When cool passes its sell-by date

Ministry of Sound is organising a New Year rave at the Dome, with room for 15,000 and maybe some central heating, if those youngsters dressed only in their underwear get really lucky. If you think this sounds about as exciting as your local Labour party having a Christmas barn dance, then you'd be right. The weird thing is, The Daily Telegraph would agree with you. They said: "While the club says it turns away hundreds of would-be customers each night for not being fashionable enough, those who claim to be in the know say the Ministry is too Nineties and too well-known to be cool."

This is putting it politely, of course - the last time that the Ministry turned anyone away for not being "fashionable" enough, henna tattoos were still a style statement and Kylie was still in Neighbours (oh happy time). But the fact remains that the Telegraph has just called the Ministry uncool. That's worse than defamation, that's the world turned upside down. That's like your mum saying "ew, your disgusting Prada bowling bag - that's so '99". That's not even a nail in the coffin of Ministry cred, that's four tons of turf and a tasteful marble slab.

This is all a bit mean - it's like pointing at a fat person and calling it fat. The first signs of the Ministry decooling happened a long, long time ago. The principal signs were these - the launch of their magazine, which left a nasty, merchandising-spin-off taste in the mouth (how Hollywood, how mainstream!), and the preponderance of the very young among their clientele (teens should be mascots only - if they're in the majority, you're no longer cool.) They weren't helped by the death of techno, and their footling, kid-sister attempt to jump on the garage bandwagon.

None of this is their fault, though, unless you're going to blame them for being greedy. All clubs have a built-in obsolescence, since we want them to be giant and spectacular, yet we don't want the whole world to have heard of them. What with humanity not being as stupid as, say, the dog kingdom, most places with a 1,000-plus capacity will, after time, be familiar to most people under 30. When the time comes, usually after about two years, that you can identify every DJ on their flyer, they are no longer cool. Getting new DJs in might stave off the dread moment for a while, but not forever, since just around the corner is the moment when yer under-30's parents have heard of them. Then no amount of DJ rejigging will save you.

Thus, Home is already dead (after a year), while Fabric (likewise one, but with a less predictable DJ line-up) has between two and three years left in it. Going global, even if it's only as far as Ayia Napa, is a bit of a greasy tightrope - it might look as if you're going to make it, but the laws of physics (or something) dictate that, sooner or later, you will fall off into the abyss. If it's bad news when the whole of England knows your name, it's that much worse when the whole of Europe does, even if it can't pronounce it properly.

Bars follow the same rules as clubs, without the DJs - if some people want to get in and can't, that's good. If everybody wants to get in, that's bad, even if they still can't. Hence the demise of the Met Bar, Teatro, The Groucho, The Social and Match. Bars have the added problem of interiors - they have to look very now, which by definition means that at some point, they will look very "then". A makeover, however, is the kiss of death, since it speaks of trying too hard. This is like a very hard sum - there must be an answer somewhere, but nobody knows what it is. Some places get round it by doing "generic scruffy", which worked for the Dogstar, but that's probably because it's in south London, where people are less demanding.

The good thing about all bars is that, from the moment they become uncool, there is a generous limbo period of two months, during which you can still visit said bar without being tarred by its uncool brush. If anyone sees you leaving, you can say you left something in there a month ago, or perhaps were visiting a country cousin. The same could not be said for accessories - from the moment they're dead, wearing them is like wearing any other dead thing. Unspeakably bad.

This is where you have to pay attention - anybody could tell you the bindi is out, but the trick is to have known that, ooh, maybe four or five years ago. Watch the celebs - the minute you see it in a magazine, bin it. And I don't mean Martine McCutcheon, Carol Vorderman, Anthea Turner or any other limb of the monster that is bad-telly-fame - whatever it is, if you're still wearing it when they get snapped, you have blown the whole business and might as well keep it for sentimental reasons. Nor do I mean Posh Spice, Kylie, TPT or any of those try-hards who can't differentiate between concepts of "thin" and "cool". No, I'm talking about proper stars, with proper time to shop, proper cash, a proper eye and proper friends giving proper advice. I'm talking Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss, that kind of calibre. The day after you see one of them with Chinese slippers, or a Burberry bag, a Fendi baguette or a tiny dog, you've got to throw yours away, painful as it might be. It will look like you're copying them, you see, when actually you want them to be copying you.

All that's left is food and words. Snacks frequently fall out of fashion, and you know this has happened when McDonald's starts doing a special range of them, with a "Mc" prefix - flurries, for example, were very cool until the McFlurry. Sorry, that's a joke - food does fall out of fashion, but if you like it, I suggest you continue to eat it, and if you don't like it, you should never have been eating it in the first place. I'm a bit of a snack purist.

As for words, you know they're out of fashion when it tastes wrong to use them. Go on, try saying "Doh", or "pukka" or "Not!". Try saying "Boyakasha" or "Is it because I is black?". It tastes horrid, doesn't it? Some things are best left to instinct.