Toby Young

As a father of three small children, I find myself constantly baffled by what is known in our household as ‘the boredom paradox’. Why is it that my four-year-old daughter considers a trip to Loftus Road to watch QPR battle against relegation ‘boring’, while her enjoyment of the same six episodes of Numberjacks can never be diminished, no matter how many times she watches the DVD? The idea that small children are open-minded and imaginative is completely ridiculous. They resemble nothing so much as members of the provincial, middle-European bourgeoisie — petty little martinets who view any change in their routine as an act of unconscionable aggression. Men may be from Mars and women from Venus, but children are from Belgium.

‘So,’ said the television interviewer, fixing me with an inquisitorial stare, ‘why are you so desperate to be a celebrity?’ This was last week on BBC2, but the question comes up in virtually every television interview I do. I’m beginning to suspect that I’m the only member of the chattering classes foolish enough to admit I want to be a celebrity. Indeed, it’s more or less the sole topic I’m asked to comment on. Whenever it hits the headlines, the 22-year-old researchers employed by news and current affairs programmes flick through the ‘celebrity’ category on their Rolodexes, starting at the top with ‘A-listers’, then gradually work their way down until they get to ‘wannabes’.

In the newspaper business there’s a name for a story that makes your jaw hit the floor and your eyes pop out of your skull: ‘a marmalade dropper’. For instance, the disclosure that HM Revenue and Customs had misplaced the personal records of 25 million people was ‘a marmalade dropper’, as was the revelation that Lembit Opik was going out with one of the Cheeky Girls. However, I have always thought of this as a figure of speech rather than a literal description of the effect a particular piece of news produces. Until now, that is. ‘Darling,’ said my wife as I sat at the breakfast table munching a piece of toast. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’ ‘Oh yes?

More bad news for the ‘Hons’. According to a sociological survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, class doesn’t necessarily guarantee status. On the contrary, the two are barely even connected in today’s Britain. So the fact that my father was ennobled for, among other things, founding the Economic and Social Research Council has no bearing on my status. An unemployed ‘Hon’, such as myself, may possess class, but when it comes to my ranking in society I score lower than a ‘works manager’ (whatever that is). Much though I’d like to dismiss this, I suspect it is true.

When a person does something to remind you of their superior status, I often wonder whether he or she is fully in control of what they’re doing. Name-droppers, for instance, often seem to be acting compulsively, as if they’re suffering from a mild personality disorder. Once the impulse to drop the name has been triggered — usually by some circuitous route that only makes sense to the name-dropper — these people can’t stop themselves. The name pops out in spite of the fact that they know it’s gauche. (That’s my excuse, anyway.) The same is true of Christmas cards. Normally, members of the British aristocracy are fairly reserved when it comes to advertising their privileged status.

When the letter arrived last April I thought it was a joke. ‘Dear Sir,’ it began. ‘On behalf of the publishers A & C Black, I am very pleased to invite you to compile an entry for the forthcoming edition of Who’s Who . . .’ Was this a cruel prank being perpetrated by the editors of the Guardian’s G2 section? In a couple of weeks’ time, the ‘entry’ I had submitted would appear alongside those of other ‘luminaries’ they had gulled into playing along such as Jordan and Vernon Kay. This unforgivable act of vanity would then haunt me for years to come, with my father-in-law producing the article every Christmas Day and reading out the ‘entry’ to my extended family.

Actors claim that the hardest thing about their profession is the ever-present possibility of rejection, but they have it easy compared to authors. First we have to find favour with an agent, then a publisher, then an editor, then the critics — on and on it goes. Rejection hangs over us like the Sword of Damocles, ready to fall at any second. Of the tens of thousands of authors working in the UK, the number who actually make a living from writing books — that is, earn enough to give up their day jobs — is probably no more than a dozen. Even those few authors who are lucky enough to write bestsellers don’t escape the spectre of rejection. On the contrary, success in the book business simply means that you risk failing on a greater scale.

For the past five years or so, my best friends and I have been getting together for a Christmas lunch. Because I’m a food critic — or was, until recently — they have always left it to me to make the booking on the understanding that I’ll be able to secure a better table than they would. More often than not, this assumption proved to be correct and we have enjoyed memorable meals at some of the country’s finest restaurants. Now that I no longer have a restaurant column, this year is shaping up to be very different. I had forgotten just how hard it is for a mere ‘civilian’ to get a reservation at a decent restaurant over the Christmas period.

