Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Caitlin Moran (Part Two)

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

In part two of Emily and Ray’s walk with Caitlin Moran and Luna, Caitlin turns her attention to something many of us could probably use a little more of right now: hope.Her new book, How to Be Hopeful, grew out of a search for ways to feel more optimistic about the world without simply ignoring everything that’s wrong with it. Caitlin shares some of what she discovered along the way, and why seemingly small things - nature, community, getting outside and, inevitably, dogs - can make a surprisingly big difference.There’s also more from Caitlin on her life, family and extraordinary career, as the conversation ranges from the deeply thoughtful to the gloriously silly.If you haven’t already, do go back and listen to part one. Caitlin’s new book, How to Be Hopeful, is available to buy now.Follow Emily:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyrebeccadeanX: https://twitter.com/divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Will NicholsMusic: Rich JarmanArtwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to part two of Walking the Dog with the wonderful Catlin Moran and her dog Luna. Katlyn's brilliant new book, How to Be Hopeful, is available to buy now and it's honestly so worth a read. So do grab your copy. And by the way, do remember to give Walking the Dog a like and a follow so you can catch us every week. Here's Katlyn and Luna and Ray Wee. Ray, what are you eating? Have you ever, I gave him a bit. Oh, I'm so glad you gave him.

You don't have to ask. I thought he was eating something. If you gave him a treat, that's so kind of you. But he's so tiny that even though it's only this big, he had to eat it in three bites. He has to break it into like five. He's very cheap to feed. I bet. Do you ever wonder what he'd be like as like a husband or a boyfriend?

Yes. Tell me what would he be like. I think he would be, well, he doesn't bark. So he's very, you know those people who have that very sort of quiet partner? Yes. The sort of silent partner in a way. Oh, this is my husband. Is Pete like that?

Yes. Yeah. Very quiet, placid. So are you the sort of the more extrovert one in the partnership? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's why it works. No, if we think a burglar's breaking into the house, it may go downstairs to the baseball hat while he goes,

I hope they're not in my record room stealing my vinyl and I'm like, they won't be stealing your records, but then that works. I think that's sort of a good indication that a relationship's going to last the distance, don't you? Well, you need that balance also. What I've noticed now, everybody's talking about neurodurgency, that a very classic setup is an ADHD girl and an autistic boy. Do you think Pete might have elements there?

Pete's 100% autistic Asperger's. And that works as a really good balance. You've got kind of like the kind of rarer one. And then the deep specialist. He's just kind of looking at things through a more sort of logical prison. And you provide stuff for each other that you maybe don't have in your own reserves.

So that actually, you complement each other, you know. Well, with him, because I met him when I was 17, like way before I got famous when we both started working his music journalist. And he's the only person I never dream about. He's the only person I never really think about. Like from the first day that he met him, I was trying to, I only figured it out recently. We've been together for 33 years.

From day one, he just believed in me. He just bought the whole package and believed in me. Really? And he was, and his deal was very simple. It's just like, I will just follow you to the ends of the earth. I'm just going to be here. And we'd gone out with each other for a while and then just before I started presenting the TV show,

he went, look, you're 18, you just moved to London, you're about to be famous. You should not be going out with me at the moment. you need to go off and have your adventures and shag around and go and enjoy being famous and stuff. And then if at the end of it you would like to come back to me, I will just be here like Farmer Oak, Gabriel Oak and waiting for you. But go now and have your adventures. So I went off and had my adventures. Two years later, he was just knocking on his door going, I've had my sexual adventures. I've been out of the world. I'm back. I didn't like him out there when you have me back.

And he was like, yeah, let's give it a go. But that's so fascinating, isn't it? Just that that's proper in my mind. emotional, well it's emotional literacy and emotional intelligence on his part, but it's also, it's kind of smart. Because he was smart enough to realise this relationship will probably implode because she's got too many experiences being thrown at her. She's too young. And he was prioritising his future self over his present self. He was really, really, I mean, it's one of, you know, and also to play a long game. I can't really play a long game.

I can't even. Really, can you not do long game? I hate a long game. I hate secrets. I hate long games. I hate tickling. Three most hated things. Cannot stand being tickled. If someone says they've got a secret, I'm like,

oh, why have you told me? Why have you told me you've got a secret? Don't trailer it. Really? You must disclose this. I can't handle it. You are someone I imagine if I had something to tell you and I felt shame over it.

I think you could keep it in the vault. I would trust you. Not only would I keep it in the vault, I would talk you through it so that you did not feel shamed about it. Yeah, I think you were. Because I shame is interesting I was talking to Monica Lewinsky at a party once and obviously Monica Lewinsky is someone who knows about shame Having been most globally shamed person in the world

Yeah, and she was saying that when she started to get therapy her therapist explained to her that shame is the hardest of all human emotions to deal with because It sticks to you like tar often because you're shamed It will take you years to be able to talk about it you keep it as a secret it's in your burden you have to keep it And if you have been publicly shamed If anyone comes to try and help you or defend you, they will be lumped in with the shame as well. So you will take them down with you. So you isolate yourself because you know that if someone comes to your defence, they will also then have your shame. You will have contaminated them.

So it's more isolating than any other emotion that you will have. And you will tend to leave it decades before you deal with it because you think you deserve it. You think you shouldn't talk about it. You think no one can help you who have ruined their lives. And so whenever anybody has any shame about anything, I'm always. always very interested and I'm picking it and getting rid of it at some. Have you ever had to deal with that? Well, I mean, I guess when I first got famous I did feel ashamed.

