Supremely sexy sixties

THE regularity with which Sean Connery comes first in all those (admittedly American) Sexiest Man In The World lists is a little suspicious. After all, the ex-007 will be 66 on his next birthday and has been known to wear rather dodgy looking rugs in his movies to make him look a little more youthful. All of which would seem to make it unlikely that he could pip Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas to the pin-up post.

Well, that's what I thought before last Monday when the Scottish actor, accompanied by his wife, Micheline, came to dinner at the K-Club in Kildare. They were staying there for a week on a golfing break and on Monday night were quietly having dinner with businessman Gerry McGuinness.

The very elegant Chryss Goulandns spied the trio and persuaded them to drop in on a dinner she was hosting for a group made up mostly of food writers and Waterford Wedgewood executives. Her husband Tony O'Reilly, who had been billed as our host for the evening, couldn't make it. The room fell completely silent when the very tall and charismatic Connery came in ... the general consensus was that even if the Scottish actor is bald and eligible for a bus pass, he still has what it takes.

The dinner was held on the eve of the finals of the Wedgewood Chef and Potter Competition, which is a slightly misleading name in that it conjures up images of competitors having to throw a pot and then fill it with some gourmet delight. What they actually had to do - and the list of finalists includes just about every great chef in the country, including the K-Club's own Michel Flamme - was take a plate from the Wedgewood range and devise a dish that would look best on it.

The three winners who will now go forward for the international leg of the competition are young Neven Maguire of MacNean's Bistro in Cavan, Dromoland's David McCann and Stefan Matz of Erriseask House.