dolly alderton/pandora sykes : Most liked Posts

Exactly. Friendly reminder that Pandora is a hereditary title (http://www.thepeerage.com/p19709.htm#i197087). She’s related to Jane Birkin. She went to St Mary’s in Ascot, where term fees are £13,380 a term (and her niece now goes there, so it’s likely she might also send Zadie there). Her house in Kensal was £1.3 million. Christ - her bed is upholstered in Pierre Grey, which goes for upwards of £600 a metre! She categorically isn’t, and can’t be, an objective commentator on the ephemeral “millenial condition”. Her life is so far removed from any kind of normal “gen rent” experience; trying to act as an orator for the middle classes is just laughable. Throwing a tantrum when she (very fairly, and fairly diplomatically) gets called out for doing so is repugnant and spoilt. The article made some really important points, namely that Pandora’s book has an entire essay bemoaning fast fashion and why we all need to buy less, without ever really addressing how her job as ST’s Wardrobe Mistress contributed to and perpetuated consumer culture. She literally made her money, whether through Instagram or her column, by enticing people to buy. Fine - people change, as do consumption habits. But she seems to have a repeating pattern in failing to acknowledge how she is not only complicit, but culpable in the problems facing millennials. She doesn’t seem to understand that she can’t remove herself from the problem - in order to write about it well, she must fully examine her role in these issues. She’s not some observing Alain de Botton-esque voyeur - she’s an ex-fashion writer with skin in the game.

Pierre Frey*

Londongirl89 said:

I didn’t manage to get the paper on Sunday, would anyone be able to post a screen shot please?
I really enjoy Dolly’s writing, she’s written some lovely responses in her advice column.

Click to expand...

Here you go x

DEAR DOLLY: ‘I’M 32 AND SINGLE, AND NOW MY FRIENDS ARE HAVING BABIES’

Your love, life and friendship dilemmas answered


I’m 32 and longtime single, and friends often wring their hands at my bad choice of men, worrying about me living alone with no one around. All has been fine until recently, when all my married friends started announcing babies. Suddenly I can’t stop crying when I’m alone. Do I have to accept that maybe this isn’t going to happen? Or can I hold on for the guy and the baby?

I very nearly didn’t reply to this letter. I really wanted to, because it is a worry that I hear about constantly and know very well. My reluctance to address it is that it concerns female fertility and therefore female bodies. And people have a lot of opinions on female bodies. So my first piece of advice is to ignore any advice that makes you feel anxious or ashamed. Don’t read the comments on this column. Don’t read articles that cite fertility “facts” from studies that date from 150 years ago. Don’t believe the pseudoscience about female biology that you hear anecdotally. The only person you should listen to when it comes to your body is yourself and your doctor.

I’ve always found that when I can’t stop crying, it is an expression of frustration. And I think that is the correct word to describe what it is to be a single woman in her thirties who wants a family and can see no clear way of making it happen. It’s frustrating not to know how or when you’ll meet the right person. It’s frustrating to feel as if there is rapidly dwindling time to get pregnant. Every woman I know in your position says the same thing: “If only someone could guarantee that I will have a baby at some point in the future, I’d stop thinking about it.”

Yet that cannot be guaranteed to anyone, whether they are single or with the person with whom they want to have children. The best way to keep the odds on your side is to make sensible, logical decisions rather than panic-based ones. For starters, enough with the bad men, lady. They’re a drain on your time and heart. And your time and love are precious, irrespective of whether you want children or not. If you don’t know why you keep choosing them, go to therapy. Or if that’s not possible, ask your friends who know and love you to give their insight.
There is also the option of egg-freezing, but this is a deeply personal choice, dependent on a number of factors. One woman I know has saved up to do it and is really excited at the prospect — she sees it as the best present she could give herself for a slightly increased sense of freedom. Another friend recently did a U-turn on the process. She realised that she was only doing it out of fear and she didn’t want to spend all that money on something that represented her own negative thought spirals. Do some research and have a think about whether this might be right for you. Again, freezing or not freezing your eggs won’t guarantee that you will or won’t have a baby.

