Icon, I saw, I voted

A: What do David Attenborough, Paul McCartney and Morrissey have in common?

Q: They're living icons.

Okay, let's get it out of the way now. If ever a word has been devalued by inappropriate use, it's icon. The BBC haven't helped with this poll. And I'm not helping by mentioning it. But, y'know ...

The Beeb asked for nominations for living icons. According to their web site, the criteria for nomination were fairly slack (which reflects their use of the term icon, I suppose).

The nominee must:

• be alive
• have been born in the UK or is now living there
• have made an impact on 'British cultural life'. (Note that the impact doesn't necessarily have to be positive.)

The individuals were ranked by the number of nominations with the top three going through to a vote.

So, who got close but no cigar? The runners up are:

4. David Bowie
5. Michael Caine
6. Stephen Fry
7. Kate Bush
8. Alan Bennett
9. Kate Moss
10. Vivienne Westwood

Now the fight is one between the top three—Sir David, Sir Paul and plain old Morrissey.

Voting closes on 11 December and the winner will be announced on 16 December