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Trashing vanity of the not-so-fair - 23 June 2002 / Deborah Schoeneman

After causing a commotion in his native England, Toby Young's book "How To Lose Friends & Alienate People" (Da Capo) hits New York bookshelves this week.

It's a memoir of a 31-year-old's brief stint as a hot young contributing editor at Vanity Fair, his firing, the stark realization of how the other half lives in New York - that is the half on the other side of the velvet rope - and a downward spiral into alcoholism and unemployment.

Young displays a real talent for pissing off celebrities and blowing big Vanity Fair assignments.

He recalls editor Graydon Carter's "secrets of success" in the media business: "The three 'F's, faxes, flattery and flowers," and "It's not who put you put in the magazine that's important, it's who you leave out."

Carter also tells Young that the magazine's readers include "trailer-park white trash and everyone who matters."

Besides back-stabbing Carter, Young's also quick to point out that "one of the best kept secrets at Conde Nast is how large the gay readership of GQ is."

Carter's quote about Young to the New York Times, published on the back of the book, sums up what many of the writer's enemies must feel: "Toby's a piece of gum that stuck to my shoe five years ago and that I still can't get off ... I basically forgot to fire Toby Young every day for two years."

Toby Young's advice on how to lose friends

Rent a room to model Sophie Dahl, then let a drag queen crash on her bed wearing only ripped fishnet stockings.

Hire a stripper to entertain at a staffer's birthday party on "Take Our Daughters To Work Day".

Monopolize a phone booth at Morton's while Diana Ross is waiting.

Write about how annoying the AA meetings are that take place downstairs from your apartment.

* Try to out Nathan Lane for being Jewish and gay during an interview.