You should also seek out the stories of women who are a bit older than you and have chosen a less traditional path. Most of the women I see as mentors, whom I’ve worked for and collaborated with over the years, did not meet their husband at university, get married at 25 and have two children before they were 30. Some of them had children on their own through IVF, sperm donation or adoption. Some never had children and don’t regret it at all. All of their stories serve as a reminder that there is more than one way to have a settled, peaceful home life.
One of these women is a director who had her children in her forties. “Once you have babies, Dolly, life is only about babies for a while,” she said. I found this such a helpful reminder to inhabit the stage I’m at right now, and be grateful for what it is at this precise moment, rather than dwell on what it isn’t. Instead of looking at your life and seeing the lack, look for the abundance. Free time? Go to the cinema in the afternoon. Money that doesn’t have to go on childcare? Buy a really stupidly gorgeous handbag. Flat that’s all yours? Paint every room your favourite colour and fill the fridge with Aldi champagne and stinky cheese.
Finally, my most important piece of advice is to keep giving love to the women who have everything you want. Any time you feel jealous of your friends, make a promise to yourself to turn it into an act of love and it will neutralise any feelings of bitterness. Message your friend who is a new mum and ask for baby photos. Go round to see her, take the baby and let her have a nap. Find out what your pregnant friend is craving and send her a pack of it in the post. Keep putting love out into the world and it will come back to you in one way or another. That, I’ve learnt, is one of life’s only guarantees.

Dying to know from those with early access to the book whether Nina loves swimming in Hampstead Heath ponds, Rod Stewart, 1970s fashion, leopard print, Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones? If I had a quid for every Dolly mentioned those things I'd be rich. Well, maybe I'd have £50. I won't be able to read the book unless I find a copy in a charity shop because there's no way I would ever buy it.

The thing I find gross about Dolly is that she seems to find all her faults extremely cute and funny. I would feel shame if I recognised that I bragged all the time or made stuff up or 'bellowed' (another favourite word of Dolly's), but Dolly seems to absolutely love those parts of herself and to relay them them gleefully at every opportunity, tee hee! Her extremely high opinion of herself is revolting, and she looks down on people. I remember her making fun of 'the kind of girls who have Bayliss & Harding soap and think it's fancy', and a tweet where she said she was doing something so obnoxious that 'even' her cleaner got annoyed. Is your cleaner not allowed to think or feel things because she's a cleaner?! I also just don't think she's a good writer: I used to get her newsletter and it was badly written with lots of spelling and grammar mistakes. I know she's said stuff about that - that people are snobby for insisting writers know how to spell; for me it's a basic tenet of having a career as a writer...?

The thing about both of them is that they are grasping and reaching and trying so hard to be literary luminaries but they're just completely basic. Their suggestions are basic. The way they describe things is basic. Pandora recommend a Jodi Piccoult book! I have read and enjoyed Jodi P on holiday but I would never ever recommend it as it's so off brand for them. The Marian Keyes sycophancy between them all is also so fake: Marian Keyes is not the kind of author they aspire to be. It must kill Dolly to look on her tagged photos on instagram and see the the most basic of bitches posting flatlays of her book along with a latte on their beds. Likewise the way that they, and especially Dolly's book, are always referred to as RELATABLE. I hate that! Having something described to me as relatable just makes me thing it's lazy, echo chamber-y, millenial zeitgesity and puts me right off - yet what they seem to want to push is so much more than just being 'relatable'.

But the worst thing about them is the way everything is VITAL and DEVASTATING.

Couldn't agree more with posters above pointing out Pandora can't have it both ways - either you eschew social media and sponsored posts and pushing the unattainable 'perfect life' or you don't, but you can't claim you're above it all when a lot of what you have in your extremely expensive, 1%er house is because of your sponsored posts/ because brands want to woo you.

PHEW I've been wanting to get some of that off my chest for years, lol.

These threads are their nastiest and least interesting when people start picking apart appearances sorry

I've been lurking on this thread and really enjoyed reading all your discussion.

Like many others here, I too have given up in their podcast, I used to use to discover other content to listen to and read. But now I find most of the things they recommend by myself. I never find they add anything valuable and more to the discussion; it's always "this is an interesting take", "so refreshing" etc.

When clearly very privileged people just "acknowledge their priviage" it really annoys me. I wish they'd explain all the ways they have benefitted, as a fairly common pleb who hasn't had money (apart from Christmas/birthday gifts) from their parents since they were 16, I have no ideas what being "privileged" to that extent actually means or how it works in practice.

I have wealthy friends who have been gifted house deposits or newish cars but I don't know (and I think I'm unlikely to meet) anyone on Pandora's level of rich. I'm more than happy to state I'm jealous of the houses, holidays and clothing Pandora displays - I earn a fair whack, much more than my parents have ever earned combined, but a family home in London is way beyond my means.