Yeah, it was like, yeah, because like I was 18 and everyone was just going, this is a really horrible, gobby, unlikable, fat, ugly cow. And like being told that when you're 18 is, you're just like, oh okay, I guess that's, that's what I am. And I go, there was one night when I was still. friends with Pete, I just went around his house and just got very, very drunk and became absolutely hysterical and just like fell down some stairs, just going, just everybody hates me. I just feel hated, like the first time anybody knew about me, I appeared on television and just everybody hated

me, like kind of, I will never be on television again. And then I never presented another TV show ever again. I was like, I will never do this again. I made a promise to myself. And it's interesting because I think now, you're in a kind of unusual position where because of your writing, there aren't many journalists like you who, you know, a famous, I suppose, who'd be recognised in the street, who... On the way here, I get recognised about four or five times a day. Yeah, I can imagine that. It's quite pleasant. This one was a man called Victor who'd read my book called What About Men? And he was like, I loved it so much that I'm going to write a book about being a man, like,

kind of like, there aren't enough good men talking about the crisis in masculinity. It's always assholes like, Andrew Tate telling people what to be, what a man should be. And I was like, Victor, let me shake you by the hands. You are fabulous. That's what's interesting is that because you do have this extremely high profile, I can imagine, like when I was reading how to be hopeful, my new life manifesto, by the way. Love this. You can't say to enough. No, it is. It's giving me hope hearing you say this. Yeah, it's so brilliant. But you refer, just briefly, you allude to being asked to do I'm a celebrity. Yes. And that, it really struck me. I thought, I bet you get those offers quite a lot to do TV. I bet all the time because they think, okay, she's articulate, she's funny. she's bright but equally but also she's nice so how she'll be easy to work but she's warm I can imagine producers are desperate to sign you up for things and it's interesting

you don't seem to say yes a lot do oh god no no they asked me to do a celebrity of brother every year yeah yeah yeah the reply is always within 30 seconds of it landing in my inbox literally I'd rather cut my head off and drop kick it over a fence the thing is Why? Because, well, because I know why I would be on a show like that, because I would go in there as the lefty feminist, and they'd make sure that they put me in there with some sexist man, and then they would deliberately construct things where we need to have an argument of the sexes.

And also, you can't read in there, you can't work in there, and all the conversations are about, it's sad, because reality TV didn't used to be like this, and I used to love reality TV in the first series of Big Brother and, like, castaway and stuff. but these days when you do reality TV the only conversations that make the edit and the ones that are encouraged to happen are people talking about each other in the relationships

in the camp or in the house and what I love on reality TV is where loads of people are sitting around talking about books or geography or geology or history is an actual proper conversation. I even like it when they say oh I met so and so some amazing story about some now dead celebrity or something

even that is more interesting isn't it when they're sharing anecdotes from their life? Yeah. So do you think also though but I'm wondering when you were saying earlier about you know when you were doing it was Naked City wasn't it? Yes you sort of you have a good memory well done but but that that was a kind of left your fingers burn is there still an element of that or do you think you just think TV's not for me I prefer writing well the first of all I love writing the most but I've recently this year like kind of I didn't realize it would be like

TV but I started doing this podcast outsideing I'm part of the podcast I love outsideing I watch the one I saw it on YouTube actually with Bob Maltamer. Yes. One of the first ones you did. Oh, he was, I mean, obviously. And it's with Adam Frost, we should say, from Garden's World. Yeah. Who is my new best friend?

He's great, isn't he? It's lovely seeing him, like, because I love Gardner's World. But like, there's another side to him that we have on this. He's like, you know, he's quite, it's quite cheeky. Also, he's not my type and it would be wrong if my TV husband was someone I fancied. But the amount of women who come up to me going, he's really sexy. Like, he put in a word in with me for Frosty. And I love it because he gets so.

embarrassed when that happens. I love, we had Kerry Godlimate, the actress came on. Oh, she's lovely. She has a massive crush on Frosty. I knew this and I enjoyed that episode so much. Yeah. Because I'd just be like, come on, go on, go on. Tell Frosty how much he fans. He went red-faced, he couldn't handle it. But doing that is interesting then. So that's kind of front-facing. And you're comfortable with that and what is the, I suppose there's a big difference between that and doing a reality show or being a celebrity contestant on something or why do you like doing that and why would you say no, for example, to things like Big Brother?

Well, there's two things. First of all, when I agreed to do the podcast, I just thought it would be a podcast. It would just be some microphones and stuff. I didn't realize that it is essentially a TV show. We've got a massive crew. We've got drones. It's shot beautifully. It looks gorgeous. So, you know, on the first day, it was like, you know, it'd all been in increments. And I was suddenly like, no, I'm looking down the baller of a camera and saying, hello, why come to outside? I'm back on TV. But I was ready to do that because in the new book, which you've been so kind about, that is about my year long. quest to finally be hopeful about the world but also to overcome the anxiety that I have

had all my life. Yeah. And it worked, spoiler alert, like kind of I, the anxiety and the shame that I sort of had since my teenage years, I did finally tackle it. And it has changed my life. I had thought that it was part of my personality to be that anxious and that constantly worried about what people would think about me. And having just stripped it out, I've just found this incredible freedom at the age of 50 at not feeling ashamed of. from you I am anymore and not being constantly anxious that people might hate me. So, so emotionally I've done the work and I'm ready to do it. But the other thing is that like if you're doing a podcast, you're kind of not,

people have got to go and find you. This is what I think about old stuff I do. Yeah, I write for the times I'm behind a pay wall. I write in books and you have to pay for them. I'm writing a podcast that you'd have to go and click on. Yeah. If you're on telly, you're suddenly just in people's faces. You're not invited and it's, I understand why people can have quite a visceral reaction to you.

That's very true. And I never want to be somewhere I'm not invited. Like I am quite like... I think that's a really interesting point you've made because I think you're right in that I couldn't wonder when I did a... I used to do a breakfast show with Frank Skinner on Absolute. And I got, you know, a lot of vitriol

from a lot of older sort of male, you know. Yeah. And we were quite early doors because it was 17 years ago we started that where it was kind of absolute was a bit more male. So, but whatever reason, it was just... Then I started doing my own podcast and I realized oh because anyone who's listening to this is coming to listen to this

it's not like they've just got the radio on thinking I like Frank Skinner but who's that awful woman yeah do you know what I mean this is plus one yeah yeah yeah yeah how did you deal with that then when you were getting that kind of response I was really devastated and then Frank gave me really good advice which was obvious everyone and it was don't listen what are you doing why are you looking at it and you know this I'm sure you would have said the same thing as someone but you just it's awful the way you're sort of drawn towards this. It's a kind of form of self-harm in a way.

Yes, it is. It's kind of what's, imagine the worst thing that someone would, I always used to say when you would see that stuff, it's the equivalent of if you call someone and, you know, you suddenly get a miscall and you see that they've not hung up the phone and it's just like they've left a message or something. And you think, do I play that? Yeah.

