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Original poster

So much for my brilliant career...

103 replies

frogs · 07/12/2005 15:21

One of my contemporaries at university is now Leader of the Opposition. Humph.

And that's just the icing on the cake: other contemporaries include BBC foreign correspondent, high-profile barrister, Labour MP and ex-junior minister, award-winning theatre director and deputy editor of a national newspaper. And that's just off the top of my head -- I'm sure the list could be extended.

Anyone else feeling outclassed?

OP posts:
zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 18:56

serves you all right for going to oxbridge

rockinrobinkie · 07/12/2005 18:57

Ah. Yes. Maybe fame wallifies people? - you know, version of malady of princes? Had that DM Thomas in the back of the cab once. What a wally. Not that he's a contemporary of mine I frantically hasten to add.

Original poster
frogs · 07/12/2005 18:59

Ah yes, there's a novelist (won the Whitbread or something, doncha know) among my contemporaries as well.

Several novels later she produced a baby and wrote a book about motherhood of such navel-gazing purple solemnitude that it completely cracked me up.

OP posts:
motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 19:00

This was pre-fame wallitude, so I am not sure what post-fame wallification has ensued.

Someone introduced me to Andrew Adonis at the Labour conference a few years back and I said oh yes, hello, we did know each other at Oxford and do you know, he didn't remember.

motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 19:01

Oh yes, I read that one I reckon, and kept thinking 'get over yerself and find a decent childminder, luv'.

zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 19:01

Adonis though is a name difficult to live up to i imagine

thecattleareALOHing · 07/12/2005 19:02

Is this the downside of going to Oxford?

tamum · 07/12/2005 19:02

I think I can guess the name of the navel-gazing novelist, cunningly disguised though she is

rockinrobinkie · 07/12/2005 19:04

Idiot prat.

I had a friend in similar situation (not same famous person though) and the response was to look her up & down & say "of course, I couldn't have forgotten that"

Nightynight · 07/12/2005 19:05

frogs and dinosaur - yes, I know EXACTLY what you mean.

(And frankly, if I hadnt already emigrated, the mere thought of Michael Gove being part of the government would drive me out forthwith.)

Every time I switch on the telly in the UK, or go to a bookshop, Im faced with evidence of how much more successful my contemporaries are than I am, and of course British universities are simply littered with them as well.
Ah well, life's not over yet.

zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 19:05

no

that's american and japanese tourists

Nightynight · 07/12/2005 19:09

lol Aloha, of course before you go there, you never think that you're going to end up doing what you do...you always think you'll be the next Prime Minister or whatever..then you grow up!

rockinrobinkie · 07/12/2005 19:15

On a semi-serious note, to be enormously successful and ambitious at a young(ish) age probably does require that you have a slightly different take on modesty and self-knowledge (ie non-walliness) than most people.

Oh I could go on about this, with examples, at boggling length, so I won't.

tamum · 07/12/2005 19:16

I can certainly heartily recommend studying at Reading if you want to be sure never to hear anything about any of your contemporaries, ever again. I used to play with Hugh Pym when I was little, mind- does that count?

Blandmum · 07/12/2005 19:19

Lots of the people I was at collage are partners in law firms, head of this, managing director of that etc etc. Went to a collage reunion not that long ago.

TBH I couldn't give a flying fcuk because today my bottom set y7s (age 11 reading ages of 6-8) could all tell me the difference between a solute, a solvent and a solution and they left the class with smiles on their faces

And for this, they pay me!

zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 19:29

there was a time when poeple rebelled against the idea of oxbridge and the career path by going to Sussex, consequently my contemporaries tend towrads the unkown.......

ParrupupumScum · 07/12/2005 19:35

Leader of the Conservative party is a rubbish job anyway.

gggimmesnowsnow · 07/12/2005 19:37

What's the name of that anarchist group that disrupt G8? Well, the head of that was in my seminar group at Uni and he comes from a long line of wealthy chain-store owners. I used to yell at him on the tv when I saw him banging on about capitalism.

I once had a lowly office job on a magazine with the current head of C4 (or is it 5?) and we were both booted when it went under. He told me he would be a millionaire by 30. And he was.

Original poster
frogs · 07/12/2005 19:44

Scummy, that is of course true. I can think of few jobs that would suit me less than being leader of the Conservative party. at the thought.

OP posts:
ParrupupumScum · 07/12/2005 19:45
Grin
zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 19:48

actually there were one or two who went on to greater things, one of the blokes in this article I saw last about four years ago or so here

ISawFrannyandZooeyKissingSanta · 07/12/2005 19:48

Hey, at least you went to a decent University. I don't think many people from Essex ever went on to do anything impressive

noddyholder · 07/12/2005 19:49

Not relevant at all but I really fancy DC and it has made me feel weird

Original poster
frogs · 07/12/2005 19:50

Zippi, now that is a worthwhile job.

OP posts:
Nightynight · 07/12/2005 19:54

noddy, if you'd met the Bullingdon crowd when they were undergraduates youdve been cured quick enough.

The only fanciable one in DC's coterie is Eddie Vaizey...