Whether it be butter sculpting or boot scooting, we all have a hidden talent
Aside from a well-fitting bra, a giant jar of Nutella and hearing Tucker’s Daughter after a few drinks, there are few things that give me more pleasure than a hidden talent. There’s a frisson that goes with having someone pegged as one person, then they whip aside the curtain and reveal a new side. It’s sexy, it’s fun and it’s just happened on the world stage courtesy of Taylor Swift.
Last year Swift was awarded an honorary doctorate from a New York university and joked she wasn’t “the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency”. Unless the “emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute”.
Jimmy Fallon called Swift’s bluff when she appeared on The Tonight Show this week to spruik her new album Midnights. He stuck a timer on, crunched the allotted cat calling time to 30 seconds and set her loose. The video is ace: from Scottish Fold through Abyssinian and Norwegian Forest to “cat that knocks pens off of desks”, the star nails her unlikely talent with a score of 24.
Just, wow. We already knew Taylor is a from-scratch jam maker but seeing her bona fides as a proud cat lady was fabulous. Much less creepy than that time Angelina Jolie demonstrated her expertise with switchblades to a silent talk show audience, and marginally more diverting than a hip swinging Colin Farrell showcasing on Ellen how to boot scoot, courtesy of his days as a Country Music Television line dancer.
Everyone has a hidden talent. They just might not recognise it. It’s the thing you do effortlessly that’s at odds with your publicly establishedskills. It’s perhaps quirky – butter sculpting, clog dancing or playing Tequila on a recorder through your nose, a la Today’s Alex Cullen – but could also be quietly unflashy. Rose grafting. Instantly memorising number plates (my accountant Chris.) Never forgetting the date of anything (you, Margie.)
It’s Jimmy Barnes making cooking videos. Margot Robbie being a tattoo artist. Neil Patrick Harris an award-winning magician. Geena Davis almost making the 2000 Summer Olympics as an archer, Vanilla Ice placing sixth in the world in jet skiing, Mike Tyson being a pigeon racer and the White Stripes’ Jack White an upholsterer.
Johnny Cash’s secret skill was a ripper. During his US army days the Man in Black was a morse code specialist. In 1953, monitoring communiques from his base, Cash was reportedly the first American to hear of the death of Joseph Stalin.
Along with being good at opening briefcases, Meghan Markle is a semi-pro calligrapher. In the olden days it wouldn’t have turned heads but now, with everyone’s handwriting decimated by keyboards, terrific penmanship is noteworthy. Although the malcontent duchess is probably recording a podcast as we speak, disowning the skill because it’s an archetype of being ladylike and genteel.
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