How does pandora maintain her lifestyle? The mortgage (if there is one) must be upwards of £5k a month, then there's the nanny and the £3k rugs. How is this possible from a book deal, podcast and occasional articles in the ST style? Do people this rich have a big monthly allowance from parents? Or do they get given £5 mil when they turn 25 that is invested to make an income? If anyone could shed light I'd me incredibly grateful.

I wish there was more transparency, rather just saying "I know I'm privileged". I feel incredibly privileged myself, I've had two parents who've cared for me, EMA whilst I did my A-Levels and maintenance grants/ bursaries that got me through uni, neither of which are available to young people today. Now I realise they are not referring to the same privilege! But as they don't disclose details and position themselves as the working millennium women I felt for a long time that I should be living a life like theirs, and in all honestly felt a bit bad that I wasn't able to - which I now realise is frankly rediculous.

Sorry for the long post!

I feel like I am the only woman in the UK who doesn’t really like them!

I used to listen to The High Low, but became utterly sick of how so many of their opinions seemed to come from a place of being “woke” and cool rather than actually thinking logically or critically about the topic at hand. I found their idea of feminism to be feeble at many points.

Mainly though, my gripe with them both is that they’re from incredibly privileged backgrounds yet try and pretend to be some sort of everywoman.

I read Dolly’s book, and although I think it was well written, I found it so difficult to relate to - it’s as if she seemed to believe that spending her last bit of money on a taxi to see a boy was hilariously common for all girls in their early 20s on an unpaid work experience jaunt in London. Erm, no! That kind of attitude to money only comes from someone who grew up with it and doesn’t appreciate it. I found her really trying to play down her privilege in the book, actually, but her life still seems very different from the average (certainly her upbringing was very different from mine).

They’re both just typical pretty rich girls who knew the right people, although I do think Dolly is a good writer and I will give her novel a chance. Absolutely no interest in Pandora’s book, though!

A niggle, but a few weeks ago in The Times, Pandora wrote a glowing write-up of Coco Mellors' debut novel. I looked up Coco's husband after she mentioned him during promotion and stumbled on this pic on his profile - he/they were guests at Pandora's wedding six years ago.




These women are literally paid to interview their mates and family friends with nary a concern for providing disclosure and acknowledging their inevitable biases. JUST BE TRANSPARENT.

another BRILL article from dolly in the times, so good i had to share - i've certainly been there! happy sunday reading

DEAR DOLLY: ‘I CAN’T FORGET THE MAN I MET FOR ONE NIGHT YEARS AGO’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...e-man-i-met-for-one-night-years-ago-ksts05nv0

I met a guy in a pub seven or eight years ago, when we were both in our twenties. It was my friend’s birthday, he had tagged along not really knowing anyone, and we gravitated towards one another. It felt like, until closing time, nothing around us existed, as though we were the only two people in the room, having the type of endless flow of conversation you only see in a Nora Ephron film growing up. It felt like ”magic”. And then we said goodbye. I was in an unravelling relationship at the time and it didn’t feel fair to entertain anything until that had been dealt with, so I ignored the guy, texts, the evening, everything. The unravelling took longer than expected so I chose not to bother the guy when it was all over and now, years later, I’m in a relationship with a wonderful person, yet I still can’t shake the guy in the pub or that evening. What should I do?
When I was 25 I met a man at a music festival. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t exchange numbers, all in all I would say we spoke for about 40 minutes. For some indescribable reason — let’s call it “the magic” — I decided this was the man I was going to end up with. When I returned to my house share, I calmly informed my housemates that I had met my future partner. I just knew we were going to end up together — I didn’t have to plan for it. For the following five years, bad dates and heartbreak were made a fraction easier because every few months I would once again remember the “Man at the Festival”, and I would feel a sense of reassuring inevitability.
The fantasy came to an abrupt end when my curiosity and impatience got the better of me and, thanks to some diligent stalking, I found him on Instagram. The man not only had the audacity to be engaged to another woman but had also betrayed my long-held belief about who he was. It turned out he was a serial adventurer who liked jumping out of planes (?), as did his fiancée (?), and was worryingly invested in sports. When I saw we had a mutual friend, I told her that, for all this time, I hadn’t realised she had known the man with whom I was meant to spend eternity. “HIM?!” she cackled. “You would never have dated each other in a MILLION YEARS.”

