Lorraine Kelly on Woman's Hour, plugging her new novel...

[WinterTrees]

Oh joy - Lorraine Kelly has decided to bless the literary world with her particular brand of perkiness in fictional form. Anita Rani (of course) in full fawning mode, expressing wide-eyed delight that it's been endorsed by Marian Keyes (as if celebrities don't all quote on each other's books because it's all a back-scratching club) and that one of the main characters - in a wild swimming club no less - is Freya, who started life as Magnus, 'a wee boy'. Lorraine making much of 'women supporting women' and 'being accepted for who you are' 'being allowed to live as yourself' etc etc.

It's annoying enough that another TV celebrity with no writing background has been given a premier publishing slot with the marketing budget, PR platform and retail shelf space that will now not be available to writers who make an increasingly precarious living from books. Even more galling that she's used this uneven playing field to promote her luxury beliefs and transmit her virtue signalling to a captive audience in a cosy, twee fictional setting where the likes of Isla Bryson and Amy George can be conveniently airbrushed out of existence. And to pretend she cares about empowering women.

My god, that extract was painful to read.

WHY WHY WHY WHY

Jeez, she's no writer, is she?

I turned it off mid interview and downloaded a Robert Galbraith audio book by way of a palate cleanser.

Those are the worst paragraphs ever arranged by humanity. Does LK not have access to AI? My actual granny writes more fluently than that. Oh god the twinkly old couple who knew the fat boy was a Norse goddess since he was three..... come friendly bombs indeed.

I am so fed up with bookshelves in shops full of ‘celebrity novels’ I really do wonder if they actually wrote them, as I cannot imagine writing a novel is easy.

🤭🤣😂 she doesn’t know what nonplussed means ! She thinks it means ‘not bothered’ but alas the day, the dictionary doesn’t agree:

’so surprised and confused that one is unsure how to react.’

I dont know who this LK person is, but I do know she doesn’t have an editor for her ‘novel’.

Oh Christ! Lorraine with your wild swimmers, trans kids and general knee bending to whatever current trend you can patronise. Has she thrown in a day queen called “Tartan with a heartan”, she loves a good bit of drag. Disclaimer I wouldn’t use the word tart to describe women.

Drag queen!

@Justme56 I'm not sure if your use of "peak" rather than "peek" is a typo or ironic.

Meh. It works either way.

I was just thinking the same @Crankywiddershins

She's always in 'woman & home' on cover this month- now I like the magazine- but she irritates the pants off me for some reason

Having read that excruciating extract, Lorraine is just identifying as a writer. Or perhaps it's Lorraine for tax purposes who is the "writer," the other Lorraine is cringing somewhere.

I can't understand how that woman gets everywhere. She's spectacularly dim, thinks she's really cute and up everybody's bums. Although I expect that final bit explains everything.

Thank you for the extract. To be positive, the writing does suggest she’s written it herself. No self respecting ghost writer could have written that.

I can’t believe I ever thought the same as Lorraine and thought wee boys might have girl brains.

wish I could let her have a listen to herself. You’d thinking reading on paper how ridiculous it sounds (reads) would do it.

What a pile of cack!

I wish there was a "like" button for half of these comments,

I won't be reading this book for a number of reasons but for one it is So Infuriating that "celebs" can become writers simply based on their name. And get those prime time slots

I have not listened to womens hour because I personally also can't abide Anita Rani but this would have been a turn off even if it had been Emma Barnett....

To PP who said how can Lorraine discuss the lived experience of something she has no clue yes I hope the double standards are exposed here!!!

I turned on in the middle of the interview and didn't realise it was LK (I don't watch much TV) and found myself wondering who she was and noting that she was tediously flakey as was Anita Rani. Then she comes out with her homespun bullshit about Magnus/Freya and how important diversity is when Lorraine and Anita are never likely to be locked in a prison cell with Isla Bryson. Two privileged idiots giving away other women's rights.

I'm in the middle of re-reading Robert Galbraith and won't be wasting my time with LKs painful prose.

Reading that extract it seems that this has been written as propaganda disguised as fiction, to show the lady readers the right way to think and behave. Look how easy it is to #bekind!

(Very easy if you're a two-dimensional secondary character with no backstory of your own, only there to showcase the virtue of the author.)

I use the thanks button sometimes in way of a “like”

Incorrect use of “nonplussed”. I think she thinks it means the reverse of what it actually means.

She will have had at least one editor. Back in the day I overhead a very stressed editor on a big brick phone to ‘the team’ of J Archers latest. I asked how many - 15!!!!!

Oh dear. It's not great, is it?

She's been on every show she can get on.. we don't have to read it now.. because she never shuts up and now we know the whole plot of the story.