth Arden Beauty Spa, in disguise -and she's booked in for a Mini-Pedi & Lash Tint? No.

The tree, is in actual fact, a King Magnet! It magically draws any passing king who is wearing armour to it-as evidenced by the fact that literally Edward IV suddenly appears at this specific tree for absolutely no reaon at all, and takes off his helmet - revealing his ASTONISHING HOTNESS.

When he sees Lady Elizabeth Grey - just hangin' by the tree, like you do in 1464, just doing a bit of casual oak-leaning - he smiles, like Danny Zuko in Grease when he sees ..."

OK, nuff, ed..

This goes on for about 10 paragraphs in the same vein. Its almost complete and total gibberish!

I'm not giving details, I don't need to prove their earnings, or inadvertently out them, lol!

Arf at the notion that Moran isn't paid very well for what she does, she may well have come from humble roots but she has certainly come a long way since then, pretending otherwise is a tad disingenuous. I don't mind her writing, enjoy some of her columns but like most of the cliquey literati on twitter she throws major strops if anybody dares disagree with her or any of her mates. Her arse licking of Lena Dunham was pathetic and embarrassing.

I think her style of writing reads a bit like Cosmo journalists from the 1980s! I didn't ever 'get' her and avoided her columns but have seen a couple of amusing Q&A sessions she's done and revised my opinion. Still not entirely convinced but some pieces are more amusing than others!

I think she's a bit of a Marmite journalist!

stepaway no one asked for earnings. Just how many columns they wrote!!