LAST WEEK, THE GUARDIAN announced the longlist for its First Book Award, with a fabulously Guardian-esque boast about how the list was “the most diverse yet in ethnic origin and theme”. Well, splendid, of course, but the nominee who caught my eye was one not so diverse, at least not as regards my own experience. Misfortune is a Gothic Victorian tale of transsexuality and balladeering by Wes Stace, also known as the cult American singersongwriter John Wesley Harding; also known as, in the 1980s, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the acoustic student band Say That And Say Fashionable (later renamed Fred Norton’s Retirement), in which I played lead guitar and banjo.

This comes hard on the heels of the Booker long-list nomination of Harry Thompson, for his novel This Thing of Darkness. Harry is a TV producer, who, among his many other credits, gave Rob Newman and myself our first ever commission writing comedy on the radio, and later produced the BBC series Newman and Baddiel in Pieces. Two in a month: I’m beginning to think that being associated with me may be a vital factor in getting nominated for a literary award, although obviously it’s no good actually being me.

Last week in The Times, Nick Angel wrote a piece about how much pain the success of James Blunt, who was a contemporary of the journalist at school, causes him. It all comes back to Gore Vidal’s oft-quoted “Whenever a friend of mine succeeds, a little something in me dies”, and there should be a word for this feeling, the opposite of Schadenfreude. This is a German — some would say peculiarly German — compound word, made up of two words, Schaden, meaning damage and Freude, meaning joy: damage-joy, or joy from damage, to others. The opposite, a feeling of dissatisfaction or frustration at the achievement of others, could perhaps be the compound word success-sadness, in German Erfolgtraurigkeit. All right, it doesn’t trip off the tongue like Schadenfreude, but that’s Babelfish for you.

It’s actually a much more common feeling than Schadenfreude — even though we do of course feast like jackals on the fallen. In order to provide the ingredients for the banquet, modern culture requires an almost constant stream of new successes. It is also, I would contend, a somewhat less malignant one. Schadenfreude seems to me to be the coldest of emotions, an expression of nothing but bitterness, whereas Erfolgtraurigkeit has at least the virtue of sadness, the others’ success having thrown the desolation of your life into bad relief.

Having said all that, I don’t think I feel much, if any, Erfolgtraurigkeit towards either Wes or Harry. It’s true that the fact that Wes is a musician and Harry a TV producer did lead me to think about writing a piece about how the literary world will consider prizegiving to anyone but comedians, but then — as the ex-host of one of Harry’s other shows might have put it — the words “special” and “pleading” came to mind. My lack of Erfolgtraurigkeit in this case is not, however, because I am some kind of kindly paternalistic figure happy always to see my peers succeed.

Many’s the comedy award I’ve sat through thinking, as each result is read out: “That’s wrong . . . That’s wrong . . . Oh my God, that’s really wrong.” However, when The Office started winning everything in sight, I sat there thinking “That’s fair.” Because I think The Office is a masterpiece; and what I suffer from is not an indiscriminate Erfolgtraurigkeit, but an Erfolgtraurigkeit linked like iron to my own opinions. And if I think something’s good, and it wins prizes, or gets great reviews, I’m Erfolgtraurigkeit-free: at some level, in fact, I subconsciously consider these prizes and reviews a tribute to my own good taste. When I think something’s shite, however, and it’s garlanded, I get the most terrible, the most awful Erfolgtraurigkeit: I get Erfolgtraufigkeit with Ich mö chte sie mit einer Axt im kalten Blut ermorden-keit on top.

So because I like both Harry and Wes, and am confident from my general sense of their talent and intelligence that both Misfortune and This Thing of Darkness will be worthy nominees, I’ve been able to contemplate their inclusion on these booklists without rancour. I could tell you which authors would cause me Erfolgtraurigkeit when nominated for prizes, but it would be such a long list, and include so many authors supposedly of note, that I may never be invited to a literary party again. No, genuinely, I’m happy for my friends; it is possible to be so, even in a culture grown toxic with competition; although I suppose, at least in Wes’s case, I could still be accused of Schadenfreude, as I appear to be taking joy in the Misfortune of others.

David Baddiel’s latest novel, The Secret Purposes, is published in paperback by Abacus

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