WHEN it comes to life, Caitlin Moran is on a one-woman mission to re-write the rules.

Be it physicality, fat, self-harm, mental illness, poverty and self-loathing, the writer and social commentator isn't afraid to tell it how it is.

Caitlin, 40, will be at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow on Monday with her How To Build A Girl 2 tour.

As well as stand-up comedy and generally putting the word to rights, the show will feature a collection of celebrity stories.

These include, she says, "the amazing day where I spent the morning accidentally trying to break into Kate Moss's house and then the afternoon in Benedict Cumberbatch's parent's house getting drunk with him and making him do impressions of an owl".

Irreverent, cheeky and bold, Caitlin is a feminist firebrand.

She has created a range of themed merchandise for her tour including mugs, T-shirts and tea towels which bear three simple rules: 1. Women are equal to men; 2. Don't be a d**k; 3. That's it.

"All that feminism means is women being equal to men and by that extension all humans being equal," she says.

"We are a tiny little troubled blue-green planet and need every brain on board we can get."

Born in Brighton and raised in a three-bedroom council house in Wolverhampton, Caitlin's childhood was less than conventional.

Home-schooled from the age of 11, Caitlin paints a colourful portrait of her upbringing as the eldest of eight children in what she dubs the "only hippy family" in the West Midlands city.

"My parents were hippies so we were always odd ones out at school and never really fitted in," she says. "In 1986 my parents said: 'Do you want to be home-schooled?' and we all went, 'Yeah.' It was as simple as that.

"We all stayed at home, watched MGM musicals and ate an enormous amount of cheese."

Caitlin wrote throughout her teens and at 15 won The Observer's Young Reporter of the Year.

A year later, at 16, she began writing for weekly music magazine, Melody Maker, and had her first book published, a children's novel called The Chronicles Of Narmo.

By 18, Caitlin was a regular voice in The Times, the London-based newspaper for which she still pens two columns a week.

To date, she has published four books, including How To Be A Woman and Moranthology.

Her debut adult novel, How To Build A Girl, is the first in a proposed trilogy with How To Be Famous and How To Change The World set to follow.

She and her younger sister Caroline (or "Caz" as Caitlin fondly calls her) have co-written Raised By Wolves, a semi-autobiographical sitcom series which is currently airing on Channel 4.

The main protagonists, Germaine and Aretha Garry (played by Helen Monks and Alexa Davies), are based on the sisters.

Caitlin says that "while about 30 per cent of things in the show actually happened to us, the characters and scenarios are pretty much real".

Her alter-ego, Germaine, is something of an over-sharer, a description which, it's fair to say, could equally be applied to Caitlin.

"Oh God yeah," she exclaims. "The amount of times I would go into my sister Caz's room - she's an introvert, ginger intellectual while I'm extrovert, lusty brunette - throw myself onto her bed and say: 'I need to talk to you about my latest crush, I'm so in love with Chevy Chase.'

"She would try and push me off the bed and say: 'Do not tell me anything about your sexuality, I forbid you to tell me any of your lustful thoughts.'

"We realised this was the perfect sitcom relationship: two people who are stuck together, completely different to each other, but who have no other friends so they have to rely on each other."

Caitlin is married to music critic Pete Paphides who she met while working at Melody Maker. The couple have two daughters and live in Crouch End, London.

"I live five doors down from James McAvoy," she says. "That makes life very pleasant being able to see Mr Tumnus walking along the street."

Not unlike Caitlin herself, Glasgow audiences aren't shy about making their feelings known. How would she deal with any potential hecklers?

"I was raised in a family with eight kids, so I'm ready to get down in there and wrestle people if need be," she jokes. "But at the same time, I'm a lover not a fighter.

"My preferred method would be to rest my bosoms gently on someone's head like a pair of ear warmers and hope we can all feel the love together."

Caitlin Moran's tour, How To Build A Girl 2, will be at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow on Monday. For ticket information, visit paviliontheatre.co.uk

Her book, How To Build A Girl, is published in paperback by Ebury Press, priced £7.99