So why had I felt “the magic”? I think I felt the magic because I had wanted to feel the magic. I think the romantic memories of my twenties were so heavily lensed with a need for an adventure that in the immediate aftermath I couldn’t see the truth of what had happened. The memory of the memory became the thing I carried, the actual details of which only emerged once I had more capacity to reflect and analyse (thanks therapy). I wonder if this is the case for you — whether you were looking to have a romance-filled encounter with someone, and that he was similarly predisposed, and what resulted was something you both willed into existence.
I also think you cannot underestimate the insidious powers of compulsive rom-com viewing. I too have been addicted to romantic comedies since I was a teenager and it took me a while to realise that I had picked up a lot of my beliefs about men and women from films rather than real-life experiences. While I think this may have enriched our lives with a whimsical sense of romance and optimism, I also think it’s important we examine the lies we’ve been told. I think the most damaging one is the rule of strangers falling in love.

Let’s be real for a moment: it’s weird that Colin Firth goes to Portugal to ask his housekeeper to marry him when they’ve never had a conversation. It’s weird that Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack end their perfectly functioning relationships because they’re haunted by the memory of the ONE NIGHT they spent together years previously. It’s bizarre that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet for the first time at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day and immediately hold hands. All of this is weird. If your friend did any of the above you’d be like, “Mate, stop being weird.”

That’s not what falling in love is like. People don’t fall in love the night they meet. At best they fancy each other hard, and then get to know each other and work out whether they could love each other and build a life together. But rom-coms have to tell a lot of story in 100 minutes, so you can forgive them for taking some shortcuts.
You fell for a projection, not a person. But the good news is: you have a real, actual person you love right in front of you! Someone you know you’re meant to be with not because you spent a handful of hours with them, but a multitude of days and nights filled with conversation and kisses and arguments and decisions and debates and slices of toast. The stuff on which real, often slightly protracted, unscripted love is built.
To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note to [email protected] or DM @theststyle

I don’t think it is ok to question the validity of a woman’s experience with PND, even if you’ve had negative experiences with her.

PND has not been taken seriously for so long, and it’s still often dismissed as not serious or important enough for proper action to be taken. I am not a fan of Pandora at all but I’ll never judge or question her experiences with PND.

Anyway, we need a new thread! Title suggestions anyone? OR since The High Low is finished, should we separate them or something?

Pandora is related to Jane Birkin through peerage! And both her and Ollie are descendants from the same posh family. It’s so frustrating she frames herself as such an everywoman. Similarly, ina recent story about her daughter’s bedroom, she pointed out the drawers as a £20-odd eBay steal but neglected to mention her wallpaper (which someone else later tagged) is something like £150 per roll! So selective in her truth telling. Cannot stand her and how fake she is.

anyone listened to her interview on How to Fail? She discussed her biggest failures in life, and they are
- not getting into grammar school and having to go to a public (non UK readers - this means private ) boarding school instead
- being fired from an internship for asking for a press discount in her early 20s
- being kicked out of a friendship group aged 11 (seriously - she’s discussed this multiple times on the podcast) and later being reintegrated after a few weeks... she got slide a note under her door from her roommate but they later made up and are now all godparents to one another.

if these are someone’s biggest failures, they’ve led an immeasurably charmed life. Get a fucking grip.

Cloak said:

I think I need to revisit the book again because I seriously can’t remember any of it being “revolutionary”?! A lot of it struck me as quite self indulgent chronicling of a fairly average middle class upbringing?

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I enjoyed the book and do love dolly’s way with words (non-fiction) but definitely read it as a rather specific and rather privileged account of adolescence. Maybe it’s because I’m a few years younger than Dolly, but I couldn’t relate at all having been to a comprehensive school with a large catchment area. Maybe that sounds strange, but as it attracted so many different groups in society from different backgrounds it was actually quite hard to find a crowd that you could relate to. I don’t think that’s a requisite for friendship obviously but it does help to have common experiences, especially when you’re younger. When you go to a school like that, people aren’t destined for hedonistic houseshares in London or wherever. People live with their parents, become nurses, work in a call centre. Moving to Manchester or Leeds is considered aspirational. If you get good grades, move cities, go to a good uni: well, you might as well be moving to Mars.

