Dolly Alderton/Pandora Sykes

[LaurenRM]

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*

 

[maketheswitch]

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.

 

[Mushroom7]

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!

 

[Lanavalentine]

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!

 

[Lanavalentine]

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?

 

[LaurenRM]

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.

 

[Mbella]

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

 

[Lanavalentine]

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!)

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.

 

[cholulamare]

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.

 

[Badabing101]

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.

Michaela Coel: MacTaggart lecture in full

'I'm going to try to be my best; to be transparent; and to play whatever part I can, to help fix this house'

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

 

[Lanavalentine]

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.

 

[Cloak]

Funnily enough I’ve just seen a screen grab of her book on insta and it is a passage about marriage and the smugness of married couples

Fine — I concede that not everyone likes weddings, apparently. But I’ll eat my hat if one day she doesn’t have a big ol’ wedding in some sort of flamboyant sixties wedding dress with kooky kohl eyeliner and a brigitte bardot hairdo.

 

[Silentcritique]

That’s wonderful thread, thanks for compiling! I’ve been following James for a while now too, he’s pretty funny. Pandora is that posh person at uni who is only friends with posh people but disagrees with tories yet can’t quite being herself to vote labour so votes Lib Dem lol.

 

[Lanavalentine]

The thing is that there will always be someone richer, more connected than you. There will be many people who’s lives you could only dream of living, and I suspect that Pandora has come into contact with a lot of them throughout her life, from her school days to her career.

The problem is that she seems to have taken all that as proof that she’s entirely average (in terms of finances and experiences) and firmly middle class.

The literary/media bubble she lives in has probably further convinced her of that - it’s so normal to most of them to live in £1.3mil houses in London, only wear cashmere or 100% wool knitwear, holiday at places like Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica (on her Instagram) which pre-Covid, at its cheapest, was about £600 a night.

To her, this stuff is normal, because it’s what everyone around her has, too. I think she’s proven herself to be insanely myopic, if not arrogant that she could speak for women on topics which not only has she potentially played a part in (the rise of fast fashion) but which don’t actually affect her in the way she’s discussing (I highly doubt she’s ever gone on a Primark shopping spree of her volition, for example).

 

[gotatoes]

I've been following this thread for a while and have found it so insightful. I'm a foreigner who has lived in the UK for four years, and the peerage stuff still blows my mind! "If you are rich and important - and related to rich and important people - we put your name in a special book". I sought out this thread to see if anyone else noticed the eating sounds on the podcast? Makes me wonder if I have misophonia, I can't stand it! Just pause recording if you need a snack!

Otherwise, I like the podcast. Nice to hear different perspectives and all that (I rarely interact with people this posh in real life). I listen for the book and television recommendations, which I find pretty solid.

What I don't understand is why they try to be relatable? I see this across the board with celebrities, influencers and people in the media. Just own your wealth and privilege? Admit your biases and snobbery! Acknowledge that not having to worry about food and shelter has enabled you to flourish. If you're worried that your upbringing takes something away from your achievements, campaign for better living conditons for everyone! I feel like the best way to "relate" to people is to get over the idea that wealthy people are innately better than everyone else and admit that most people would thrive under the same conditions.

 

[kit359]

Dolly aka Hannah is well known among her London peers for taking other people's love life mishaps or funny things that have happened to them and repurposing them as her own "hilarious" stories. On a hen do a few years ago, a friend was telling everyone a disastrous dating story and Dolly approached her afterwards to ask if she could claim the incident as her own for the purposes of her column & eventual book.... take everything she writes and says with a massive pinch of salt

 

[Mbella]

I wonder if because of Pandora’s upbringing and career so far this is the first time she’s actually faced any criticism/knockbacks?

Pandora is clearly trying to shift career from fashion writer/podcaster to Serious Literary Cultural Commentator. The trouble with doing this is that no matter how good you were in your previous roles, your success/knowledge/experience doesn't necessarily translate. I'm experiencing this as a novel writer. I've had a decent amount of success in my professional career but writing novels is a whole different thing. It can be tough - but beneficial - to the ego to realise that you're a beginner again and that others have done what you're trying to do with much more skill: even if you're in your 30s, even if you've got loads of different achievements under your belt.

Here is the downside to getting a book published if you haven't been through the tough period of rejection and criticism that most authors face.

I sometimes ask myself: would I like to get a bad book published with a huge advance and then face loads of fair criticism? Or is it better to go through the difficult period of working, learning and growing with no guarantee of success, but creating something much more worthwhile? I'm on the latter path, and when I think about this in any depth (and see the type of work put out by Pandora etc) I'm ok with it.

Also: reviews are for the benefit of readers, not the author. So of course we need critical reviews. Otherwise it just turns into the literary circle jerk that has been so eloquently criticised already.

 

[Aliceinherpalace]

Dolly is definitely what we called a “rah” at uni. She’s around the same age as me and a friend went to Exeter uni with her - said she was one of those posh idiots who turned up to lectures with bed head and wearing what looked like pyjamas and the obligatory Uggs

 

[Lanavalentine]

I can't even imagine having that sort of background and wealth. It's insane. Pretty easy to walk into journalism with that scale of help..

What's Dolly's story? What do her parents do?

I actually think Dolly is almost average when compared to Pandora!! I don’t think she comes from family money like that, just a very comfortable London suburbs (upper?) middle class family.

Not sure what her parents do but I’m fairly sure they do not have a tennis court.
Someone with a better memory than me will be along to rehash what she gave away in her first book - all I can remember is that she went to private school but described herself as averagely middle class or similar.

To be fair, I think the problem is that the term “middle class” actually describes a huge range of different levels of income and wealth in the UK. Depending on where you live and the life you lead, you could be “solidly middle class” with wide variation of jobs, from teacher to surgeon to CEO. Ultimately it’s about much more than money. People born into a middle class family who end up on their arse financially don’t suddenly become working class, and lottery winners don’t climb up a social class either.

I think Pandora has some nerve not recognising she’s part of the “elite” she loves to talk about, though. I think less and less of her as more information arises. I think she’s a fraud. No wonder she dealt with the criticism of her book so badly - deep down she probably knows a lot of it is true, she isn’t well-placed to talk about the average female millennial’s experience.

I’m sorry if it’s nasty but I’m glad she got a backlash. I’m truly pissed off that someone listed on that peerage website with tennis courts in their family home feels they can accurately relate to someone like me or my sister or any of my friends, and our life experiences.

 

[Mooordgirl]

Thats her being a bit tongue in cheek - have you not got a sense of humour?