I think we can all learn a little something from the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., I mean sure, he was an amazing orator, civil rights leader and minister, and if you don’t get choked up listening to his I Have a Dream speech you’re probably clinically dead, but most importantly brother knew how to wear a suit.

1) Narrow black ties with a sharkskin suit are always cool.

2) It is important to show the right amount of cuff when executing the always-tricky down-hammered double fingergun; 1/4 inch too much or too little and someone’s gonna lose an eye.

(do not attempt this at home. These are advanced fingerguns)

C) A short man –the good doctor wasn’t even 5’7″– can wear a longer jacket and a fuller pant, as long as the tailoring is disciplined.

D)  There is nothing hotter than integrity.

What?

I mean come ON, you knew it had to happen sometime. Eddie Izzard –Executive Transvestite cum Serious Actor and one dirty hot mess– is today’s Monday Hotness.

He doesn’t do the drag thing much anymore, now that he’s trying to be taken seriously as an Artiste (and fair play, every straight role I’ve seen him in has been pretty good.) but he’s got a fantastic personal style.

Do you know how hard it is for a solidly built guy to carry off a double breasted suit? The man deserves an award.

and also? There’s a bit of the Clockwork Orange to him. He looks kinda bad, I mean the good bad. That sort of bad that you don’t even tell your friends about but –fifteen years later– will still make you blush in shame every time you pass the rider mower aisle at Sears.

see?

And most importantly, he understands the necessity of a good set of false lashes. Mmmm. Fierce.

In his play Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare wrote that “Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.”

Bulltwaddle.

Daniel Craig in white trunks is the perfectest herald of joy.

…in my pants.

Because there’s nothing hotter than a bunch of Cumbrian farmers in neckerchiefs and wellies dancing to Tom Jones. (possibly NSFW as there are bare bottoms and one truly unfortunate yet blessedly blurry cartwheel)

I technically know that there must be worst places in the world than Oklahoma.

I am sure we have many superfantastic readers who live in the state responsible for making sure Texas doesn’t fall into the Gulf of Mexico, BUT I will say I do not relish The Sooner State. The first time I was there, when I was 10, I saw a dead German Shepard that looked just like our dog Argus. The second time I got attacked by a marauding flock of emu who tried to eat my eyeballs and got heckled because the friends I was with had tattoos. The third time was this weekend, on my way to back-to-back funerals in Arkansas. I needed emotional support. I needed Morrissey.

Okay technically I need a new pair of Valentinos and the leopard pony Zanottis with the scooped crocodile heel I’d been eying at Neiman Marcus Last Call for the past six months, but since I’m in denial about falling off the No Buy Wagon, I am not talking about that.

Oh how I love Morrissey. I love that somewhere in the world there is a fussier, vainer, more self-indulgent, self-impressed person than I, and I love that he has a pompadour.

Also? Girlfriend can wear a suit. YUM.

One of my favorite album covers of all time

I cannot imagine Morrissey voluntarily getting dirty. They must have held his hair product ransom.

Morrissey is my second favorite vegetarian, so this is extra hot.

Oh you just THINK I’m going to make the obvious joke BUT YOU’RE WRONG.

When we first fell in love.

This is loud. Loud but good.

First and foremost, all y’all carpet-bagging House watchers need to step off with your late-to-the-game selves. I don’t even watch the show (well, except if it’s on while I’m in a plane, and then it’s either that or the “That’s One Screwed Wildebeest” channel) but I have loved Hugh Laurie since I was seven.

I loved him even when he looked like this:

SURE the world laughed, but underneath that unevenly applied cream blush and rhumba panty neckwear I knew there lay a biscuit of great hotness.

and so there was

But my favorite Hotness will now and forever be Hugh Laurie as full-hearted, empty-headed Bertram Wilberforce Wooster in the Fry and Laurie adaptation
of P.G. Wodehouse’s delightful Jeeves and Wooster stories.

Tinkery Tonk indeed!

Wow. So I had NO IDEA The Monday Hotness would go over as well as it did so now I’ve decided to make it a regular feature, and who better to inaugurate the first regular edition than the man who, at time of writing, featured in over 20% of your Lists.

I give you the one, the only, the incredibly damp, Colin Firth:

you’re welcome.