In class-ridden Britain, the parvenu is a stock figure of fun. The social climber or pseudo-intellectual with “ideas above his station” is always good for a laugh. More ridiculous are university-educated commissioning editors and book publishers with ideas beneath their station. They think when they slum it that popular culture is so debased and easy any fool can rattle out a hit. They may be right about the debased nature of much popular culture, but they be- tray their ignorance when they assume that success is easy. If you want to succeed in pop culture, or indeed any culture, you have to attain a state of mind that is very hard for the ironic upper-middle class cultural bureaucrat to achieve. You have to believe.