A living heritage inventory will invite communities to nominate treasured British traditions, forcing the nation to decide whether queueing counts if somebody keeps saying they are only waiting for a friend.
Living heritage receives a nomination form
Eligible practices include festivals, storytelling, crafts, games and food. Experts believe this covers everything from Highland dancing to putting a decorative tea towel over the smoke alarm.
Dr Euphemia Thatch-Pudding, Keeper of Things Nan Did, said: “Heritage lives through participation. For example, basket-weaving survives because people practise it, while the office Christmas quiz survives because Martin owns the laminator.”
Communities must support each nomination. Morris dancers have already submitted bells, sticks and 400 signatures obtained by blocking the entrance to a village shop.
Meanwhile, officials will divide traditions into seven categories. The British habit of discussing the weather belongs under oral expression, nature, spirituality and emergency conversational medicine.
Culinary practices may also qualify. Early contenders include Sunday roast, chips at the seaside and eating a supermarket sandwich over the sink to avoid creating a plate.
The final inventory will safeguard national culture for future generations. Those generations can then ignore it until a television presenter visits in a wax jacket and calls it a vanishing art.
Read the real story: the living heritage inventory announcement.
The public has been urged to nominate traditions before they disappear. Leading candidates include saying cheers to a bus driver, retaining a drawer full of cables from extinct appliances and beginning every DIY task by standing with hands on hips for several minutes. Historians expect all three to be judged too modern.
