The very phrase ‘National Treasure’ must be written with capital letters striking a resounding gong at the first letter of each of the words of the doublet to endorse the importance of the status.
Over the last few days, I have given much thought to determining exactly what it is that takes someone from their status as a likeable celebrity, to the pedestal, the pantheon and garlands that await confirmation as a National Treasure.
It helps to have a slightly dodgy element sitting uncomfortably in the aperitif of your life story, but with a definitive edge of redemption available as the main course. A caper hinting at a touch of the roué is particularly welcomed.
In such territory, roaming the Garrick and the MCC with the charm and élan of a man who has studied the works of P.G. Wodehouse, we find Stephen Fry, an NT cut from the finest cloth.
Such is the esteem in which Stephen is held, that he can, from time to time, throw hissy fits by way of his Twitter messages and take ‘thoughts for a walk’ in an interview (even when such thoughts are distinctly off message), yet still be welcomed back, with much warmth, when he seeks our understanding by posting five page blog entries explaining how it was all just a silly bit of assiness and folderol.
So, is it all about wearing tweed, attending Oxbridge, and exclaiming “My giddy aunt” hither and thither?
It would be hard to pin those traits on Danny Baker, our second example of an NT. Danny has no criminal past (we’ll forgive the ‘Danny Baker After All’ chat show from the early ‘90s), and almost certainly does not employ a Savile Row tailor, but is embedded as an integral part of our lives. Self effacing, but aware enough to leave no doubt about who is in charge, Danny has no enemies, a rarity for one who has been in the employ of media for over thirty years. There isn’t a soul alive who doesn’t wish him well in his current battle.
Right then, to qualify as an NT, you have to be a bloke in your fifties, and a broadcaster and writer?
Kate Bush is none of the above, didn’t attend an Oxbridge college, and has never hosted ‘Pet’s Win Prizes’ (to date). I believe I witnessed the very vaguest association Kate has ever had with criminality, when I told off a member of her family for painting ‘The K T Bush Band’ on a wall outside Air Studios in 1976.
She takes decades to release a set of songs, rarely gives interviews, and disappears for years at a time in a manner that Lord Lucan would admire. Yet when one thinks of Kate Bush, it is with warmth and a sense of gladness that she carries on ‘being Kate’; never to appear in a cameo on East Enders nor as a judge on X Factor. She doesn’t try.
Here, I suspect, we come closer to understanding the qualifications that should be listed on the notional CV of the National Treasure. Number one – don’t try.
There is a list of pretenders to the throne who by striving too hard and with ‘push you out of the way’ earnestness lose all prospect of ever entering the kingdom of the NT.
Harry Enfield, Barbara Windsor, Annie Lennox, Bono and Bill Oddie; they want our love just a little too much.
So to be awarded the National Treasure accolade, it helps to have an air of vulnerability, a charm to which it is easy to relate, and a certain lack of grandeur of one’s place in the world. I’m dismantling the laboratory; we can’t make a National Treasure, because you can only become one by not trying.
Terence Dackombe, October 2010
This week I have :
Heard Neil Hannon sing the Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ whilst accompanying himself on a grand piano.
Learned that when setting off to cover the conflict in Abyssinia in the 1930s, Bill Deedes took so much luggage, one taxi was required for the young reporter, and another to take the overspill of his collection of riding boots, breeches, and chalk striped suits, all packed in cedar wood, zinc-lined trunks.
Been present when Mark Radcliffe picked out the winning ticket in a raffle of a jar of homemade chutney.
Started to work my way through the 55 (!) CD box set of ‘111 Years of Deutsche Grammophon’ and looking forward to reaching the works of the wonderfully named Wilhelm Furtwängler.
