Miss July: Lauren Pope

25 year old Lauren is from Torquay, a place I remember with some fondness due to a passionate stand up sex session in the shower of the yacht club in 1988.

Lauren seems to be that sad type a footballers' groupie and seems to have been "attached" to a disproprotionate number of them in the last few years. Never mind, she isnicely trim and has been reasonably pleasing on my wall this month.

Where are you from?

We have added a little counter at the bottom of the page which registers where people who look at the page come from and how many people are online. We have had over 67, 000 visits since late December and am currently running at 650 views a day.

In the few hours since we have put this new counter on we have had visits from 16 countries including one in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and two from different cities in Iran!

We are glad to know that our carefully selected girlie pictures are so popular (we are under no misapprehension that it's our deathless prose!)

Hello Aurora, Findlay, Blackburn and Andover!

French re-make showdown: Mon père, ce héros v My Father the Hero. Heigl v Gillain

My piece on Katherine Heigl (now there's a thought) got me thinking about who played her part in the French original. Now lumpy potato head, Gérard Depardieu was the eponymous father in both films Andre in the American one and André in the French one! His daughter was called Nicole (that reminds me of another girl I must feature!) in the American version (played by Heigl, 16 at the time) but Véronique (a much more evocative name!)in the French version.

The French daughter was played by 17 year old Belgian actress Marie Gillain, currently starring in Female Agents (2007).

So how do these talented young actresses shape up against each other?

Certainly Heigl is now the best known although maybe Gillain would have been more famous if she had won the role in The Lover (1991) which eventually went to "The Sinner from Pinner" Jane March (whatever happened to her?) As a result of her audition she got the role in Mon père, ce héros as the two films had the same casting director. Since then she has kept working, albeit in France, and even appeared in the bizarre French film version of Absolutely Fabulous, called naturelment, Absolument fabuleux (2001) playing the mousey daughter, Safrane.

Now Agent DVD and Agent Triple P have four critical factors: (a) face, (b) bust, (c) bottom and (d) legs. Now DVD favours (a) and (b) whereas we favour (c) and (d).

So let's see if we can use these criteria to give us a result.

(a) face

Firstly, Heigl. Big brown eyes, good cheekbones and very full lips. She does have a rather small retrousse nose and a tendency to get pudgy as her weight seems to vary quite a bit. But she is, no denying it, a lovely girl and so gets an 8/10.

Gillain's face is somewhat square and her eyes look a bit smaller. Her lips aren't quite as plump but her nose is nice and not too small. Still, a very good 7/10.

(b) bust

Not much to discuss on the Heigl front (er..). It's all there plus a bit. Twice. 9/10.

Gillain is not nearly as busty as Heigl but she is a nice shape and very perky so we can give her a good 6/10 (she is probably only worth a five but gets the extra point for nice nipples).

(c) bottom

Not much evidence for Heigl but from this shot she looks a bit flat and her hip/waist ratio isn't that good. A disappointing 5/10.

The evidence for Gillain is much clearer and in my limited experience this looks like a very fine specimen indeed. 9/10

(d) legs

Not many pictures of Heigl show her legs which is rather telling. From this paparazzi shot we can only give her 5/10.

Gillain is a very leggy specimen, however, and she is worth 8/10.

So if we total up the scores Heigl gets 27 and Gillain gets 30 so its a narrow win for Gillain.

Who would look good on your couch?

Probably Gillain from the rear and Heigl from the front (oddly the reverse of these two photos).

And there we have it; two intelligent and fine young actresses reduced to a collection of body parts. Who'd be a girl?

Black and White Babe of the Week 11: Katherine Heigl

Agent Triple P has just returned from Washington DC, more of which anon, and so feels that it is appropriate that BAWBOTW should be the luscious Katherine Heigl, who was born in DC nearly thirty years ago on November 24 1978.

Agent DVD and I have long been appreciators of Miss Heigl (which is pronounced Hi-gle not Hay-gle) since she was very much the best thing in Roswell (1999-2001). Agent Triple P had, prior to this, seen her in that fine piece of American cinema, Under Siege 2 (1995), as a feisty teenager and no doubt Agent DVD had seen her in My Father the Hero (1994) a totally unecessary remake of Mon père, ce héros (1991); both starring Gérard Depardieu.

We were both worried that she might disappear without trace following the cancellation of Roswell but after a string of forgettable TV movies she turned up on Grey's Anatomy (2005-present) which became a hit. Then she appeared in hit film Knocked Up (2007) and now commands $3 million a film. So much so that she declined to be nominated for an Emmy this year (she one last year for Grey's Anatomy) saying she hadn't had enough to do in the last series. Is she trying to get out or just get better scripts? Anyway ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson was worried enough last week to make a statement that she was staying with the show, Agent DVD will be relieved!

Girl with a pork pie

We were just leaving the South Bank exit of Waterloo underground the other night when we overtook a rather fetching young girl eating a pork pie. Now we can't recall ever having seen a girl eating a pork pie before (although they may up in the wilder, northernmost parts of Britain I suppose).

We think that a girl who eats a pork pie is probably a very good girl in all sorts of ways. Perhaps we should have sent in one of those dreadful texts that they have in London Lite: "Cute girl eating pork pie at South Bank Waterloo tube exit. Fancy some mustard?" I wonder if anyone actually comes forward and replies to them? Almost certainly not.

Anyway, here's to girls who eat pork pies. Far too many women are turning into vegetarians.

The Archduke trio: a shadow of its former self

Now, Agent Triple P has been going to the Archduke wine bar, near Waterloo station, for more than 25 years. The wine is, admittedly, rather overpriced, the clientele is on the older side, but it is very handy for Waterloo station.

The restaurant on the top floor was famous for its signature dish: The Archduke Trio, a collection of different, and variable from week to week, sausages. These sausages were very fine and were produced by a sausage butcher in SE1.

Today, however, we cannot recommend the Archduke Trio. Indeed, they don't even call it the Archduke Trio any more. There is a passing reference to having a "trio" of different sausages (rather then three the same) but it is almost as if they are embarrased by the name. And well might they be. The sausages served at the Archduke, having been some of the best in London, are now disgusting! They are soft, slimy bags of fat and cereal. Frankly they are inferior even to supermarket cafeteria sausages. Sausages should be meaty and firm not soft and squishy!

It's a disgrace and a sad reflection on what was a great and early wine bar in London. Sort it out!