Eddie Izzard once said that the difference between being a complete twat and super cool is about five or ten minutes.
Working your way around a clock face the most of us hang around at about six o'clock. If you're at three o'clock, then you're just uncool and if you're at nine o'clock you're really pretty sweet.
Eleven o'clock is probably reserved for Rock Stars and half past eleven somewhere for the legends.
One o'clock is where the train spotters and stamp collectors congregate and half past twelve for the ultra creepy.
Good ol' Eddie goes on to explain that around about midday is a slippery slope because upon getting so cool, you can quite easily go just that few too many minutes too far from super dooper Marley-Morrison-Sinatra awesome to... Cyrus-Bieber-Gaga level twattishness.
It can be a fine line between the two and if you go too far then you immediately fall from the cool to the uncool. Eddie implied that one can not go backwards from the one o'clock uncool to the eleven o'clock cool because one has to follow the hands round in a clockwise fashion to get back into double figures.
Without going over board with the musician analogy we can see the Beatles achieve the twelve o'clock switch when comparing themselves to a profit, U2 managing it over a few years just by failing to smile in front of cameras. Politicians cross the meridian very quickly and stay there while actors can repeat the process a number of times without being permanently pinned a prat. There are of course exceptions...
How do artists get away with it?
Artists can strike a healthy ten or eleven and stay there, forever. The likes of Ai Weiwei and Banksy have struck a perfect balance of creativity and controversy to cement their legend status. They've pissed off the one and two o'clockers while befriending everyone else. Even Tracy Emin or Salvador Dali can tempt and toy with the twelve o'clock limit but still, can't quite cross it no matter what they do.
What about writers? They can be terrible, just bad at what they do but there's a difference there because they'll keep coming back in the same way musicians manage it. Flip the coin and you'll find actors and artists emote a forgiving atmosphere from the public.
Writers don't get much past seven o'clock. Thomas Hardy can certainly sneak round past nine but when you look at Rowling or Clancy, there's enough people on both sides of the clock to balance out around six, just like the rest of us.
Indeed, if a writer does happen to pass ten, then he or she will be sure to fly into twat territory in no time before spinning back round into the fours and fives.
Hands off approach
A sort of passive approach exists for those between six and eleven where the uncool one to fives appear to force their agenda. Nerdy four eyed swats used to be uncool but inside a single generation they've slowly ticked their way all the way round to a steady nine o'clock, happy and content in their space if at three or nine.
Celebrities famous for being famous, is a new thing. They, along with the supermodels, the bankers, politicians and media have had to employ monstrous marketing and advertising machines just to try and keep out of the low digits but low, they are. Should any of them strike one o'clock, the machine kicks in and cranks the hand onwards and upwards until about seven when it slams back to one again.
This might appear to indicate that unless you have one of these publicity machines backing you up, then you're better off not caring about the clock. Trying to get into the nines and tens is a sure fire way to get into ones and twos.
Actors and writers might just be the ones that aim to be like the rest of us, hanging around six. These two just play and dream, enjoying their own art for art's sake and if they're good at it, then they might see a nine or ten but certainly won't see a one or two unless they're trying very hard to do so.
#cool #clocks #artists
