There are very few downsides to being a women’s magazine editor, but if I had to pick a pet hate, it would be meeting the odd person – usually on social media but sometimes in real life, too – who assumes that it’s synonymous with being thick or shallow. If your pages carry anything that might bring a bit of joy or frivolity then, to some people’s minds, you are a feeble-minded being whose only mission is to dumb down everyone’s brain to your level. Over the years, I’ve learned to enjoy the odd raised eyebrow at a dinner party when I can hold my own in a conversation about politics or theatre. I have smiled through ‘compliments’ about an article I’ve placed in one magazine or other that was ‘surprisingly intelligent for something in a women’s magazine’. Even if the magazines I have edited in my years had only featured fashion and beauty, of course I continue to find this attitude tiresome, to say the least.