Someone said earlier about how this thread hates panda. I don’t think anyone here hates panda do they? I don’t dislike pandora or Dolly. It just gets a little bit tiring seeing posh privately educated blonde and skinny girls at the forefront of women’s media again and again and again.

Hello all! I just went and read Ellie Abraham's Glamour UK article and I also listened to Em Sheldon's appalling trainwreck of an interview on BBC 4's Women's Hour. The GALL of these women. The unmitigated gall.
I am the commenter who ferreted out the info that Pandy's grandfather founded a television network and that Prince Philip was (by protocol) listed first as an attendee at Baron Asta's funeral in 2009. This is public information. As is the home address of Pandy's family (Cold Manor Cheese Creek Farm or whatever) where she had her wedding, which she put on blast on her socials. I also passed on the Google Maps tip that if you switch to satellite view (because rich people don't let Google Street View cars anywhere NEAR their domiciles, because they are precious precious important people and their right to privacy is assured, I mean purchased via lawyers and local ordinances) you can see that Ms Sykes grew up in a house with a swimming pool and tennis court.
Listen up, TattleLife haters: accessing publicly available newspaper obituaries and basic home address data is NOT DOXXING. The absolute nerve of these people, who gained their followings by harnessing the power of the Internet then five years later, with a bunch of f*ck-off money from book deals and other income streams, get all huffy that the unwashed hordes are threatening them. The utter nerve.

It’s so incestuous the liberal (pseudo) literati set in London. They all write think pieces for the same papers, interview each other for their own podcasts/make a guest appearance on their mates podcast ( Elizabeth day was even on Pandora’s recent reality tv one) write forwards for each other’s books and have their quotes on the front of said book.

All the while sweeping aside any mention of privilege because they once had to slum it in a house share and could only afford supermarket wine.

I do like Dolly, I haven’t seen the show, I’m not sure I will. Out of all these types she seems somewhat more palatable than say Pandora. Elizabeth Day seems lovely too. Actually, I’m sure they are all lovely women, but it still sucks that these are the people that get opportunity after opportunity and in no small part because of their connections /their parents.

I remember an early episode of the podcast before Pandora had bought the house... She said she was saving up to buy a house so had cancelled her New York Times subscription... If that's all it takes to get a 1.5m house I should really cancel my own NYT subscription

Cloak said:

That's interesting, can I ask a bit more about what that looks like? (Genuinely, I am interested, so not trying to say it doesn't happen or anything!)

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Of course. off the top of my head...

Colleagues being utterly shocked that I’ve never gone skiing and didn’t do a ski season as a young adult, and joking that I missed out on an important rite of passage and that my childhood must have been miserable. See also: the assumption that I can ride horses, that I went to private school because I’m “not thick”.

Being asked to meet colleagues at Soho House but not having a membership (because it’s just not important to me), so having to sheepishly ask someone to sign me in as a guest and then just feeling the imposter syndrome when I was in there, making me feel less confident and vocal in a work meeting.


Early on in my career as a lowly assistant, being asked to contribute £50 to someone’s leaving present and getting attitude and being called “not a team player” because I outright told them I couldn’t afford it. The other assistants were more the D&P type so they contributed no problem.

My real name is quite “sloaney pony” and I don’t have a working class accent (kind of accentless in that southern way I guess!), so every now and again I’ll hear someone say something quite ridiculous without realising it’s people like me they’re talking about. Just snobby generalisations really, or really short-sighted opinions, like rich people just work harder (can confirm, I am way richer now than my family were as a child and no way do I work as hard as my parents did!!). I find a lot of rich, upper middle class millennials vote Labour but say some very Tory-esque stuff in private, not realising how they come across.

See this is why I fell out of love with the High low a bit - they stopped having opinions. And if they got any negative feedback on anything they said they would spend loads of time at the beginning of the episode apologising and moderating an already moderate opinion. It used to really annoy me. Agree you don’t have to slate a book but again, you are allowed to explain why you don’t like a book. It just comes from a place of fear because they never want anyone to say anything mean about their own books. There’s no nuance to their lives that way.

There's more interesting discussion on twitter about that Guardian article (and Pandora and her agent's subsequent tantrums) between Eliza Clark (a young author who has previously tweeted "a good thing about me is that you can enjoy my book without finding out that i went to oxbridge and my parents are both famous journalists like 6 months later and feeling somewhat betrayed"), the writer of the Guardian piece, and some others. Sorry for so many screenshots but thought it was interesting and relevant.







