"WELL DONE YOU." That was the response of a Conservative frontbencher when he was introduced to Catherine Mayer, London Bureau Chief for TIME. "Pretty funny coming from the remodelled Tories," Catherine told an interviewer who was profiling her for The Guardian newspaper. "Can you imagine such a patronising response directed against a man?"

Catherine says women remain under-represented at senior levels in the media, and that female journalists can still expect to encounter some pretty dusty attitudes as they go about their work. But she loves her job, despite its crazy and unpredictable hours.

She joined TIME in 2004 as Senior Editor and moved to head up its London Bureau in 2006. She writes for all TIME editions worldwide and for the fast-growing website TIME.com, covering politics and current affairs, defence and security issues, business, sport, social trends and culture stories. In the past year she’s written cover stories on subjects ranging from British politics to British kids; from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Princess Diana. She’s travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan with David Miliband and to the NATO summit in Romania with Gordon Brown. (The last time she visited Bucharest was on an MHSG school skiing trip in the mid 1970s).

Her previous job, as a foreign correspondent for the German news weekly, FOCUS, involved a similar range and took her as far afield as South East Asia. She first learned German at MHSG and went on to do a European studies degree at Sussex University. She made her debut as a journalist on The Economist in 1983 and stayed there for five years.

Catherine is married to Andy Gill, record producer and guitarist of legendary post-punk band ‘Gang Of Four’. Her father, David Mayer, is emeritus Professor of Drama at Manchester University. Though she dreads the annual slog of the party political conferences, she's pleased that the Labour party has decided to return to Manchester in 2008. "I can't say I'm looking forward to it," she says. "But at least I'll get a rare trip home."