Forget Mr Clooney, ladies love Spock, Ed and Jezza
Listeners to Woman’s Hour were asked to name their biggest heartthrobs. the answer was, of course, George Clooney. except it wasn’t.
Clooney has been a certain kind of romantic dream for yonks – good-looking, charming and slightly unattainable, what with being married and soon to be the father of twins.
Having met him, he’s a bit smug and gets huffy if you fail to be impressed when he boasts of attending a G8 summit with Bono and Matt Damon, and instead wonder out loud what sort of expertise the three Horsemen of Fashionable entertainment Politics brought to that table.
Anyway, hurrah for radio 4 listeners, who disdained convention and let their freak flags fly.
there were votes for star trek’s Mr spock, Xena: Warrior Princess, Des Lynam and several Disney princes. Peter noone of Herman’s Hermits was named, as was Paul nicholas from ancient sitcom Just Good Friends, with the defiant footnote ‘especially now he’s 72’.
What shifts the gears in the human heart? it doesn’t seem to be accomplishments and power any more because a lot of women cast votes for ed Balls, following in the footsteps of Jeremy Vine on strictly Come Dancing by winning hearts while waggling hips, even though dancing seems to come as naturally to them as bricklaying does to jellyfish.
Bad boys no longer have it their own way, either. tom Hardy grunting through murder, psychosis and unbrotherly behaviour in taboo has his admirers, but so does Little Jimmy Osmond’s Long Haired Lover From Liverpool – even though Jimmy did not have long hair, was from Utah and, given that he was a nine-year-old Mormon, was probably not much of a lover.
these are heartthrobs that will never be cool but are genuine, heartfelt loves that have not dared speak their name, until now.
A friend of mine calmly confessed to a grand passion for Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud. Another has always lusted after hoarse rocker Bryan Adams – the man responsible for the soundtrack to your drunk midweek minicab rides home – since hearing that ‘he bought the noisy pub next door to his house in order to close it down’.
A friend who worked on University Challenge said that when Jeremy Paxman developed a honking cold that went on for weeks, female researchers would fight over who could bring him hot ginger drinks.
the bad news for Benedict Cumberbatch is that, despite the reptilian eyes and worst hair in the world, he now seems a rather vanilla choice.
i laughed out loud when someone nominated Liberace as her secret crush, but it turns out his politesse, passion for mink coats and mastery of bejewelled boogiewoogie makes him ping on more than one female radar.
Mere death need not diminish appeal: Dudley Moore and Peter Cook are also on the ‘would’ list.
Perhaps the diversity sends up cheery smoke signals about female confidence. But sometimes gaining sex star ratings requires a very specific set of skills.
‘steve Coogan,’ said a happily married mother of two. ‘But only if he’s dressed as the singer tony Ferrino’.