Because they might well be talking about me. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or do I delete it? I think it's about the choice. to delete that message? It's interesting though, isn't it? Because, like, you know, we've had some fame. But because of social media,

kind of everybody's had some fame now. Well, that's exactly it. Or could be famous at any second because you will go viral, like that whole Andy Warhol thing. And it's not just that everybody will be famous for 15 minutes. It's at some point everyone will be cancelled for 15 minutes. Or at least that's the fear.

Yeah. And it's really interesting that when you look at fame and being on social media are kind of the same. thing in that I've got a lot of people in my life you've got psychosis and schizophrenia and if you suffer from those mental illnesses you believe that people you don't know are talking about you all the time when you walk down the street people are recognising you and talking about you and they're using mysterious instruments to communicate with each other about you know and are planning to hurt you

and are talking about how much they hate you and if you have that mental illness that's not true that's not happening and if you get medication you won't believe that anymore if you are famous or if you are on social media and suddenly something's gone viral, that is actually happening to you. People you don't know are saying that they hate you. They are using machines to communicate with each other. And if they saw you in the street, they probably would abuse you. And so we've, you know, when you look at like, you know, fame and social media, they are essentially psychosis machines. It's like a VR headset that people are strapping onto their heads to experience very viscerally what it is like to have very profound mental illness. And I think this is part of like, you know, part of my quest has been sort of like coming off social media because Because you came off X we should say, and you had like 800,000 plus followers.

And my, oh my God, the ego that I had with that. That's quite a big thing to walk away from, isn't it? It was amazing because I was like, I am using my powers for good. You know, I could sit on there and recommend a book and it would get in the top 10. If someone had done, you know, some unknown writer had done a funny treat, I could retweet it. And, you know, there are people that got book deals after I was like, you know, retweeting them and championing them. So the power to be able to help people was so addictive and so intoxicating. And, you know, my Twitter was taught at GC.

level as modern communication. I can remember. I hear it. That's that amazing. Me and Russell Brands, so you know, swings aroundabouts. I mean,

that's not so well. But at that point, the worst thing he'd done is write a book called My Bookie Wug. You know, because it's, you know, but yeah,

so having that, you know, when you think you're a good person and you've got that kind of power and you can, like, you know, help other people with it. It's incredibly intoxicating, but that's not what social media

is now. Like, you can't. There isn't really that much good you can do with it. I think it is, you know, I talked to the younger generations and they are all like we're not using it. It's like a failed experiment.

Why did it go? But still, I think to walk away from that, that shows, because it's so easy to get caught up in that. And that does represent, it can start to represent you that follow account. It's, this is who I am. Well, we, we could, I mean, I won't ever name the names, but we could name people, but we know who've been on social media, whose personalities have utterly changed,

who have been massively politically radicalised. And they, you know, it's a, you know, if you're on social media, you feel like you're looking into a mirror. But that mirror can very easily warp and not show you your true reflection. That can be warped by people who genuinely exist, you hate you and disagree with you. If you say that you stand for this cause,

there will be always people who oppose that. So suddenly you've got loads of enemies just by saying what you love. But also, I don't know if you've seen any footage of Belarusian bot farms, But like if you look at the stats on the amount of actual people that are communicating with each other now on social media, as opposed to these very expensive, well-appointed bot funds that have thousands of laptops and computers all wired up to the internet, and the people who are supervising and smoking cigarettes and playing pool in these very plush apartments, and they are being paid for, you know, this isn't me being paranoid and theories theory,

the UK government has said, we are at cyber war with Russia. Yeah. China is putting money into this. There are sort of big things. tech figures who I won't name, who are putting money into it. And so, you know, this, it's a platform that's been corrupted. It can be bought and it is driving people mad. And it's breaking up society. Like, you know, we, you know, the amount of false information and conspiracy theories and kind of like pylons and the effect that it has on our, you know, we've got to the point where we're banning our children from using it. It is a failed experiment in this iteration.

And I'm sure at some point it's still a great idea, but, you know, the monopoly is crazy. You know, there are five people in charge of all the social media, the big social media platform. platforms and they're all straight white men who are a bit weird. They have not gone out and touched the grassball world. And you can even see again, we won't mention it, but I know people, you know, good people who I've met in real life who are good people, but then I see some of their online content. Oh yeah. Particularly young male comics and I think, I think your stuff's getting more extreme and your stuff is appealing to maybe more of an Andrew Tate audience. And I don't think this is you. I think it's just that you're getting rewarded. So it's hard to drop off that convey about it, isn't it?

Because like, because also the first thing you're told, like, I mean, even if you're not in showbiz, you know, you've got to sell tickets to your gigs or whatever, like, you know, my daughters, they both want to be in the creative industries, not in public facing roles, one of them, but she was told you need to have a social media, you need to be posting every day because future employees are going to look at it. And that's how they need to know who you are. So, so, you know, put the pressure on someone who's got to sell out tickets to a gig and you're seeing what flies on social media. And the algorithms are deliberately till. said that if you say something divisive or argumentative, you get ten times the amount of traction. And on X-Nay, you get paid if you've had a tweet that's gone super viral. So, you know, yeah, you get paid once you've had a certain amount of clicks on it. So, like, and the stuff that's, that's getting the clicks is really violent, divisive, outrageous stuff. I was just going to say that that money would feel so dirty, wouldn't you?

If you're poor, I mean, I'd like to think I'd make the right moral choice. But if I was, like, on the bones of my ass and I had to pay rent, and you'll just, you kid yourself, it's just a game, it's just a person. It's just ironic sexism. It's just ironic racism. I'm playing a character. It's meaningless. Yeah, yeah. And also as well, when she start saying that stuff and loads of people start going, this, this is the tweet. You finally said what I wanted to say. You're the only sane person. Like, thank God you're saying something. Humans are very easily persuaded that they're doing the right thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you've got what you think are loads of people saying, thank you. Oh, it's intoxicating that, isn't it? That high. Of course, like, yeah. Oh my God, I'm a savior. I'm not only one who's brave enough to say it. But of course, most of the most of the people, you know, most of the people. those are probably bots that'll be played for by Vladimir Putin. So now what are you going to do? I was going to name a comedian at that point.

