Yesteryear's hepcats

Last week the NME published its annual Cool List, providing zeitgeist hunters everywhere with a dowsing rod for locating this year’s hippest guys and girls (this year, Beth from The Gossip, which is almost vomitously behind the times). The NME has always been the yardstick for what’s hot and what’s not, as this recently-unearthed document proves: it is the first ever NME Cool List, drawn up by the magazine’s writers in 1892.

1. Queen Victoria
She may not be an obvious choice, but Victoria once again proves that being cool is not about being obvious – her frumpy frocks and moody looks are quite simply so hot right now. She has confounded expectations ever since she first picked up her sceptre in 1837, and her no-nonsense attitude to the Crown takes no prisoners. Vicky proves you can wear a tiara and still rock as hard as the boys.

2. Jack the Ripper
While he may not be as fresh as when he first emerged on the scene, he’s fresher than the corpses he leaves behind! Saucy Jack worries parents the length and breadth of Britain, and his bad boy image and stylish ‘Gladstone bag’ means he’s still the favourite of our nation’s youth. He’s also made East London the place to be and to be seen once again this year. “He’s a bad influence”, wails the Police Gazette, but his dalliances with the law and flagrant disregard for human life are as cool as Jacob Perkins’ vapour-compression refrigeration system.

3. William Gladstone
With his trademark mutton chops and devil-may-care approach to the question of Home Rule, ‘Billy G’ does his thing without worrying what the Liberal Party think – a true maverick in the old school style.

4. Karl Marx
The thinking woman’s crumpet even in death, Red Karl didn’t get the nickname ‘the Rhineland Renegade’ for no reason. Das Kapital may have put the ‘difficult’ into ‘difficult second album’ syndrome, but who doesn’t want to get inside this guy’s mind?

5. Arthur Conan Doyle
All the boys want to be him, all the girls want to be with him. The Byron of Baker Street has made mystery sexy again.

6. Thomas Edison
Edison practically invented music – he certainly invented the phonograph, and he keeps innovating while the competition are still fumbling around with lutes and sheet music. Get with the program, daddio!

7. Benjamin Harrison
The 23rd President of the USA. His idiosyncratic take on civil service reform, not to mention the reciprocity provisions he has forced into America’s new tariff legislation mean he’s sure to be one of America’s best-remembered Presidents: definitely not just a flash in the pan, Benjy’s here to stay.

8. Johan Julius Christian "Jean" Sibelius
Crazy name, crazy guy.

9. Friedrich Nietzsche
The success of Freddy’s ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ proves Superman is still a summer blockbuster. Not using your will to power is sooo 1891.

10. Edvard Munch
Bipolar disorder is chicer than chic this year – this Norwegian painter is one to watch: his new work should be a scream.