6 May 2026

I bear little resemblance to my Wikipedia page

It had clearly been edited by someone trying to make me out to be an enemy of the people

Photo by Lee Martin/ Millennium Images, UK

There is a group on a certain social media platform to which I occasionally post photos, usually of striking sunsets seen from my living room window, called Brighton Skies. I like engaging with this group, not only because it shows I am also engaging, in a public forum, with the town I live in – it’s sort of like putting up a photo of your beloved child or pet on the internet – but because the photographs are often good and have been taken to professional standards; like Venice, Brighton is a city to take a charming photo of. Also, the administrator is a proper artist, so has a good eye. I always get a slight but significant lift when one of my very amateur photos is accepted, and then appreciated by its audience.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of something – I can’t remember what now, but it can’t have been of a striking sunset from my living room window because that’s now blocked by scaffolding – and one of the comments struck me pleasantly. Ahem. Brace yourself for some shamelessly opportunistic plugs for at least two of my books…

Now, my fantasy comment on one of my barely competent smudges goes something like this: “Hello, you don’t know me, but I am a huge fan of your work, and I think we’d get on rather well. Would you like to meet up for a drink? PS: I am an extremely wealthy and beautiful widow. [Or divorcee, I’m not fussy.]”

No, the comment that struck my eye was from a man, whom I shall call S—, and he said he had enjoyed my first collection of these columns – called, should I have to remind you, Bitter Experience Has Taught Me (still available in e-form). I used to find copies in the wild in second-hand book displays, and flick through them, looking to find a marginal note from a reader saying something like “ugh” or “what a wanker”, but I never did. The books did look suspiciously unread, though.

I replied to S—’s comment thus: “Thank you. As it happens, there’s a new selection out. Would you like to have a pint and have me sign it for you?” This book – second plug – is called From the Castle to the Hove-l, in whose dismal sales I am trying to achieve an uptick. I’d been half-intending to get him a copy myself, but the next thing I knew he’d posted a copy of this modestly good book, which has more of a narrative than its predecessors, saying “Got it!” So we agreed to meet at the Robin Hood, one of my many favourite Brighton pubs. (God, there are so many decent boozers in this town.)

So we chatted about this and that over a couple of pints – he insisted on buying me one, presumably because by close reading my oeuvre he had worked out I am not made of money, and after the second, we stepped outside for a smoke. Or, in his case, a vape. And now we get to the point of this week’s column.

“I gather,” he said, somewhat tentatively, “that you have a bit of… blue blood.”

I sighed.

“You’ve been reading my Wikipedia page, haven’t you?”

“Er, yes.”

At which point I had to launch into an explanation. My Wikipedia page – and I was extremely surprised at first to discover I had one – was at first brief, and stuck mostly to the newspapers I wrote for. At one point some wag added “He blames Thatcher for everything,” and I let that stay, because it was a) amusing and b) largely true.

Now, around 2016, I noticed that the page had been amended again; expanded considerably to emphasise the costliness of my education and the posh connections on my father’s side of the family back in the 1930s. It had clearly been edited by someone trying to make me out to be an enemy of the people, one who grinds the faces of the proletariat into the dust. I saw a couple of factual errors and corrected them, but have only looked at it once since then, shuddered with loathing and moved on. I have not even checked it to write this column, so distressing do I find it. If you don’t have a Wikipedia page of your own, don’t worry: you’re not missing out on much.

So I explained that while that was true of my father’s side of the family – oh, and I think a certain amount of anti-Semitism had inspired my new biographer – it was most definitely not true of my mother’s, for she grew up in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, sleeping five to a bed with her siblings and raised by her own widowed mother, until her talent got her to Juilliard and then Broadway, where my father first saw her performing, and was smitten. I explained that I hated my very well-known private school, and 90 per cent of its pupils, and that they can’t be taxed highly enough for me; etc, etc. And I could also have added: I have now gone six weeks without a fridge. Is that how the elite live? Really? And unless something vaguely interesting happens in the next few days, that’s what I’m going to be writing about next week.

[Further reading: I read Russell Brand’s unreadable new book, for my sins]