Do you really want to sell out the comedian that badly? Putin's shilling for you. Is that what you want to do? We know who we're really. When you wrote How to Be a Woman, which obviously I bought, which women didn't buy it, it was so, it just became, I don't know, there was something so revolutionary about that book. And I think it was because it suddenly felt we were allowed to talk about feminism. Like I was proud to read that book on the tube. It sounds ridiculous that I would have to say that.

But I felt, no, this is my feminism. Do you know what I mean? Well, that was, that was, I mean, that was social media. That was when social media was good because I'm there and I'm watching the conversation. And if we, you know, there's been some documentaries about it now. But for a while we forgot just how toxic the early noughties were. for women. It was a time of upskirting Jessica Simpson being fat

even though she was a size 8. Like the tone in which women were spoken to and about was even in women's magazines it was all very your fat, shave your minge and get a handbag. It was like it was the most brutal reduction of you know even those pop stars the rivals, do you remember when Nigel

nasty Nigel said to Kim you've had a good Christmas. Yeah he said the Christmas is coming and the goose has gotten fat and then she went upstairs and cried and we all just watched that and Nobody thought, hang on, even the production didn't think, we need to intervene here. This girl's in distress. That was normal.

It was normal. It had become normalized. So two things had happened. It had become incredibly toxic to be a woman. And at that point, we had not. Feminism had been forgotten. I always blame the spice girls because we started saying girl power instead of feminism, which I now realised for a generation of little girls in the playground, being able to say girl power,

that was empowering to them. But as a grown woman at that time, I was going, well, if you replace feminism, which has stated objectives, which is the financial, social, sexual and political equality between sexes, with girl power, which essentially means being friends with your friends and selling spice girls records. They're not a like-for-like swap. Like, kind of one of them has changed the world. The other one has like meant that Jerry, Jerry Halliwell can, you know, buy a castle. Like kind of, they're not quite the same.

God bless you, Jerry. You were always my favourite. Yes. So, so it was, and also at that point, the perception of feminism was that it was really angry, shaven-haired, lesbians who hate men. in Dungarees shouting. First of all, angry, shaven haired lesbians in Dungarees who hate men have got a lot done.

They are my heroes. If you want some shit done, they are fucking incredible. But as a mass movement, it's something you could explain to a young woman, like kind of like, it just needed, it basically needed kind of rebadging. But I think, and I wonder as well, you're absolutely right in that, you know,

it's funny now we look back and you think maybe those women, or like the suffragettes, they weren't, that wasn't passive resistance. know in some ways I mean the way they were protesting it was like that was the whole point they had to cause that level of drama and it was violent deaths and yeah well what everyone forgets is there were two branches of the feminists moving to that time with the suffragists there were suffragists so the suffragists I'm trying to remember which one was which one of them was the violent kind of terrorist one that

was blowing up things and kind of like yeah but the other half were about infiltration and social change they were like we're gonna get to positions of power we're gonna charm people we're gonna write fabulous things like you know we will be you know and we'll make it fun we will make it seem liberating and I was like okay that's what I would do I'm not brave enough to go and blow up a building I'm not brave enough to go and like get beaten up on a march like Judy Bindlewood but the way you wrote I remember you know it's that thing sticks with you and I think because your writing is funny I always think the way I remember sort of you know all the all the best bits of

wisdom whether it whoever whether it's Chris Rock or Frank's gonna it's because it's funny humor sticks with you doesn't it Well, first of all, if you believe in something, you want to spread it, it's like a virus. Yeah. How do you make it most contagious? People want to spread jokes. Like, you just don't, you know. And also, jokes are truthful.

You're laughing before you've intellectually processed it because your body goes, yeah, that's right. That's a relief to hear that. So, like, so the power of humour. But it's funny that still, I mean, God, screenwriters and comedies a girl about this forever. But, like, comedy is so underrated. Like, kind of like, funny films never win the Oscar. Like, kind of like, when Harry Benton and Sammy, should have won an Oscar. Absolutely should have won an Oscar.

Absolutely should have won an Oscar. Because people think it's lesser, but it's more because any funny film does everything a drama. It's got characterisation and plot and arts and all this stuff. But it's also funny. It's doing two things at once. And I don't quite know why it is that we underestimate comedy because people love comedy. That's the most watched genre on stream. It's harder to write.

It's much harder to write. But the thing that I wanted to do was to set a new template, a new tote. Basically, all you can ever do if you want to change things is make a space and set a tone. Let me take a picture of this. Hang on. Before you throw it, you two together are... Good girl. Let me just take this is the cutest thing. Paul.

Katlyn, look at me. And Luna, you look at me. I wanted to say to you, Zoll, we were talking about how to be a woman and how, was it over a million copies that book? Yes, in 38 countries. And seeing all the different covers that came in, really told you about the state of feminism in each country. So most of them were just the cover that we had in the UK, a picture in my face. But the one in Poland.

Is it Chris Floyd? Yes. Yeah, I really like that picture. Amazing shot. It was really, I love that picture. and but Poland it was a cartoon of a blonde woman in a cocktail dress and high heels with a vacuum cleaner with the nozzle in her ear like she was sucking out her brains and I was like okay I can't fight this fight if that's what feminism means to you in Poland

absolutely go with God like as long as you're selling some books babe I can go for it so that was but my favourite bit in that whole thing because that that year was mental that book stayed in the top 10 for a year every week I was like I'd read the Sunday papers It was a proper, I call it a this is going to her Unicorn book. Yes, it was. It changed every, like every week it would be mentioned. I mean, I wonder, was that life changing for you in terms of financially, in terms of your, it wasn't life changing in that I don't feel you're someone who was using writing, you know, to say, right, okay, now I can embrace my secret plan of going on celebrity being brother. Oh God, no, no.

So it didn't change your life in that way, but did it change your life in terms of your recognizability and. Yeah, I mean, I got recognised. everywhere which I think is there's good things I'm quite I'm fascinated by what fame can do and at one point I'm going to write up even though I've written a book called how to be famous I want to write a book tracking what happens when you're famous because there's there's usually a pattern to the whole thing so so if you come from a working class background first of all when the money comes in you don't know what to do with it did you not know just sit in an account and I

thought that was what you did it you just put it in an account so I didn't invest in anything I didn't get a pension I didn't understand tax so it was going into the limited company account that we had, because you do that in order to make sure a copy of right lasts for 100 years, and so my children can earn money from the books. But I didn't realize that if you take money from your limited account, your business account,

and put it into your personal account and then use it to pay off your mortgage, the working car stream, that at the moment where you take it from your business account where you've already paid tax on it and then transfer it into your personal account, you then pay tax on it again at the highest possible rate. And so a year later, your accountant goes,

you have absolutely fucked yourself. You've now got a massive, massive tax bill. you need to remortgage your house. So I actually ended up financially disadvantaged by having had that huge windfall because I did not understand money. But isn't that fascinating that? And that is why would you?

