My Fantasy Girlfriend - Mrs Peel

I suggested last month that Lt. Gay Ellis of Gerry Anderson's UFO was perhaps my first flesh-and-blood crush, but NO, that's rubbish, of course. I think every hetero Englishman old enough to remember the '60s (and perhaps those just a bit younger, too; I'm sure they were doing re-reruns well into the '70s) has an erotic fixation on Steed's coolly sexy sidekick from The Avengers, Emma Peel.

Heck, her influence even spread to America: there's a section in Tarantino's original script for Pulp Fiction (excised from the final film) where, at the beginning of Vincent and Mia's date, she quizzes him on his pop culture tastes, and one question - I think it's "Which woman do you fantasise about being beaten up by?" - produces the answer "Emma Peel from The Avengers."

She was, of course, very calculatedly crafted to be an ultimate fantasy woman by the show's producers. It is said that even her name was chosen as a sly pun: M Appeal=Man Appeal. Although her first name, in fact, was rarely used. I've always had a bit of a weakness for the name Emma (I wonder if it can be traced to this programme, or if it was an entirely independent predilection), but Steed almost invariably referred to her as "Mrs Peel". Perversely enough, this was a key part of her appeal: although she was the sexiest woman on the planet, she was also sexless - determinedly chaste and glacially unattainable (I worry that this 'challenging' template may have imprinted itself too deeply on my pre-adolescent brain). Her husband - a spy or a test pilot or an explorer or somesuch, I forget quite what - was missing, presumed dead, on some distant continent; but she remained unwaveringly loyal to him, stubbornly hoping for his eventual return (and indeed, he did - improbably! - reappear, to justify writing her out of the series after 3 or 4 seasons). There was ostensibly a frisson of attraction between her and Steed which they were both too noble to act upon; but I have to say, to me their exchanges seemed less like flirtation and more like the teasing of long-time co-habitees (brother and sister perhaps, middle-aged but unmarried, still living together).

Rather as with my earlier (marionette!) crush, Penny Creighton-Ward, Mrs Peel was an unlikely superspy: highly intelligent, independent, and resourceful, adept with firearms and in unarmed combat, cool under pressure - and a stylish dresser (oh my god, those catsuits!). Ah yes, and the casual hauteur, that 'unattainability' thing - a dangerous quality for a boy to get addicted to!

The character was all the more compelling, I'm sure, for being played by Diana Rigg - no mere eye-candy but a rather fine actress, and a woman who in her own person exuded much of the same coolness, elegance, and intelligence that distinguished Mrs Peel.

Darn it - Emma Peel was quite simply the ideal woman. No-one else - whether real or fictional - could ever equal her. It is a strange curse that we middle-aged, hetero British men have to bear: knowing that we are forever doomed to a sense of faint dissatisfaction with the women in our lives.