Several reders have pointed out that the late Sir Alan Bates was born in…

Derbyshire!

Bates seems to illustrate the male side of the “pretty but not sexy”

business I raised in a column some months ago. I always thought him an

extremely attractive man, and supposed that if I were a woman, I would have

some serious fantasies about him. Yet on the odd occasion I have raised

this topic with women, I have got blank stares in return. “Alan Bates? No,

nothing special. Why would you think that?….” It’s an aspect of the

Mars-Venus thing. Women generally have no clue what kind of woman men find

attractive, and vice versa.