I just started watching season 7 of BBC’s “Mi-5” (“Spooks” to the UK audiences). It’s a pretty fantastic show, with a cast of characters who are smarter, more badass hybrids of James Bond and Jason Bourne. Fellas, you’ll love it.  Characters come and go from season to season, the wingmen go missing and the Alpha-1s get blown up. So it goes. Luckily, with each loss comes a new face. This set of episodes introduces Richard Armitage as Lucas North, a recovered field agent who spent the last 8 years in a Russian prison. And boy, oh, boy! How lucky we are to have Lucas North.

Now, I have a bit of a crush on Richard Armitage. He was a stellar Mr. John Thorton in the adaption of Elisabeth Gaskell’s “North and South” (easily the most romantic on-screen kiss in history).  You should know by now I don’t hide the fact that am a sucker for those 19th century Brit-Chick-Lit heroes…

For the record, I don’t gush over celebrities. I can’t be bothered wasting my time fantasizing about the perfectly formed pectorals of some actor I’m never going to meet… but of course that doesn’t mean I can’t admire said pectorals when they’re flashed for audiences on the boobtube…

And yet, when Richard Armitage took his shirt off in episode 7.1 of Spooks, I totally missed the opportunity to drool. I was distracted by something else:

Is that a tattoo of William Blake’s etching “The Ancient of Days” on his chest?

Of course. Leave it to me to look at a semi-naked man and think masterpiece of Western Art.

And still they wonder why I haven’t found a rich husband…