Bitch Three: Gore Vidal

"I’m on the news a lot but that is completely different from being in the news, and the front page of the Wall Street Journal is another league entirely. Austin Lally has made it from Airdrie to Beijing, to become the general manager of Proctor and Gamble for the whole of China. I know little about business, but even I know that is an astonishing success. China is the biggest market in the world. I was suddenly very jealous - and not just of what I imagine his salary to be.

But why was I not entirely delighted by an old friend’s success? It’s not as though I was in competition for the job. He’s not deprived me of anything because he’s worked so hard to succeed. But, as Gore Vidal famously said: "Whenever a friend succeeds a little something in me dies..." I always like to quote Vidal, because it gives me the opportunity to mention that I once had dinner with him in an Indian restaurant in Soho. Now that’s a story that at least makes me sound successful, even if the truth is that as a journalist it’s easy to meet the rich, famous and accomplished. And those meetings often just serve to remind you that you are not one of them.

Just the other week I bumped into an old friend, who despite being a talented freelance TV producer, was struggling to find work the last time I saw him. "Hi, how’s things? Are you working?" I asked sympathetically. "Oh yes," he replied enthusiastically. "Haven’t you heard? I’m vice president of MTV Europe now."

I often find myself making the mistake of boasting to them that I was a university friend of some government ministers that we interview on Channel 4 News. I suppose I’m looking for that reflected glory again, but this just causes the young producers to look sympathetically at someone who is old enough to be a contemporary of ministers, but still thinks they’re young enough to be considering another tattoo."

Sarah Smith is Scotland Correspondent for Channel 4 News