No. Because you've not been educated. No, we don't have to make you realise it's why it's tough. You know, these stories about it's very hard to hang on to money, isn't it? Unless you've been educated and how to... Did not understand.

I didn't understand tax. Didn't understand investments. Like no one, I knew had investments. No one knew had a pension. So the huge amount of money that I earned most of it disappeared in a massive tax bill because I just completely screwed up what I'd done. But you learned from that presumably.

But now, well, this is the thing. And also the other thing that happens when you get famous, like, kind of is you don't, you don't know how the story ends. All you know is that suddenly everyone's asking you to do everything. Suddenly there's all this work, there's all these opportunities. Do you want to write a TV show? Do you want to write a film? Do you want to go on tour?

Do you want to put merchandise out and you can give the profits to a charity that you're coming up with all these ideas? And so I just did all of them because it's like, well, you've got to make, hey, while the sun shines. But you just go faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. You never get to enjoy it. You think it's all going to disappear at some point. Of course, now you're famous and successful. There's loads of people who instantly hate you.

So from your point of view, you're like, I've now made myself really vulnerable. Loads of people really hate me. Loads of people really hate me. But loads of people really hate me. You never really register that people like you. You just only hear the people that hate you. And my life is going so fast. And I can't say no to any of it because it might all disappear.

And I can remember there's a Billy Joel song that's called, I go to extremes, which I found out later that Billy Joel had written when he was at the height of his cocaine addiction. And it's about the high, sort of a bipolar highs and lows where some days you feel like a god, you go on stage and you're like, I can do anything. And then other days you just crash and you're just like, I've overextended myself. I'm in people's faces. This is all too much. I am so anxious and so tired. And there were just days where I would just be like, I can remember meeting a friend in Trafalgar Square 20 minutes before we had to go and do a live show. and just saying to him like, I just don't feel, I don't know how to explain this, but I just don't feel real now. I just do not know.

Everyone's got an opinion about me. And I have no time to sit and think about what I think about myself. I just don't know where I am. And he just went, you just need to have a fag and a partner's side, don't you be fine. That's probably right. It definitely held that nice. But, you know, I do think what's peculiarly was difficult from a pressure point of view, I suppose, is that it's not like, let's say, you're, in.

Sarah Hadlam was on Miranda. She had that white heat thing where suddenly she was like, I wasn't expecting this. I was just a jobbing actress. They've done a bit of horrible histories. And I didn't expect to take off. But the difference is that's a part she's playing. And it's not, there's a peculiar kind of pressure on you, I guess,

because you've got people coming up to you. You know, there is something, in a lovely way, it's exhausting. But it is kind of people saying, you've changed my life. I was feeling depressed. I was on anti-depress. Or whatever. Oh, the amount of people who said, you literally saved my life. People who would get me to sign their arms and then have it tattooed on and showed it me.

When I would do the first two tours that I did, the signing cues would go on for four hours. And people would be sobbing, people would be showing me like their self-harm scars. They would be telling me their stories. And I loved the, is the wrong word for it, because that makes it sound like, I love the drama. But I was so honoured and I so wanted to give everyone their space. And also I knew that if I said the right, or I believed that if I said the right things and treated the, them in the right way that I could change the way that they thought for the better because

the first when I was 13 as part of my sort of I've got to get out of War of a Hounton plan at one point there was an advertisement in the advertisement I quite like that advertisement we're going to stick with that advertisement in the newspaper it sounds like something I have pick wig papers I like they've just invented advertisements it's the 19th century derivation of it's advertising but it was to be the managing director of comic relief and I wrote off and applied for it because I was like I love comic relief. Like I'm going to be the managing director and I got this lovely letter about Lenny Henry. They'd obviously passed it around the office and he'd seen that I was from Wolverhampton and he's from Dudley 13. Oh Katlin that's so sweet. And the letter was like

look you don't want this job. It's really boring but I am sure you are going to fly like a comet through British society and we'll all know your name and it literally rewired my brain. I could literally feel if you've seen footage where they've done AI showing what happens when a new synaptic connection is formed and literally like this tiny little like alien hand of a synapse reaches across the brain and then puts its fist around another synapse and makes a connection and suddenly it lights up and electrifies and suddenly you've got a new

neural network. Have you ever told him about that? I met him, yes, but we were at a party and it was really loud and I don't think he understood what I was saying so I need to go and formally tell him at some point. That he genuinely rewired my brain, I could believe in myself at that point because I was like, if he thinks I can do it, then I can do it. And when I was doing these signing cues and I would see

girls that were like so insecure or unhappy or just self-hating, I was like, I know if I say the right thing, I can change a bit of their brain because I've had it happen to me and I want to pass that on. And so I would like, and some of them you could tell, they would sort of come up to you and they would, you know, what I would do is I would like pull them in and I whisper into the ear just so you know, you have an aura of impending greatness. You are going to do amazing things. I know you are and when you do it, I want you to contact me. Like find me on Twitter. Hit me up on Instagram and tell me what you did because I know you're going to do something incredible.

