The decade is getting off to a very good start for post-midlife-crisis men. Last year, you will remember, was a bumper one for boys: Zac Ephron, Robert Pattinson, Aaron Johnson, the guys from Gossip Girl, the pouty ones in the Burberry ads. Brooding and not so brooding baby faces were the vote winners (I give you The X Factor's Joe McElderry and the naughty one in Skins).
This year, the kids are still in the picture - Johnson is going to be a father (wow), and Emma Watson's little brother, Alex, has joined the sulky stable of Burberry teen dreams - but our interest has strayed all the way to the opposite end of the spectrum. As of 2010, we want our crushes to be either beautiful toys or all man, born any time before 1960.
The king Hof ("hotter over 50") is Alec "fiftysomething" Baldwin. It turns out that our passion for the network executive in 30 Rock is not something weird, but incredibly perceptive and right in line with Hollywood thinking. Baldwin is now starring in It's Complicated, opposite Meryl Streep. He looks every inch his 51 years, with a paunch so tight, he walks like his waters have just broken, and a chest like a hog's back - but who cares?
Baldwin used to be fit back in the 1980s and he didn't even feature in our top 50. Now he has the Hof factor - because he's got over himself and given up trying to be a cute crowd-pleaser. Next to him, Brad Pitt looks like a narcissistic adolescent, Tiger Woods looks like a naughty boy in need of a spanking, and every man that Jennifer Aniston has ever been out with looks like Baldwin's nephew - the one he has been meaning to take out on the town, to show him how to talk to women and handle a martini.
Not all men over 50 have the Hof factor, obviously, because Hofdom requires them to have lived a full and bumpy life and come out the other side with their humour intact, confidence in fifth gear, ready to have fun. A refreshed capacity for naughtiness is key. Steve Martin - Baldwin's rival in the movie - is definitely old enough to qualify, but he's too much of a nice guy - plus he looks like Pinocchio's grandad. To be hotter over 50, you don't necessarily have to look better than you did at 30, but you must ooze the knowledge that you are better at knowing what women want and you'll make them laugh while delivering it.
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Bill Murray is a Hof (everything changed with Lost in Translation, made when he was 52). Hugh Laurie is a Hof (just). Kenneth Branagh isn't a Hof (he's only 49 and not much fun), but he has Hof potential because he's a load more attractive in Wallander than he was with greased torso in Frankenstein 16 years ago. The dad in Outnumbered could be a Hof, in the fullness of time. Note: Jack Nicholson is not a Hof, because he hasn't got better with age, he just hasn't given up. And Harrison Ford is the opposite: a non-Hof. It's the earring that's the giveaway.
The interesting thing about the Hof phenomenon, following hard on the heels of last year's boys, is the way it makes you feel about the men in between. Ben Affleck. Brad. Colin Farrell. Jude Law. Owen Wilson. Olivier Martinez. Orlando Bloom. Fallen asleep yet? I know. See, there's just no denying it.