Token Smokin’ Hottie: Pete Doherty circa 2003/04

I know. I know.

I started you off easy with Clive Owen and Wentworth Miller, throwing you hot, nuggety chunks of James Franco and all the moody, broody dark-eyed stares you could handle.

You blinked twice at Peter Saarsgaard but you could take it. After all at least he wasn’t a total junkie with an apparently constant greasy sheen on his mug, constantly snapped falling tits over arse or injecting some poor groupie, right?

And now.

Yep I do think Pete Doherty is hot. Please, allow me to explain.

Granted he is a junkie and probably has more drugs pass through him than your average meth lab.

Granted too that his approach towards hygiene appears to be… hmm, I think “English” is about as close as I’m going to get to a euphemism.

Granted further than a variety of facial sores/weeping wounds frequently appear to be on his face and granted still that the boy seems like he could be a bit of a spanner every so often.

But.

Firstly he was a member of The Libertines, absolutely one of my favourite groups of the past five years or so. Really quality. Before he was famous for being a smackhead and dating Kate Moss he was actually famous for being super talented.

Secondly the boy is kinda… sweet. He makes me want to put him in a bath and wrap him up in a fluffy towel. The guy could walk into your house with a needle in one hand and a 14-year-old groupie in the other and you’d still introduce him to your Mum because he would sit down and have a cup of tea with her.

Okay so he’d then shoot himself up with the gram in his pocket and get a blow job on the stairs but we all have faults.

Thirdly, despite how messed up he has become since his prime he still seems like a gentle sort who’d be a happy drunk and would at least have the good grace to pass out in a pile of his own vomit instead of mugging old grannies for their spare change.

Fourthly, he once quoted Siegried Sassoon at an award ceremony. I'm a sucker for a boy who likes his poetry.

But all this is irrelevant. Because this token smokin’ hottie entry isn’t really about Pete Doherty today at all. Because, Kate Moss aside, nobody really wants to go there these days.

I am not a great fan of Pete Doherty circa 2007 but I am a fan of Pete Doherty of 2003/2004.

When he was all hot onstage ho-yay with band mate Carl Barat.

When he appeared on the cover of Esquire and GQ dressed in a Savile Row suit and looking a million bucks.

These days, most of the time, you wouldn’t get change if you used him to buy a coffee.

Nevertheless. I do still cling to some faith that this little English muffin, assuming he gets his drug habit under control, reunites with former bandmates, reforms The Libertines and moves to Perth, could get it all back together again.

And if not, at least I’ll always have the GQ cover…