Brace yourselves for some heavy duty name dropping. I promise it will be worth it. The other week I went to London for a party held in honour of my writer friend Dolly Alderton. Dolly has been writing in the Sunday Times Style magazine for a decade now. To mark this milestone the newspaper threw her a fabulous shindig, sponsored by Tiffany & Co, in a swanky Italian restaurant in Mayfair called Sparrow.
The party was pure London glamour. There were flowers everywhere and an actual olive tree growing in the middle of the room. I watched the celebrity guests arrive, trying to bury my rising impostor syndrome and remain, as the kids say, nonchalant.
“Richard E Grant!” I whispered to myself non-nonchalantly as the star of Withnail & I walked in. “Helen Fecking Fielding!” I muttered into my mocktail as the Bridget Jones creator entered the room. Also present: Emma Forrest, a writer I’ve admired for years; Caroline O’Donoghue, the best-selling Cork author; Self Esteem, the incomparable pop star; and Dawn O’Porter, the brilliant writer and television presenter.
Another Cork author, Louise O’Neill, was also at the party, looking smoking hot in a little black dress. As we stood chatting, a handsome man approached us. He introduced himself as Nick Hornby. “Can I talk to you two?” he asked. “I don’t know a sausage here”. (By sausage he meant people. It’s a London thing.)
After Dolly Alderton’s party, I decided to ditch the impostor syndrome that’s dogged me
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Now, I’ve interviewed Nick Hornby before and this charming man in the white jacket with pink streaks looked nothing like the author of High Fidelity and About A Boy. He looked about half Hornby’s age for a start. Also, he said provocative things like “I’m only interested in art and homosexuals,” which is fair enough but not a very Real Nick Hornby thing to say. Then he confessed to myself and Louise that he thought he might have been invited to the party by mistake, having as he did, the same name as the famous author. “Now can you tell me about Dolly Alderton?” he asked, as we gasped.
We recovered enough to tell him all about Dolly. About her former dating column and current Dear Dolly advice page in Style. About her late, lamented High Low podcast with Pandora Sykes and wonderful books including bestseller Everything I Know About Love. We told ‘Nick Hornby’ about Dolly’s acclaimed novels Ghosts and Good Material and informed him that the New York Times had named Good Material one of their 10 best books of 2024. We explained that she was the writer of the upcoming Netflix adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Olivia Colman. Then we marvelled quietly at his chutzpah.
I could write a whole other column about the Italian feast that was served that night: the sharing plates piled with salads and pasta and meatballs and arancini and veal and branzino and outsize chocolate truffles.
There were fancy pens and notepaper on the tables and guests were encouraged to write a problem for Dolly to answer after dinner. Louise and I wondered which of our problems to write down. Then inspiration struck and I wrote this, pretending to be Other Nick Hornby:
Dear Dolly,
My name is Nick Hornby. (Not that Nick Hornby.) I think I may have been invited here by mistake. What should I do?
Love and congrats,
Nick Hornby (not that one)
After dinner, Dolly stood up and read out some problems. When she got to the Nick Hornby one, Other Nick Hornby looked thrilled instead of mortified, which you’d imagine your average interloper might be. He laughed even when the person sitting opposite him complained that he’d brought three Actual Nick Hornby books to the party to be signed. Dolly was typically gracious and inclusive in her advice to Other Nick Hornby. “Is there a chance you’ve been invited here by mistake, Other Nick Hornby? Yes! But I’m so glad you’re here,” Dolly declared and we all cheered.
I was so glad I was there. Glad that I had bonded with Dolly and her good friend Lauren at the Borris Festival of Writing and Ideas in Co Carlow all those years ago.
I stayed until kicking-out time, chatting with Self Esteem about inequities in the music industry and with Emma Forrest about her amazing-sounding new novel and, best of all, with dear Dolly, one of the funniest, kindest, most talented people I have the pleasure to know. The final few stragglers went on to Tramp nightclub, and while I was tempted – I mean, Tramp nightclub! – I went off with Dolly to get a taxi.
I thought about/googled Other Nick Hornby all the way back to my digs. It turns out he’s a celebrated sculptor with a work on display in Westminster called Power Over Others Is Weakness Disguised as Strength. From one angle the sculpture looks like Richard I on horseback, from the other it looks like a metal squiggle, which all seemed very on brand for Other Nick Hornby. That night in the taxi, I decided to ditch the impostor syndrome that has dogged me my whole life. Other Nick Hornby, an actual impostor, displayed zero impostor syndrome and it worked out fine for him. Or maybe impostor syndrome is strength disguised as weakness. Either way, what a night.
