Nuts
It’s that time of year again and I’ve watched the thing that they used to call cyberspace, as well as the physical press, go ape with the ubiquitous end of year polls.
Now, horrifyingly, one of the ones that has actually caught my eye is from the somewhat low brow, lowest common denominator, tits & football oriented UK lads mag ‘Nuts’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuts_(magazine)
Now, I’m not horrified by the topic (which strangely isn’t what you’d assume, ‘Top 20 Big Titted Birds Of The Year’ or ‘Top 20 Football Hackings’), which is quite simply, ‘Britain’s Top 20 Greatest Blokes’. A bit generic, a bit jingoistic perhaps – but nothing too upsetting.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/73516,people,news,stephen-hawking-voted-britains-greatest-bloke
The thing that has made me slightly concerned is that I agree with 8/20 of the choices, making me a bit more like the average ‘Nuts’ reader demographically than I’m really comfortable with.
Here’s ‘Nut’s take on the list:
1. Stephen Hawking
2. Daniel Craig
3. David Mitchell
4. David Beckham
5. Christian Bale
6. Jeremy Clarkson
7. Frankie Boyle
8. Boris Johnson
9. Sacha Baron Cohen
10. Harry Hill
11. Russell Howard
12. Simon Pegg
13. Sir David Attenborough
14. James May
15. Richard Hammond
16. Chris Kamara
17. Ian Holloway
18. Chris Moyles
19. Clive Owen
20. Lee Evans
Now, unfortunately, there’s not a lads magazine that caters for the liberal left wing, vegetarian, cookery show loving expat market, but if there was, here’s possibly the list that they’d compile (including the eight off of the ‘Nuts’ one).
Stephen Hawking - Quite simply a giant in his field.
Daniel Craig - Made Bond a badass. A great advertisement for being British - and a bit of a psycho.
David Mitchell - More middle class than corduroy and proud of it. Writes a great column in the Guardian.
Frankie Boyle - Taking savage wit to the nth degree
Boris Johnson - Top class buffoonery from the world’s only mayor elected for a bit of a laugh.
Russell Howard - Taking the Bristolian accent back from Justin Lee Collins.
Simon Pegg - For everything he’s ever done with Edgar Wright (Spaced, Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead). We’ll not mention everything else (How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, Run Fatboy Run) especially not if accents are involved (Star Trek, Band Of Brothers).
Sir David Attenborough - The greatest treasure in the crown that is the BBC.
Edgar Wright - For making Simon Pegg credible.
Johann Hari - Fearless eloquence defined. Made Richard Littlejohn look like an UTTER PRICK on Newsnight.
Charlie Brooker - Tell it like it is, hombre.
Jamie Oliver - Easy to knock, but he feels it.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Changing the world, one meal at a time.
Vince Cable - Not faultless, but might actually have a clue how to get us out of this economic mess if he was given the opportunity. Also basically responsible for the collapse of Gordon Brown after owning him at PMQ. “He’s gone from Stalin to Mr. Bean in six weeks”. Ouch.
Ian Hislop - A man whom has to have a fund set up because he gets sued so often. A worthy editor of Private Eye.
Stephen Fry - A thirty year career that’s basically faultless and a very brave public facing of his own demons on “The Diary Of A Manic Depressive”. A legend, already.
Peter Hook – Bassist for Joy Division and New Order, the only remaining founder-owner of the Hacienda and now has turned to recording that era for posterity in his highly readable memoirs. A punk, new wave and acid house historian of the very highest order.
Colin Firth – He’s the Olivier of our time and a great short story writer to boot. You wait and see, I bet he becomes a novelist.
Terry Wogan – Taking the piss out of Europe since the early 70’s.
Jeremy Paxman - Trying his damndest to defend democracy by scaring the living shit out of any politician that has the misfortune to cross his path.
