Stephen Hawking voted Britain’s greatest bloke

IT APPEARS the readers of the lads' magazine Nuts are not just interested in three things. They're interested in four  - girls, booze, cars and astrophysics. The magazine's readers have voted as their 'British Bloke of the Year' not Jeremy Clarkson, not Chris Moyles, not Frankie Boyle - but Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

The astrophysicist came top of a poll of 12,000 British lads aged 16 to 30 and, according to editor Dominic Smith, he was delighted to be chosen. "Thanks, Nuts. I'm pleased to hear that I'm Britain's favourite 'Nut'!" he is quoted as saying, possibly with a gun held to his head.

Says Smith: "We asked our readers to vote for the men they thought really set the standard in terms of exemplifying the very best of British. Stephen Hawking is an incredibly worthy winner, and I'm confident it was his work regarding gravitational singularities in the frame work of general relativity that tipped the balance in his favour."

Others who might be equally surprised to have made the Nuts Top 20 include London mayor Boris Johnson and the BBC's veteran wildlife presenter Sir David Attenborough. But there's no surprise that all three presenters of Top Gear - Clarkson, May and Hammond - make the list.

THE NUTS TOP 20 GREATEST BRITISH BLOKES:

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 ·