And I could see. And then you'd sort of like let go of them. at their faces and their faces had changed and you could see that those synapses were forming and to have that magic to pass on the thing that I had been given so wonderfully by Henry and go I see something and I know you're going to do something like that was you know it ties in with your book because it's hope yeah finally you've got hope haven't you yeah it's someone but saying no there's a reason to hope and you can change your brain like this is the thing that I'm

fascinated with all my books and I'm writing about stuff I'm really aware that you can change your brain we have more control about the way that we we think and feel and who we are than we think we do. You can, you can, we have neuroplasticity is incredibly flexible and depending on the kind of days you have and the kind of thoughts you have and the kind of routines you have and the kind of things you consume and the kind of things you protect yourself from, you can rebuild your mind and your sense of who you are because I have done that. I have come from a very dark house full of unhappiness and sclerosis and stasis and hopelessness and and, and, and hopelessness and

And I consumed the right films and I read the right books and I got the right, you know, mantras is the wrong word, but mottoes and little bits of information that made me think, no, you can do this. And so every time when I'm writing a book, it is supposed to be a manual for you to be able to, for the reader to read it and rewire their brain. And just certain elements, I mean, you had a thing in it, which I love about not wearing headphones. Yes. Which I love because headphones, you block out so much of the world and I don't wear headphones anymore. And it's frustrating sometimes Because I think oh it'd be handy to listen to that podcast And I don't think you know

I'm not calling for the abolition of headphones But I think sometimes particularly on dog walks I sometimes really like it When I'm just certainly for some of it I think you should be present with your dog Do you know what I mean? The amount of times I see dogs looking at their owners Who have got headphones on her and looking at their phones And it's like the dog is really trying to tell you something

With its eyes at the moment and you're not you're not tuning into it Like kind of you're just dragging it around in a lead and looking at Instagram, like, don't bother. Like, kind of like, there's not, you're, the dog isn't having the walk it wants to have with you, and you're not having a dog walk either. You're in the office on your phone, or you're looking at someone's kitchen or something.

And I think the thing with headphones is, like, you know, I'm not saying, similarly, I'm not saying abolished headphones, but I think the thing that we're told is that it makes your life bigger and it gives you more. And I think often it gives you less, because, yeah, sure, I could be sitting here now and listening to the Beatles, as a million other people are at the moment,

but no one else is sitting here. hear where we are now and like we can hear the crows have been gathering in trying to get the dog food that I've been throwing for the dog and the birds song which you've got me obsessed with we can hear the bird song we can hear like the wind in the leaves and these leaves will change the sound when they start getting crisper and dry in a couple of weeks time with the autumn if it rains we would hear the rain on every single of these leaves if we go over there we can listen to like what those two people are having a conversation about and I'm always I love it I love it's so nosy don't you're falling in love and you're like because you forget what it's like

the kind of conversations people have when they're falling in love and it's It's a bit awkward, but they're kind of, they're sort of tentatively kind of like making excuses to touch each other. Are you got something on your face? Oh, I am. You don't become a writer, right? No, you're right.

Of course you'll nose it. Have you ever met a writer? He was like, yeah, I don't really care about people. I like to keep myself to myself. No. I've followed people for miles, pretending to be on my phone so I can listen to their conversations. I really want to know how that argument they're having

about Jan is going to work out. I will follow them all the way through Highgate, just kind of listening in. I think it's with the headphones. And it's about, it's a lovely thing sometimes, you know, to enhance your experience if you're outside, but I think it's when it should never be used to insulate you from the world. I think that's where headphones can become tricky, you know. Oh, totally. Well, there's that story in the book.

Like we're a quarter of a mile away from Finnsbury Park Station now, which is where it happened. But I was the only person on the train without headphones on. And as we were coming into the station, there was this, the train shuddered, and there was this terrible screaming and shouting from a, screaming from a woman and shouting. for a man and the train slammed to a halt and everyone still had their headphones on so no one everyone just sort of sighed and carried on looking at their phones i was the only one who'd heard this and i was like what's going on suddenly the doors burst open the emergency services came in there were everyone off the train everyone off the train and then everyone takes their

headphones off and he's going what what why all these people just turned up and i was like well i know what's i know what that sound was and that someone has jumped under the train and and she died and that was that was the last sound she made and i was the only person you heard it and it wasn't an amazing experience like kind of like no one wants to hear someone dying but like there's something so dystopian and awful about the idea that like if I'd had my headphones on too

no one would have heard it and then all those people with the headphones on it was confused about what was happening and sort of hadn't heard the story and didn't know they would be the kind of people who would go there's something weird about modern life I feel kind of disconnected from people

I'm not quite sure where I am everything feels a bit unreal like kind of like the modern era feels weird and they don't quite know why It's because if you don't hear what's going on, if you don't hear someone dying, then where were you? Like where, where actually are you? Like this is, where we're sitting now, this is a couture moment.

No one else is having this. I like that. And the purpose of your life is to try and find a way to love every day. You know, some days are awful, but like even in the most awful day, you know, I've got friends who are really ill at the moment and like, you know, we've got hospital appointments and it's really grim. But even in a day where you're going to the hospital and getting terrible news, there are still hours and hours and hours.

that can still be good. Like, it's just having a cup of tea with a mate or going for a walk or watching something on telly that makes you laugh. It's the same thing with being famous. When people go, what's it like being famous? It's like, well, practically, you know, at the height of my fame, I was famous for maybe, I don't know, 27 minutes a day.

Like, when someone recognises me, I'm being famous then. And if I go online and send out a tweet that gets 2 million retweets, I'm famous for 20 minutes then. But the rest of the day, I'm not actually being famous. I'm just at home making some soup and cleaning the toilet. So it's... But it's a nice kind of... of fame I think because as you say the kind of people who recognize you have chosen to read

what you write so I remember my dad when I was really young I said dad what was it like you know to be famous because he wasn't he was weird he presented a late an art show with Joan Bakewell so he was that kind of famous that if you knew him there was probably 40 people who watched BBC two back then knew him and that was it you know the best people one of him was an archbishop you know that was it was no one like the few people in West Hampton yeah that's all it was It was like, but I remember, and he said, oh, no, the best kind of fame is Martin Amos. I was right. He was saying that.

And I said, why? He said, because he can absolutely get a table wherever he wants in his name. The name. The name. And the work. But he's not got people walking down the street, you know, go, way. No, part of me's ex-agent, but yeah. Although you do get that.

I think you're probably more recognisable in that sense that, you know, just the nature of the way media is now. Well, if I walk around North London at the point where the school drop-off is happening, then loads of middle-aged, northern London women, I will be mobbed. But if I was walking through, I don't know, Dudley Market. You're our woman. We can't help it. You are our icon. Yeah.

If I'm in like, you know, if I went into Topshop, when it still exists, God bless Top Shop, R-I-Py on Oxford Circus. But if I went into Tox Shop or Oxford Circus when the year there had to be a woman came out, I'd be in there for four hours. No, you would have. Because it would turn into an advice booth. It was literally like, I remember one day just sitting around like, yeah. It would be like Sabrina Carpenter going in there. I can't deal with it.

