Men you'd like to pop the question to?

So, if I'm writing about men and love, I guess you might like to know where I am coming from, hormonally speaking. This survey from the Romantic Novelists' Association was published a few weeks ago, but what better way to celebrate a new blog on a rainy London afternoon than to think about HUNKS. These are the men voted as the top Romantic Heroes by RNA members (who range from extremely glamorous Mills & Boon romance writers, to people like me who write with uncombed hair and in unironed tracky bottoms). So here is their Top Ten. You will realise soon that I am not in whole-hearted agreement...

1. Johnny Depp

Nah. Not for me. I've always found him a bit...ferrety. Then again his recent donation to Great Ormond Street hospital after they treated his daughter for kidney failure, has elevated him way above the average Hollywood egotist. But despite the general fabulousness of this action, I still think he's too pouty. Some photographer has obviously told him to pucker up every time he poses and frankly it doesn't turn ME on. Whereas I always put my tongue to the roof of my mouth when I have my picture taken as it seems to reduce the incidence of hamster chin.

2. Daniel Craig

Getting a tiny bit warmer. I once read a description of him as a Human Nik Nak (a corn snack available in a variety of flavours: my personal favourite is the Spicy Nik Nak). But he definitely had a certain something in that shower scene in Casino Royale. As himself, though, I get the impression that he's a moaner.

3. Sean Bean Girls, girls, what are you thinking? So far I'm really not feeling the lust. I mean, he looks like a cartoon of beefcake. Look at that jaw. And the hair could do with a wash. OK, I did find some cropped hair shots on google too, but they just emphasised the fact that the part of his face below the lips is the same size as the bit below them. That's not normal, is it? I have just looked in the mirror and it's definitely not normal.

4. Richard Armitage

He hasn't really registered on my hunk radar. OK, so he smoulders somewhat, but that costume makes him look like the bloke on the motorbike who hangs out with Matt Allwright on TV's Rogue Traders. And I don't fancy him either.

5. Hugh Jackman

I am really beginning to worry about myself. The thing is, last time I checked I wasn't a lesbian, or even especially bicurious, but with the exception of a very slight tremor over our Daniel, it just ain't happening for me. Hugh is nice enough but if he was serving me my Merlot on a Friday night I wouldn't take a second glance.

6. Colin Firth

Yeah, OK. I probably would. He actually seems to be improving with age - and part of me thinks he might be the total opposite of all the buttoned up, prissy, pompous farts he plays.

7. Alan Rickman

No, No, NO! Why? Have my fellow novelists been reading too much Harry Potter slash fiction? He looks like the nice chap who sells undercoat at my local hardware shop.

8. Pierce Brosnan

I didn't like him as Bond, but he looks quite a laugh here. And I like him most because of his wife.


These pictures were in the Daily Mail earlier this year. He looks like Timmy Mallett, bless him, and she is - shock horror - actually plump by normal standards (rather than the 'plump' that movie stars suffer from, which involves going up from a size zero to a size two), yet he still loves her to bits. To read some websites and the Mail, you'd think this was an act of self-sacrifice on a par with donating your heart and lungs while still alive to a random stranger. It's not. It's just really rather real and romantic.

9. George Clooney

Mr Nespresso himself. What a smoothie. Probably my favourite so far. Any man who can still look attractive in a portrait rendered entirely in jellybeans has to be something special.

10. David Tennant

Last but definitely not least. I *heart* David Tennant. Have done ever since Casanova. Proper lush. Even in this off-guard picture, with a proper grump-face, he is very sexy.

***

Takes all sorts, I suppose. But I am surprised at how off-side I am. Perhaps it's because I am a rom-com writer so I like my chaps to have a bit of humour, that element of offbeat imperfection. But where is Damian Lewis (a man who achieved the seemingly impossible by managing to seem attractive when playing Jeffrey Archer)? And Matthew Macfadyen? And his Spooks successor Rupert Penry-Jones (who, fact fans, is the son of the long-suffering Marjory from To the Manor Born)? There is no justice in the world.

So who is right? The others - or me?