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.

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