That would have been that it's so overwhelming. Yeah, in the end, I had to start shopping Azara. It's simply because it would take so long. I got mob there as well. But if you go into LK. Bennett, you don't get as recognized. Or like, kind of, you know, a man. Do you find, excuse me. Look, what do you say?

He's so sneaky, Kathleen. To be fair, he's been very reserved. He's been good. Do you find something, I mentioned Frank Skinner, who I work with. And Frank says to me that even though, you know, like you, he's extremely sort of articulate and smart and cultured and well educated, but you know what? He says he still get sometimes.

He says, like, if he goes to the opera, he'll go with Joan Bakewell, who's a friend of his. And he said, and it's useful for me to hear this because I'm from, you know, middle class, sort of your sort of family, I suppose. And I'm a bit myopic about that. I haven't personally experienced that. I think, well, everyone would just accept Frank now. And he says even at the opera, he gets, what are you doing here? Oh, yeah. Why do you like opera? And I was shot by that, Catlin. Oh, well, I still have, even though I have this accent now, I learnt this, like, pretty much the day that I moved down to London. Because, like,

even when I was presented to the TV shows, so many people would take the piss. Because I called it Naked Sitae. Oh, I love Naked Sita. So, like, so I still have quite... So much better. Well, I think, that's, to me, that's still how you pronounce that word. But, like, kind of, but, I got so many people taking the piss and at 17, you're like, okay, I'll take the note. And people would just be sort of going, what are you saying on the phone? So I copied this voice from the posh girl who worked at the production company. But I, so even though I sound middle class now, class, rather than class,

I still, if I'm dealing with someone who is born middle class, I still feel very downstairs. I can feel myself kind of cursying. I'm a bit kind of taking my hat off. Because I can tell if people are, oops, I can tell if people are working class made good or our middle class or upper class. A lot of its bone structure and body, like my body is clearly that of a peasant girl.

Like I was bred to stop a pig in an alleyway. Like kind of my natural state would be carrying two pigs under my arm to market with a mob cap on. You know, kind of like the farmer's wife. They're in a butcher's shop. Do you want some leaps? So if you just met me for the first time, you've got to be, as David Beckham said, be honest.

Yes. What would you say about my class? Well, first of all, your hair. is elegant and small. So like the confidence to have a small elegant hair, like the working class girl makes big hair. It's like the impact you can make in your hair. If you go to the hairdress, it'll make a big hair dute. Like kind of like, you know, if you're having a really difficult day or you're engaged in manual labour, your hair is up on top of your head, like kind of it can still look amazing for the rest of the day. So the

working classes tend to have just to me more glamorous, more ritzy, more interesting hair, not the beautiful, subtle lady hair that you have. So that's where I'd start. Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm absolutely obsessed with subtle lady hair. You've got subtle lady hair. Yeah, I like that. I'm a Deutsche Frunder with subtle lady hair. Yeah, that can be your new bio. We're now going to find out, I need to let you go. I don't want you to go. I'd really like you. Oh, I'm in the middle of an argument with my husband who is not on the paperwork for a new mortgage. So I'm very happy to stay for the next three hours. There's a bar over there. We can simply go there. There's a piece of paperwork that you didn't file on time. And when I go back, I'm going to

I'm going to be so angry with him, although it's Friday. Oh, I'm so annoyed. I'm a very efficient person. Are you? And he has not done this very vital piece of paper. So that's interesting. You're not the cliche of the writer. Do you know what I mean? The writer is meant to be chaotic, disorganised.

And also I think ADHD and I think you don't miss deadlines then, presumably. Oh, I file early, clean and exactly on the work count. Who's a dream? I really am. I was amazed. And where does that come from? I talked to lots of editors and they were like, I was talking about very famous writers. And they were like, oh, they'll, you know, first of all, I'll have to turn two hours suggesting ideas for them for this week's column.

I commission myself. I always am like, they don't even ask me what I'm writing. It just appears on their desk. And then they were like, one very famous writer would apparently send in copy with the first three paragraphs in different colours and go, I can't decide which of these should be the first paragraph. Should it be the blue paragraph, the red paragraph, the green paragraph? And then there'd be a sentence that would go,

oh, there'll be an anecdote here about kind of a time I went to waitrose, but I'll fill that in later. I was like, who are these people? Turn up and do the job. The thing that I find most sexual at the age of 51 is extreme efficiency. Right. Just that's, someone's got a series of box files that are neatly labelled with all their paperwork in chronological order. I will leave.

But do you think that does come from, on a serious note? I wonder if that, I'm going to file early. I'm going to file, you know, to the exact word count. All of that efficiency, does that come from, well, I'm going to have to be efficient. You know how many people say about women, you have to work twice as old as a mediocre man? There's also the class thing as well. Is there a sense of that? Oh, yeah.

I'm inheriting nothing. I still don't have a pension. I still don't have money. This year I found out there's a way you can put some money into an ISO from your banking app and I've started doing that. Yes. So I still have learning about money, but I can't, I'm going to have to work till I die. And I want to. I wouldn't want to stop working.

But I still, whenever my editor rings me up, before she says anything, I go, Am I fired? That's still my presumption that the phone call would be that I've been fired. So I always want to give them as few excuses as possible to find me because I really like my job. Don't ever want to lose my job. So now I'm incredibly organised. I'm like, and I'm brilliant in a, I think this comes from having a chaotic, traumatic childhood. I am in an emergency.

I become icy calm. I thrive in an emergency. If something happens, the call goes up, get mum. I am like, like when the pandemic happened, I was in my element. like everybody else was panicking. I was like, no, well, this is the Collaps of Society. I was ready for this. I'd already ordered a box of masks before Christmas

because I'd heard of the virus and I knew we would do a pandemic. And at the time, everyone was laughing going, why have you bought all these masks? I was like, well, there's a pandemic and it ate well spread and I was correct. And I was, I had my masks. Unfortunately, I'd ordered the wrong masks.

I didn't understand about the different grades. So they were like Carpenter's masks. They were these big black kind of cotton ones. You're like the people looking at the eclipse with those welding gloves. Literally, literally, but the effort had been made. I had 200 incorrect masks. I need to let you go soon, but I could talk to you for ages now.

