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Status anxiety

Me in Who’s Who? Until I see the 2008 edition, I’ll assume it’s a hoax

Toby Young

Wednesday, 5th December 2007

Toby Young wonders if he really is a someone now

When it comes to Who’s Who, there’s no corresponding taboo. Entrants are included on merit, after all, so it makes sense to list your achievements. The question is, how much detail to go into? According to the accompanying letter, Who’s Who is a ‘standard reference book . . . used by academics, researchers, business people, government officials and charities’. But would they be interested in the fact that I came runner-up in a drawing competition held by Nova magazine when I was eight? Probably not. I didn’t want to commit the faux pas that Barbara Cartland was guilty of and include all my published works. Her entry ended up being one of the longest in the history of Who’s Who.

Then there’s the vexed question of what to list under ‘recreations’. The key here is to be neither too whacky — the editor of the Birmingham Mail includes ‘eating pork scratchings’ among his hobbies — nor too prolix. For instance, I think it was probably a mistake for the theatre director Rufus Norris to list ‘pride, self-doubt, harassing my wife, being harassed by my children’ and ‘talking incessantly to myself in extreme dialects’. On the other hand, ‘reading’, ‘walking’, ‘travel’ and ‘music’ are just too dull. Eventually, I settled on ‘food and drink’.

I haven’t yet seen a copy of Who’s Who 2008 so I still don’t know whether the letter was genuine. I fear it was not. Every time I open the Guardian I expect to see an article headlined: ‘Who’s Kidding Who?’ Beneath that will be the following standfirst: ‘We sent a bogus letter to some of the country’s biggest non-entities informing them that they had been selected for inclusion in the latest edition of Who’s Who. See their hilarious “entries” below.’

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Herbert Thornton

December 6th, 2007 5:07pm

What a delightful piece.

From now on I shall try to turn dinner party conversation to the same topic, hoping that somebody will then ask me whether Who's Who have ever suggested my being included.

I shall then put on a slightly puzzled expression and say -"Oh, I really wouldn't remember. Whenever that sort of thing arrives, I just throw it in the waste paper basket."