Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran
Catherine Elizabeth "Caitlin" Moranis an English journalist, author, and broadcaster at The Times, where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch". Moran is British Press AwardsColumnist of the Year for 2010, and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011 and Interviewer of the Year 2011. In 2012, she was named Columnist of the Year by the London Press Club, and Culture Commentator at the Comment...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth5 April 1975
I once went into a meeting, and every woman put her a million-pound bag on the table. Then I'm there with my tote bag and anorak. And I'm like, well, I'm still the most important person in the room right now.
I'm quite British; I've got big, flat feet, and I can't wear heels. I've got very, very pale Celtic skin, so my legs are always a frightening blue color. So when you take out clothes that reveal your legs, shoes that have any kind of heel, no shop will actually take my money.
Men have made the world. And they've made a brilliant job of it. I love men. You know, men, you built Paris and you invented The Beatles, and, you know, and you've taught dogs to say 'sausages.' You know, I love your world. Thank you for it.
In the early '90s, it was grunge; everybody was fully clothed. Alanis Morissette was one of the biggest artists in the world, never wore makeup, wearing Doc Marten boots, and then the Spice Girls turn up, and suddenly it all looks a bit burlesque; suddenly they're the biggest band in the world.
I could have written a misery memoir and instead I tried to make it funny. I never complained.
I've got more friends than I've ever had in my life at the age of 39 - although given that I didn't have any friends until the age of 27, it doesn't say much - because I found the internet.
All the things that are taboo are the things that are not normal, and all the things that are not normal are the things that are exclusively about physically being a woman.
For me, and I suspect a lot of socially awkward people, dealing with people face-to-face seems really traumatic. Particularly if you have massive sweating issues, and particularly if on top of that you have quite smelly sweat that smells like onion soup.
I can only work between the hours of 8:30 and 4:30, because that's when the kids are at school. So I get to do all my work and have all of my fun in that time, which means just sitting on a chair, typing, alternately clicking between writing a column and being on Twitter, and smoking as many cigarettes as I can before my lungs give out.
Once you've got a big feminist and political justification for talking about how you went round to Benedict Cumberbatch's house and did period all over his sofa, then there's no reason not to tell that anecdote in the middle of a dinner party.
The problem that we have is thinking there's only one kind of feminist, and that she's politically correct and right on at all times, wears flat shoes, doesn't wear makeup, probably doesn't have sex, is very angry, wears dungarees, is a vegetarian.
You don't need to be legendary all the time. You can just be legendary for 10 minutes a day.
I wish I could give up smoking, but it does taste so delicious.
If you do it properly, life is art, really.