I cannot remember when I became a wine bore. It could have been when Majestic opened a branch in Shepherd’s Bush — or it might stem from the first time I saw Sideways. Perhaps it is just a sign of growing old, like the realisation that you can no longer get away with wearing Converse. But there’s no getting around it: I have become a howling wine snob. Take the birthday dinner I attended last week. The host had very kindly agreed to pay for everyone and, as you would expect, he had chosen the wine in advance. Unfortunately, it was Sauvignon Blanc. What to do? I stole a glance at the wine list and discovered a perfectly respectable Chablis. The trouble was, it was £15 more expensive than the vin de table.

I experienced what the American self-help guru Dr Phil calls a ‘defining moment’ the other day. I’d just taken stock of my life and, frankly, things didn’t look good. The house I’ve bought in Acton — and which I can’t possibly afford — is already worth less than I paid for it. My wife has expressed a desire to have a fourth child. And I’ve recently been ‘let go’ as the Evening Standard’s restaurant critic. It was time to act. I would no longer be carried along by events — I would shape my own destiny. In the words of Dr Phil, I would move my ‘self-concept away from a world-defined, fictional self towards a self-defined, authentic self’. I decided to sell the family silver.

What are the two words guaranteed to fill any parents of young children with terror? School fees? Chicken Pox? Gina Ford? The answer, I’m afraid, is half term. My daughter, Sasha, only started going to ‘big school’ in September so I wasn’t anticipating too many problems. What I hadn’t factored in is that my wife gave birth to a third child this year, which meant she already had her hands full with a three-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old. The fact that our au pair resigned a couple of months ago didn’t help, either. How could I cope? The answer, said my wife, was to cram in as many activities as possible. In this way, she assured me, the time would pass quite quickly.

‘You’re joking, right?’ The person on the other end of the phone was Grub Smith, a sports-loving friend of mine who I was hoping might get me out of a spot of bother. The problem was, I’d arranged to watch this Saturday’s rugby World Cup final with some neighbours and I thought my knowledge of the game could do with some brushing up. The question that had prompted Grub’s incredulous response was about Jonny Wilkinson. For some reason, he was surprised by my reference to him as ‘the quarterback’. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be afraid to reveal my ignorance in front of the neighbours, but not knowing about rugby carries all sorts of unwelcome implications.

Toby Young on the social pitfalls of your child's birthday party I suppose it had to happen. There comes a time in every father’s life when his son’s social activity begins to eclipse his own. I used to find it amusing when Ludo received a stiffy in the morning post. ‘What is it now?’ I’d say, waving the letter about in mock indignation. ‘Another garden party at Buckingham Palace?’ These days, I sneak downstairs before he gets up and root about in the pile of invitations on the doormat, trying to find one that isn’t addressed to him. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the little bugger is only two-and-a-half. The reason for this deluge of invitations is that he’s started going to a posh nursery school in west London.

As a lover of good drama, my favourite week of the year falls in the late summer when I make my annual pilgrimage to Scotland. The fabulous scenery, the weird and wacky costumes, the inventive use of language — it all adds up to a very memorable few days. No, I’m not talking about the Edinburgh Festival, but about deerstalking in the Highlands. For sheer, heart-stopping excitement, it knocks spots off a trip to the theatre. If you’re lucky, you’ll come home with more than just a fistful of programmes, too — though hand-luggage restrictions make it advisable to stick such souvenirs in the hold. Admittedly, it has taken me ten years to become fully conversant with the sport.

Not long ago, an obscure journal published what must rank as the most controversial essay of the 21st century. No, I’m not talking about ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’, an attack on the influence of the Jewish lobby that appeared in the London Review of Books. I’m referring to ‘Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace’ by Danah Boyd. Ms Boyd is a 29-year-old PhD student in the Sociology Department of the University of California, Berkeley and the reason her essay was so inflammatory is that she dared to raise the spectre of social class in a discussion of social networking sites on the internet.

Being a journalist, sooner or later, you’ll get a call asking if you want to be in a reality show. One of the occupational hazards of being a journalist these days is that, sooner or later, you’ll get a call asking if you want to be in a reality show. The reason is simple: we’re just about the only people left in the country who are likely to say yes. It is not just that we’re complete publicity whores — we’re hardly alone in that respect — it is also that we have the perfect excuse: we can pretend we’re just doing it for ‘journalistic reasons’. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down the opportunity to appear on a reality show.