Television

First among equals

James Delmgpole

My resolution this year — as it is every sodding year — is finally to acquire the massive and thoroughly well-deserved fame and money which eluded me in the previous one. If it doesn't happen this time — and I suppose there is a reasonable chance it might in June when my new book Thinly Disguised Autobiography comes out — I fear that death may be the only answer. It's not so much my failure that bothers me; rather it's the relatively greater success apparently being enjoyed by old friends and acquaintances whom I once considered my equals.

The flimsy TV-related peg for this is the new Friday night trendy-young-person type rock programme called Born Sloppy (Channel 4, Friday). An old mate of mine called Dominic Loehnis is managing director of the company that makes it. Even though it's still finding its feet, it has enough good things going for it (e.g. the kittens that sing 'White Stripes'; its choice of bands) for me to know that Dom and his company are going to make it big time. Which obviously, as a friend with his best interests at heart, I find pleasing. But also tremendously offpissing. I mean, for God's sake, he used to be an ordinary Telegraph hack just like me.

Anyway, what I thought I'd do by way of a change from banging on about TV, which I know none of you (apart from bastard Damian Thompson) finds quite as interesting as my solipsistic ramblings, is to make a list of all the people from my past whose success I consider a personal insult.

Giles Foden. In the year below me at school but now a more famous author than me. I read The Last King of Scotland, which was very good unfortunately. Boris Johnson. My age; not nearly as funny as me. But on TV loads more, gets recognised in street, needn't worry about pensions because he's an MP.

Darius Guppy and Ben Marsh. OK, so they went to prison for fraud, and who knows what happened to them in the men's shower rooms. But it got them more column inches than I've ever had.

Jonathan Ford. Has one of those rare Internet companies (Breakingviews.com) that might actually one day make some money.

Anna Reid. The new Freya Stark. Look, I'm supposed to be the most famous author from my year at Oxford, not her.

Ewen Fergusson. We lived together in Oxford as equals. Now he's a partner at Herbert Smith, which means he's earning, oh God, I dread to think. Similar rules apply to all my contemporaries in law and banking. They have no lives, no fun and they've all gone prematurely grey. But that doesn't stop me hating them.

Helen Ashenden; John Stocker; David Smellie. More sodding rich lawyers.

Oliver Wynne-James; Sebastian Grigg. Sodding rich bankers.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Not that big a friend at Oxford. Even less of one after the success of his (upsettingly good) River Cottage series.

Susanna Gross. Even if I abandoned my career now and did nothing all day but practise bridge, I'd still never be as good as she is. And that rankles.

Simon Prosser. Ludicrously successful publisher of, inter alia, Zadie Smith, but has never tried making me an offer I couldn't refuse.

James Fergusson. Never used to be a threat when eking out a living as a freelance journo. Very much a threat now he's been given a fat advance to write a book about some bloke he rescued from Afghanistan.

Mark Mills. I used to give him friendly advice on how to write books: until about two months ago, when the rights for his first novel were sold for hundreds of thousands all over the world.

Alain de Botton. I first met him when he was too successful. Now he's too too too successful.

Justin Hardy. Used to be a wannabe film-maker whose ludicrous ambitions one could cheerfully dismiss. Now a very successful film-maker.

Quentin Letts; Robert Hardman — write regularly for the Mail, ergo get paid shitloads.

Aidan Hartley; Alec Russell; Marcus Warren; Sam Kiley. They were all at Oxford with me and have all covered wars and I haven't, and now I'm too old/scared.

Imogen Edwards-Jones. Haven't seen her since Warwickshire hunt-ball days, but she seems to have cornered the market in lucrative tabloid features.

Michael Gove. For one day — when I edited Peterborough on a Sunday — I was his boss. Now he's terribly high up on the Times, and on the Moral Maze and everything.

Andrew Roberts. When I met him he was just a quite famous historian, Now he's a really famous one and gets to stay with more dukes than ever.

Miles Hordern. My year, my house at school — was never supposed to be as clever or successful as me. But his sailing adventure Voyaging the Pacific was a Radio Four Book of the Week.

William Peers. Also my year, my house at school. Now a quite famous sculptor whose work I can't afford.

Alex Michaelis. Once like me a charming waster never going anywhere. Suddenly London's most famous architect, Did Soho House etc.

Giles Andreae. Oxford mate. Never done a day's real work in his life. Instead gets paid zillions for doodling his Purple Ronnie cartoons.

Robert Twigger. Once: lovely, unassuming bloke. Now: black-belt aikido master; scarily prolific author of funny books.

To be honest I don't really care whether or not I succeed this year. Just so long as all the people on this list fail more than I do, I shall end the year a happy man.