Oh, no, I'm really loving this. But I need to ask you something. I want to know your view on this. Yes. Where do you stand on, how do you feel about surgery? Oh, this is a complex one. It really is, isn't it? I feel complicated about it.

Yeah. So it changes all the time. So when I was at my, when my daughter was really, really ill, I was just looking in the mirror and I was just like, I just looked sad. And I think it was really interesting that that's the only time that I've ever had, fillers and Botox. I went and did it about four times because I was like,

I can't look sad now. I need to remove this sadness from my face. And I got it done. And it was, and I was just like, oh, wow, this is great. You wake up every morning for five days and you look better every morning.

Well, the worst. There's something very addictive about that. And then I had this huge work project cancelled and we were suddenly really quite poor. And... I love how honest you are. You're suddenly really poor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of like, well, I mean, not poor, poor, but like...

What I mean is your finances weren't in this... Yeah, the basically the money that was going to pay that year's tax bill had completely disappeared. So it was like we were literally down to zero in all the bank accounts. And so I just couldn't afford doing it. And then since then I've been really... And then that was the part of my quest to finally have become my anxiety and that's what's in the book, how to be hoped for.

And so since then, I just... You know, my feminist stance, my well-considered intellectual leading feminist stance on it is at the moment I can't be asked. There's no kind of like intellectual thinking behind it. That's sort of how I feel at the moment. Like I'm exactly the same. Like I have no moral objection to it

and I love women looking great and getting it done and I feel so happy for them at their happiness. Yes. I think that's great. Yeah. But it's just I think at the moment, it's more that I have a list of what I'm prepared to do which is clean my teeth, dye my roots.

I've got about six things that I'll do. Are you on HRT yet? Yeah. Okay, so at the morning and evenings now are just the rituals. You get up, you've got to take the pills. It's a lot. You clean the teeth, you floss, you wash your face, you put on the SPF, like, you know, just all these things.

I've got like a suspicium, I object to. Right, then the physio and stuff. Then your day starts after an hour of maintenance. And then, like, you've got to do it all over again. Take it off, take some more, take the makeup off, and the cleanse, go and scrub and all this kind of stuff. Some more pills. Floss, put the tooth guard in.

The serum. All the serums. So it's just, I don't have time. But the thing is that all the serums and the cleaning and is, that's seen as still feminist and okay that's just maintenance. Botox is seen as sort of like one step beyond. Yeah. But that does actually save you time.

Like if you have Botox, like kind of you don't have to put as much of makeup on. No, you just look great anyway. So, so from a utilitarian point of view, from a practical point of view. Yeah. You know, and that's weird why the working classes like kind of are so proud of their Botox, you know, go to the valleys in Wales and everyone's like, look, I've had it here, here and here, like kind of like whole coast.

And I'm fit with a little as well. It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. But that's why I think probably that it will become, the fashion will come and go, because it's white stilettos, isn't it? Exactly. It's now so widespread that having a natural face, kind of like having nothing done, says, I'm confident, I've got enough money to not care what you think. It's going to become a bit more sort of Kristen Scott Thomas now, or whatever.

Although not Kristen's dot Thomas because I don't know about her, but when I was getting my Botox done by like kind of the Botox and fill a person to the stars, I was like, yeah, I just want to look natural. My worry is that I want to look natural. I want to age like such and such a person. And they're not natural. She's here all the time. She's here all the time.

She just gets the really good stuff done. Like she does the discreet bit. So like, you know, almost everybody is getting it done. But they're just getting tiny, classy bits done. Yes, I think that's true. Well, I can't get Botox anymore only because when I had it, I have something with my brow where it goes like that. You know, when your brow goes really low.

Oh, God. And I just, I thought, well, it's a toss up between having wrinkles on my forehead or really looking very odd. Yeah. Like some odd sort of. What you're showing me now looks very odd. It was like that. Yeah.

Now that looks wrong. You look like an Easter Island statue. I know that's what it is. 400 quid for that is not money well spent. The one thing that I'm really in two minds about is my neck because it's just... Oh, there's no, I've got... I've now understand what she meant. I never got that book.

No, no. And I was reading it in whatever in my 30s or 40s, I was just like... Your neck, you silly cow, wear that. Yeah, you cares about your neck. Our necks will be fine forever. Right? You're born with a neck, you die with the neck. And you just don't realize that like kind of, it just...

You've got quite a good neck. No, I have it. I've got, because of my happy ability. I've got my young skin. I've got massive skin laxities. I'm fine with my face. I'm very happy with my face. But my neck is so lax.

And like, depending on where the camera's at, I was, what was it? What was it was watching? I was on Davina McCall's podcast last week. Oh, I saw that. That was nice. That's young people, though. Like, kind of like, young women shot that.

And like, they put the camera alone. An older woman knows that you need to raise the camera every degree for every decade. You shoot me from up here. Like, go up, up, up, keep going up. Put it in the tree. Put it in the sky. Do a top shop. Put it on a drone.

You end up sounding like Madonna in every interview she's ever done. Up, up, up, exactly. So yes, that would be the one thing. Luna! What's she seen? Where's she gone? Well, I'm grateful that I met you today because it's really cheered me up. Oh, I really hope so.

I really know. I really have. Can we like go for like, come me? I think it's got to happen. Can we like that date? I think, go on a date? Can we like that weird? Sorry, Pete.

Yeah. Can we? And Raymond, obviously. I'm only around the corner. Well, exactly, yeah. And as we know, if you lived in South Island, I wouldn't be bothering. But like, kind of, because it's just too far. Of course you wouldn't.

No, you just pick. You pick a quadrant and your friends are in that quadrant when you're in London. But yeah, but your local, so that makes you amazing. Hello, Bubba. Did you make that noise? Sorry, just so you, Katlyn is talking to Rain, not me. She's not already calling me Bubba. Did you make that noise?

You sound like a mobile phone that's on a table on it vibrates. That's the sound that you make Raymond. Will you say goodbye to Roman, Catlin? Oh, sniff his ears. Bye-bye. The smell of dog's ears. Bye, bye, Luna. We love you.

Yeah, right. I'm late for my lunch. Yeah, yeah, this was okay. Come on. I really hope you enjoyed that episode of Walking the Dog. We'd love it if you subscribed. And do join us next time on Walking the Dog wherever you get your podcasts.