Red - Self-deprecation: charming or childish?

Marianne Power thinks the latter, which is why she’s calling time on the habit.

I gave a TED Talk recently and it went well. People laughed and clapped and came up to me afterwards to tell me how much they’d enjoyed it. The friend I brought with me was stunned by how good a speaker I was. ‘It’s like you’ve been doing that for 20 years,’ she said. Which I most certainly have not.