On Saturday, Queen Elizabeth II (1926 to the present day) will be the oldest
reigning monarch in British history. At 81 years, seven months and 30 days
young and still going strong, she will leaves that ancient, drab, forlorn
teapot Queen Victoria standing glumly in her wake. She slipped past George
III last Wednesday. True, Richard Cromwell lasted until he was almost 86
(1626-1712), but he reigned for only nine months, he didn’t die in office,
and he probably would have got quite sniffy if you had called him a monarch.
Forget him.
Hurrah for Ma’am. Long may she reign over us. May she sit on that throne for
so long that Prince Charles becomes an “appalling old waxwork” himself, and
Prince William starts to look exactly like Prince Edward. Nobody, possibly
bar them, could ever want her to hang up her crown.
The same, however, is not true for all such icons of longevity. After 48 years
of dictating in Cuba, Fidel Castro has suggested that he might be ready to
call it a day – and he’s not the only big name who is rather overstaying his
welcome. Some, if you like, are cultural bed-blockers. They fill vital
positions in the national psyche that are ripe for renewal. It’s time to put
them out for pasture. If you’re listening, guys: let it go.
The Archers Among vast chunks of the British public, the theme tune to The
Archers is three seconds long and ends with a click. Do we really still
need “an everyday story of country folk”? Are there now, in fact, more
characters in The Archers than there are actual farmers in Britain?
After 57 years, the whole concept seems deeply weird. A soap opera is no
longer somebody going: “Arrr! Oi think ee might be an ummersexual!” in the
voice of Wurzel Gummidge, while the soundman cues up the noise of a tin
bucket being used to kill a chicken.
Giorgio Armani This is less to do with Armani’s style-icon clothes than
with his general existence as an oldish, silver-haired Italian bloke who is
into fashion. What with the fashion world apparently brimming over with
oldish, silver-haired Italian blokes, it is felt that this one has been at
the top too long. So there you go, Giorgio. But where are the young,
silver-haired Italian blokes to take over?
David Beckham As a footballer, we possibly still have a use for him. As
a national icon, he’s a bit old hat. There will come a time, perhaps quite
soon, where he will suddenly be one of those creepy old gents who are always
taking their tops off and look a bit like they’re made of wood, like Sting
or Iggy Pop. Once that happens, we’ll respect him only for what he thinks
and says, which may be a problem, as he doesn’t think anything and
everything he says sounds like Orville.
Tony Benn The old boy would probably have lasted a lot better if there
weren’t so many other little Benns suddenly popping up all over the place,
like the political world’s answer to the Bedingfield family. It’s hard work
being a socialist firebrand on the one hand and a society patriarch on the
other. True, Tony Benn trod a great and admirable pioneering role as an
incredibly posh person who pretended not to be one while still keeping his
home in Kensington, but today that just makes him the 1970s equivalent of
David Cameron. God, he’ll hate that.
Bruce Forsyth Bruce Forsyth is the TV presenter whom producers come up
with when they stop thinking. Poor Tess Daly. Check out the pair of them on Strictly
Come Dancing with dispassionate eyes, and you might as well be watching
telly from some institutionally sexist tinpot bit of Latin America. Aren’t
we beyond this sort of thing as a nation? Old man accompanied by shimmering
dolly bird? His only great remaining strength is not being Vernon Kaye.
Hugh Grant Frankly, Duckface had a lucky escape. If you were a girl in
1994 (and your correspondent, to be fair, was not) it is pretty much a given
that your mother wanted you to marry him. Proof, finally, that your mother
isn’t always right. There was a nice stab at reinvention a few years ago,
true enough, circa About a Boy, but his subsequent lapse back into
floppy Borisness deserves to be punished. The brother/sister thing with Liz
Hurley verges on the distasteful, and he really ought to have done better by
Jemima. Time to move to LA, fake an accent, and get a part in an HBO drama.
Germaine Greer Hardly anybody under 40 knows this, but you were once
supposed to fancy Germaine Greer. Devastatingly clever, friendly with rock
stars, forever getting her kit off – and she was the first feminist who
didn’t look like Christopher Biggins. Trouble is, read The Female
Eunuch and you can sort of see why we ended up with Samantha from Sex
and the City, and why “being a feminist” basically turned into “being
cool with lap-dancing”. Lord knows, it must be depressing for her, but
that’s no excuse for her recent forays into reality TV and books about boys.
Let it go, love. Take up knitting.
Sir Patrick Moore The unique stargazer-in-chief, and never more iconic
than when he was a disembodied bemonocled head of the Games Master in that
kids’ TV show, circa 1991. A nation’s ambassador to space should be a touch
otherworldly, it goes without saying, but Sir Pat has been the little green
men’s first impression of Britain on The Sky At Night since
1957, and possibly it is time to replace him with somebody just a little bit
less otherwordly. Brian May, perhaps.