Can't believe the publishing agent's stupid "kill piece" tweet calling her spiteful and nasty hasn't been deleted tbh, she should be even more embarrassed than Pandora about throwing a tantrum - it's not even her work!

Anyway, I will be buying Eliza Clark's book, and using Pippy d'Fuckington as a pseudonym from now on.

I feel like I need to wave and say hi to everyone here!! I’ve just finished reading all 34 pages of this thread and I have enjoyed every thought provoking minute ... so many things I’d like to say, but to be honest I would be repeating what has already been said. So just a couple of observations from me for what it is worth.

The MoD thing really pissed me off, zero acknowledgement - glaringly obvious that it was due to having the same management. They could have mentioned it and identified the key themes that it brought up without discussing MoD herself, especially given the allegations of mods racist attitude around Candice - I think her words were ‘She brings everything back to race’. Lots to unpick there. Many other things could have been interrogated too - influencer culture as a whole etc.

I listen to the HL every week and in general enjoy it, but sometimes get annoyed with the recommendations and jerk circle - Holly Bourne’s book for example (started well but was so lame at the end).

Pandora does seem to speak more than Dolly, but I find Dolly more considered in her thought s and how she presents her ideas. I think their relationship is such that P has the more sensible, mature persona and Dolly has this party girl type character but seems to have more substance and is slightly more relatable. I went to watch the HL experience and just found it bloody annoying because I like their serious discussions but it was silly and not even funny (In my opinion).

Onto the privilege topic... this week they discussed the Adam Buxton podcast with Zadie Smith. I’d listened to it a couple of weeks ago and had picked up on Adam’s slight embarrassment / apologetic tone when discussing private education and the advantages that can bring. For background Zadie says that in order to turn around classism, racism and gentrification the individuals in more privileged groups have a responsibility to actively work to make the system more equitable. No point saying I don’t agree with XYZ if you’re not doing anything to change it on a micro level. It’s an interesting discussion as I feel Zadie lets him off the hook to an extent because she talks about the system being wrong - ie the fact that fee paying schools exist is the ultimate problem (which is true). In my view if he really does want to break down privilege barriers then sending his kids to state school is an active move against the system. Of course his kids go to a few paying school. Pandora agrees with Zadie regarding the system being unfair but doesn’t really take it any further. As others have said upthread there is a seemingly surface level acknowledgement of her / their privilege but the test for me is in the actions and behaviour they take. Don’t get me wrong they are very consistent with giving space on their platforms to a variety of authors and voices and I applaud them for it, but how much are they willing to do when it really affects their personal lives? I’m not saying they aren’t doing anything - they may choose not to broadcast it. It would be great to have a discussion like this on the HL.

Phew that’s a long one!

Edit - Sorry couple more things to add!!

Akala’s book ‘Natives’ is also a brilliant exploration of how class intersects with racism.

Michaela Coel - what a bloody legend. Her McTaggart lecture is really worth a watch and she explores the concept of privilege and what it means brilliantly.

I feel like that whole middle class London journo/writer/podcaster set could pretty much be incorporated into one thread - Dolly, Pandora, Bella, Elizabeth Day, Daisy Buchanan, Otegha Uwagba, Caroline O'Donoghue et al. Not dismissing (some of) their talents, but they all blurb each other's work and guest each other's podcasts, so very much occupy the same media bubble to my mind.

Honestly, maybe it’s easy for me to say because I haven’t listened for a while, but definitely seems like a good time to end it.

Also, perhaps this is really mean of me, but it’s the best move for Dolly career-wise to remove her association with Pandora, at least in my opinion.

Almost all of us are in agreement that Dolly is more talented, more self-aware, has more of an interesting take on things. She is more primed for the sort of cultural commentator/millennial spokesperson than Pandora, for sure, and I expect she’s in demand in some circles. I also think the bulk of criticism of them being “posh podcasters” has really been at Pandora downplaying her background, as evidenced by this thread. In comparison, Dolly is of more of an expected privilege level for someone in the London-centric publishing and media world, and without Pandora, I can’t imagine the tag will stick.

Ultimately, Dolly has actually achieved a lot more individual success than Pandora during The High Low years. If I were to advise Pandora, I’d tell her to now angle for a Sunday Times home section column and/or a Homes & Gardens magazine editorial role, or go back to fashion editorial. She could do both with her eyes closed and it would hugely lessen the public scrutiny of her if she sticks to what she knows.