My Greatest Mistake: Lorraine Candy, editor of 'Cosmopolitan'
The Independent
I'm well known for having what I call "journalistic Tourette's". I tend to blurt out the most ridiculous things at inopportune moments. National Magazines is owned by the Hearst Corporation, and recently my chairman brought Patti Hearst into the office. For some reason I just said: "Hello, who on earth are you?"– not the most appropriate way to address one of the people who owns the company, and who is legendary. She was quite taken aback.

I worked at The Sun as women's editor for a while. A new features executive was starting, and Kelvin MacKenzie had a dinner to welcome him. I'd only just started. Anyway, he called me "babe" and, stupidly, I said: "Don't you ever call me babe again." Of course, from then on I was known as "babe". They even put my head on a page 3 model for my leaving card and wrote: "So long, babe." I think Piers Morgan was responsible for that.

When I'd just started at Cosmopolitan, I was asked by a broadsheet journalist what the key to being a great editor was. I said: "Shoes." It was quoted and used in the intro to the interview; another airhead editor joins Cosmo. I was annoyed because I'd said it in a light-hearted, jokey way.

The most embarrassing thing I ever did was in my time as deputy editor of The Times's Saturday magazine. The editor was on holiday so I was in charge. I was playing Butthead in the corridor – you wear a Velcro hat and throw this fuzzy ball at each other – with Alan Franks, one of the big writers, and just as he hurled this ball at my head I turned round to see Rupert Murdoch behind me, asking where the editor was. I stood there with this Velcro hat on with a big ball on it and said: "Well, she's not here at the moment, but can I help?" It was absolutely humiliating. The office went totally quiet. Murdoch must have thought: who is this nitwit?

I suppose all this has meant I'm never going to host Newsnight, but I'm certainly remembered wherever I go.