Thanks for taking the time to post such a long quibble, on Christmas Day of all days. Figured the least I could do is to respond to your points…

“- Alex Tew made shed loads of money and so is celebrated as a genius, Ben Cohen didn’t make shed loads of money and then sent out a dumb press release, and so is vilified as the world’s greatest idiot.”

If you’d been around in the early days of UK.com you’d know that Ben did far more than send out one press release. He sent out hundreds of the things, plus countless letters to newspapers and boasts of being a millionaire when he wasn’t. Alex actually became a millionaire. In cash. Also, you mention Alex using family connections to help grow MDHP. He didn’t.

“the book’s title is based on the idea that as a journalist hanging out with successful internet entrepreneurs Paul was a failure surrounded by successes – “bringing nothing to the party”. But this is nonsense, he bought bucketloads of press coverage, about the most valuable commodity there is in the internet industry (see: Alex Tew)”

I did indeed get bucketloads of press coverage – because I was a journalist and wrote it myself. I admit as much in the book. I was surrounded by people with millions of actual pounds. I had absolutely fuck all.

“- Paul nonetheless founds several successful internet companies on the back of his writing, with real orders from real customers, earning not insignificant revenues.”

I wish. I was kicked out of The Friday Project which later went bust and then I was kicked out of FridayCities which had no revenues. I suppose The Friday Thing was a success in that it had revenues, but only enough to pay our writers and server costs.

“- the tag line says he “lost his repuation”, yet via his book he’s currently more famous and widely read than ever, and I’m sure has no shortage of job offers”

I was libelled all over the Internet and was kicked out of two companies. I’m pretty sure that counts as losing a reputation. You’re right though to say that I went on to gain a different one. That’s sort of the point of the book.

“- the tag line says Paul “lost of the love of his life”, and the relationships are generally described as failed or messed up. Yet “Savannah” (presumably not her real name) merely decides she’s only interested in him as a friend, so Paul hardly “lost” her.”

I really don’t want to go into specifics on that one, except to say that I wish you were right. I haven’t spoken to Savannah (her real name) in two years.

“In fact, in general terms the book seems to feature Paul constantly sleeping with a succession of highly attractive, intelligent girls, a testament to how confidence and being good at making people laugh are a ticket to lots of sex.”

Yeah, you got me: that part is true. Go me!

“- the opening of Mr Wong’s is a brilliant scene – it must be awesome to have an obscenely rich friend who opens an exclusive club in central London just for the hell of it. But the stuff about a threat from Chinese triads is total fiction.”

It was a throwaway joke because the venue was in Chinatown. Hopefully that was clear. Also, as was also hopefully clear (because I explicitly said it), Rob didn’t pay for the venue – a “mysterious benefactor” did.

“- the section with him being thrown in a cell and put “at risk of going to prison for seven years” is blown out of all proportion. Basically he was accused of commiting a very minor crime that he didn’t even commit, he then got very mouthy and awkward with a succession of policemen, and so (quelle surprise) they messed him about in turn. He would have been extremely unlucky to be convicted of fraud.”

That’s not really a quibble given I say as much in the book. The seven years concerns the maximum term available. Obviously that was never going to happen – the problem was that a fraud conviction (which was a very real possibility – believe me, I was there) would have ruined my chances of ever raising money for a company. It would also probably have barred me from getting a US Visa.

- the story of how thinkofthechildren gets Paul into trouble due to the inability of some people to understand sarcasm is funny, as is the same thing happening again at a big google party. But it’s dumb how these incidents are bigged up as making him either a) a satirist of Swift-esque proportions or b) a crazed, drunken lunatic.

I’m not sure I said either. I was totally sober – hungover, actually – when I wrote TOTC. The Swift thing (which I admit in the book to dining out on) was a quote from the Christian Science Monitor.

- finally, the book begins with a BASIC program that just prints a stupid, unfunny phrase over and over again on the screen, and this is described as proof of a deep rooted rebelliousness and desire to “subvert the norm”. But hasn’t everyone who ever tried to learn to program as a kid has done exactly the same thing?

Of course they have. I’m not sure I’ve ever claimed a deep-rooted anything.

Hope that clears up your concerns! Thanks again for the comments – I really do appreciate you taking the time to post them, especially on Christmas Day.

P

- Alex Tew made shed loads of money and so is celebrated as a genius, Ben Cohen didn’t make shed loads of money and then sent out a dumb press release, and so is vilified as the world’s greatest idiot. But Cohen’s business ideas (1. an internet community for Jewish people 2. pornography) were at least as good as Tew’s (1. use family connections to make a big media story out of ludicrously overpriced advertising space, a media story so big that the space actually becomes worth the asking price 2. do exactly the same thing again). Tew was very lucky, and Cohen a little childish.

- the book’s title is based on the idea that as a journalist hanging out with successful internet entrepreneurs Paul was a failure surrounded by successes – “bringing nothing to the party”. But this is nonsense, he bought bucketloads of press coverage, about the most valuable commodity there is in the internet industry (see: Alex Tew)

- the business side of the story is sold as a story of failure, yet actually, despite a total lack of experience in anything other than humourous writing (not normally of much commercial worth), Paul nonetheless founds several successful internet companies on the back of his writing, with real orders from real customers, earning not insignificant revenues. So what if he failed to become a billionaire, most new businesses make no money at all.

- the tag line says he “lost his repuation”, yet via his book he’s currently more famous and widely read than ever, and I’m sure has no shortage of job offers

- the tag line says Paul “lost of the love of his life”, and the relationships are generally described as failed or messed up. Yet “Savannah” (presumably not her real name) merely decides she’s only interested in him as a friend, so Paul hardly “lost” her. In fact, in general terms the book seems to feature Paul constantly sleeping with a succession of highly attractive, intelligent girls, a testament to how confidence and being good at making people laugh are a ticket to lots of sex. Just now I read Paul’s blog and it seems some girl who reads his twitter stream developed a crush on him, went to an internet event just to hunt him down, and then afterwards wrote on her blog admitting all of this. Me, jealous?

- the opening of Mr Wong’s is a brilliant scene – it must be awesome to have an obscenely rich friend who opens an exclusive club in central London just for the hell of it. But the stuff about a threat from Chinese triads is total fiction.

- the section with him being thrown in a cell and put “at risk of going to prison for seven years” is blown out of all proportion. Basically he was accused of commiting a very minor crime that he didn’t even commit, he then got very mouthy and awkward with a succession of policemen, and so (quelle surprise) they messed him about in turn. He would have been extremely unlucky to be convicted of fraud.

- the story of how thinkofthechildren gets Paul into trouble due to the inability of some people to understand sarcasm is funny, as is the same thing happening again at a big google party. But it’s dumb how these incidents are bigged up as making him either a) a satirist of Swift-esque proportions or b) a crazed, drunken lunatic.

- finally, the book begins with a BASIC program that just prints a stupid, unfunny phrase over and over again on the screen, and this is described as proof of a deep rooted rebelliousness and desire to “subvert the norm”. But hasn’t everyone who ever tried to learn to program as a kid has done exactly the same thing?