Billy No Talent

If you were at school in the nineties, and are a fan of noughties punk, then you'll enjoy the title pun. I really should try and cater for a wider audience.

I went to concert this morning, given by an organist friend of mine. Though it isn't the main thrust of what I'm writing, I should add that, for the record, it was excellent - a programme of pieces that demonstrated both his talent, and the versatility of the the instrument he was playing, quite brilliantly.

But like I said, that's not why I'm writing today. Rather, being at the concert reminded me of an incident I'd forgotten about until now.

In this incident, I was in the audience for a play. (This blog post is making me sound like quite the cultural aesthete, n'est pas?!) Though it's unimportant, I may as well add, for completeness's sake, that the play was called Clock Heart Boy. In the play, a constant on-stage presence was a pianist, who accompanied the action with what seemed to be improvised tinklings (he wasn't reading any music) on a general theme. It was certainly an impressive display of musicianship.

So impressive, indeed, that it prompted a girl behind me to remark, to her friend (who agreed), that:

"There's nothing hotter than talent."

At that moment my heart sank. There's nothing wrong with their opinion on the face of it. After all, it makes a nice change for intellect to be forefront in a discussion of desirability. But I knew instinctively that they weren't telling the whole truth.

I suspect that what they really meant was:

"There's nothing hotter than some, very specific types of talent, of which proficient piano playing is one."

I know what you're probably thinking - that I'm getting dangerously un-scientific about all of this, and that, along with my last post's hunches I'm slipping down a slope, away from evidence-based reasoning, and into a big pile of rant.

But I'm almost certain that the talents they referred to included music (and not even all music - playing the tuba, for example, would not count), art (i.e. writing poetry, acting etc)... and that's about it. Basically, the list of permissible skills comprises any you might associate with a forlorn, sensitive and misunderstood sort of a guy. If you were to create and name such a person, he would surely be called Mr Darcy ScissorDepp - every heterosexual thinking girl's dream.

So where does that leave the rest of us? I, for example, feel I have certain talents, but I'm not sure that being able to make my eyes really wide, precisely date books just from their font and front cover, make a mean spreadsheet or normalise a three-dimensional complex wave function make me very desirable. I'm lucky though: I've found someone who's attracted to me - although I suspect it's in spite of, rather than because of, the talents listed sbove.

But what can be done for the less fortunate? After much thought, I believe this is a problem with which science can help. Well, not so much science as a good survey. A comprehensive list needs to be drawn up of good talents and bad talents. I'll start, and over the years - as soon as someone other than me reads this blog - it can be added to, until everyone, before taking up a hobby (trying to develop a talent) can refer to the list and see if it's worthwhile.

To get the ball rolling:

Singing, guitar playing (rock) and diary-keeping are all good. Playing cor anglais, speaking Klingon and blogging to no-one are all bad (of course, the distinction between diary-keeping and blogging to no-one is key, and cruel).

Of course, we'd best hope this project isn't too successful. After all without the spreadsheet enthusiasts and their like, where would we be as a society? In a disorganised mess is the probable answer, where the world's pianos fall into ruin, and the talents of the Mr Darcy ScissorDepps of this world go with them.