Kate Moss Still undeniably very beautiful from most angles, despite
having gone through a rather – ahem – “Kings Cross” phase this year. But
does she really still deserve her pole position as the nation’s foremost
female style icon? She’s been there for ages, but as long as she remains,
all pretenders are scared away (Sienna Miller did put up a brave fight, but
was seen off, many fashion insiders reckon, due to actually having a very
boring face). Still, Kate herself is obviously bored with the role. With all
those waistcoats, and that Garth from Wayne’s World haircut,
she must be taking the piss.
Jeremy Paxman Are you even listening any more, Mr Paxman? Are you? Come
off it! You’re just rolling your eyes, aren’t you? You’re just preparing to
say “Oh really?” in a sneering sort of way, whatever the answer is. That
poor Government chump there, he could say, “I had sausages for dinner, with
a bit of mash” and you’d say, “Sausages? Mash? Are we really supposed to
believe that?” straight away, without even thinking about what sausages or
mash are. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? Come off it. Must I ask you again?
Sir Cliff Richard Starting to go a bit Roger Moore: his lips, skin and
hair are all exactly the same colour, and it is almost impossible to see
where one ends and the other begins. He has done well, until now, in filling
the cultural gap where Jesus ought to be (celibate, sin-free, a big deal at
Christmas), but the older he gets, the harder this will be to pull off. See
also: Jimmy Saville, Tony Blair.
Anne Robinson Poor Anne Robinson. Whatever happened to that sparkling,
sardonic, devastating wit that Points of View? She was amused and
amusing: inclusive, clever, and at least as mature-lady-sexy as anybody on Dallas,
or Dynasty, or whatever it was that came next. For any boy who grew
up in the 1980s, it was hard to believe she never knew Simon and Garfunkel.
And now look at her. A parody dominatrix in a Goth coat. She has become the
nation's version of the mother-in-law you hide from in the kitchen at
Christmas, spluttering arbitrary and slightly disconnected rudeness at
anybody who dares to pop by the lounge to see if she fancies another cup of
tea. She fooled us all by buying a completely new face a couple of years
ago, but we shall be fooled no longer. She is the Weakest Link. Goodbye.
Jonathan Ross Leaving aside that the BBC could sack him and buy Burkina
Faso instead, Ross still grates. The British public, surely, has an
increasingly limited interest in who he plays tennis with, what sort of sex
he likes, and his unfailing habit of, when a bit bored, telling a guest that
he is an “exceedingly good looking man”. The Radio 2 show remains great when
you are in the car: in TV terms, he should retreat back to Barry Norman
levels, and shy away from attempting the full Beadle.
The Spice Girls Oh, where to start? They used to be like the girls from
the estate, who made you blush when you walked past the bus stop. Geri with
her weight fluctuations, Scary with her dirty laugh, Posh with the way she
genuinely thought she was posh, while dressing entirely in clothes from
Next. And now? Their whole point has fled along with their body fat. This
time around they all look perfect and utterly, self-righteously nuts, and
I'm just not sure we have the strength to go through it all again. We've
moved on. We have Girls Aloud now. They're much easier. We aren't even
expected to know their names.
Twiggy The point of Twiggy, in as far as your humble correspondent can
make out, is that she was born in the 1940s, and, six decades later she
doesn’t look a right state. Thus, along with her near-peers Joanna Lumley
and Helen Mirren, and despite presenting a façade of female empowerment, she
is nonetheless a symptom of a regressive male-dominated society that seeks
to control notions of female beauty in such a fashion as to make them
recognisable only when they conform to a Barbie-based standard. Plus, Elle
Macpherson and Cindy Crawford are getting on a bit, too.
Barbara Windsor Old lady. Has bosoms. Is this really still interesting?
We think not. Perhaps we confuse the real person with her own EastEnders
character but then, apparently so does she. If anybody else was consistently
abandoned, ignored and avoided by everybody who knew them, they might take
the hint. But not Peggy Mitchell, who even once managed to get dumped for
Pat Butcher. In the end Frank had to fake his own death to get away from
her, and it still didn’t work.
Led Zeppelin Should have known better. For a whole generation, Led
Zeppelin were merely a back catalogue, a collection of rock myths, and the
inspiration for the good bits in the Spinal Tap film. They were this ancient
band who had meant it, who had said they weren’t coming back, and made Mick
Jagger look even more desperate every day that they didn’t. And now? It’s a
wonder they aren’t releasing Stairway to Heaven as a Christmas
single. Or a ringtone.
And finally...Scotland?
Royal figures
The longest-serving monarch ever: Pharaoh Pepi II Neferkare of Egypt,
whose reign lasted 94 years.
The longest-serving British monarch:Queen Victoria (64 years)
The tallest English monarch: Edward I, 6ft 3in (1.9m).
The most absent: Richard the Lionheart spent more than 95 per cent of
his time away from England.
The most lavish: the fourth Moghul Emperor, Jahangir, of India, had 300
royal wives, 5,000 other women and 1,000 young men.
The fattest: Tonga’s King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, 33st (210kg). He
eventually lost 10st to set a national example.
