In British English

British English

British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...

, the term the thinking man's crumpet refers to a woman who is intelligent and good looking, particularly one who has a high profile in the broadcast media. It derives from the slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

 use of the term "crumpet

Crumpet

A crumpet is a savoury griddle cake made from flour and yeast. It is eaten mainly in the United Kingdom and other nations of the Commonwealth. Crumpets are somewhat similar in appearance, not in flavor, to North American pancakes, where both have pores caused by expanding air bubbles.- Etymology...

" to refer to a woman who is regarded as an object of sexual desire.

The first person to be called "the thinking man's crumpet" was Joan Bakewell – by humorist Frank Muir

Frank Muir

Frank Herbert Muir was an English comedy writer, radio and television personality, and raconteur. His writing and performing partnership with Denis Norden endured for most of their careers. Together they wrote BBC radio's Take It From Here for over 10 years, and then appeared on BBC radio...

 following her appearances in high-brow television discussion programmes such as BBC2's Late Night Line-Up

Late Night Line-Up

Late Night Line-Up was a pioneering British television discussion programme broadcast on BBC2 between 1964 and 1972. Late Night Line-Up returned for a special one-off edition on BBC Parliament in 2008.-Background:...

. Bakewell is still synonymous with the phrase, but it has subsequently been applied to other high-profile women such as Anne Gregg

Anne Gregg

Anne Deirdre Gregg was a travel writer and TV presenter from Northern Ireland. She is perhaps best known for presenting the BBC's travel programme Holiday throughout the 1980s. She was one of the first people from Northern Ireland to become a national British television personality.-Early...

, Joanna Lumley

Joanna Lumley

Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...

, and Felicity Kendal

Felicity Kendal

Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...

, and, more recently, Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...

  and Gillian Anderson

Gillian Anderson

Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...

. In a poll in the Radio Times

Radio Times

Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...

 in 2003, Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. Lawson is the daughter of Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Vanessa Salmon, whose family owned the J. Lyons and Co. empire...

 received the most votes to be the readers' "thinking man's crumpet", with Carol Vorderman

Carol Vorderman

Carol Jean Vorderman MBE is a British media personality, best known for co-hosting the popular game show Countdown for 26 years from 1982 to 2008. In September 2011 she became a co-anchor of the ITV1 panel show Loose Women....

 in second place.

The phrase is occasionally reversed, to refer to "the thinking womans crumpet", notably as the tagline

Tagline

A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product , or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product...

 of UK-based women's magazine Filament

Filament Magazine

Filament is a quarterly magazine aimed at women, showcasing erotic photographs of men. Filament professes, through its tagline, to be "The thinking woman's crumpet". Unlike other magazines for women that have featured solely muscular men, Filament features a wide variety of men...

.

After the release of the 1997 film, Titanic

Titanic (1997 film)

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...

, Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet

Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...

was dubbed by one newspaper as "the sinking man's crumpet", but this moniker was repeated by only one other British newspaper.