Beautiful people make way for real achievers

Do you have a sexy job? If you're a premiership footballer, a TV presenter or a celebrity chef, you probably think you do.
But the fashion of the times may be turning against these professions, at least in terms of their erotic appeal.
Cosseted by agents, groomed by makeover experts so they resemble each other, paranoid about contact with "real" people, self-absorbed to a repellent degree, poisoned by too much money and fearful of ageing - the people doing these jobs are far less sexy than they think they are.
Similar doubts were raised about the allure of actors this week after shabby showings from two who are supposed to be the trade's most desirable.
Brad Pitt was papped wearing the celeb uniform of aviator shades and clingy black T-shirt for a trip to the playground with his twins.
George Clooney celebrated his 50th by making a rather desperate Italian TV advert for a broadband provider in which he lurks around a park picking up girls.
Both are ageing. That shouldn't be a bar to allure, but they don't show signs of possessing the age-resistant charisma of the previous generation of actors (Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood), and it shows.
In the post-boom years, a culture encouraging excessive grooming and self-awareness is throwing the pampered professions in a rather unflattering light.
The new sexy jobs bespeak a certain dynamism but actually serve a purpose. It's the classic soot-smeared fireman fantasy, just in a different uniform. In 2011, physicists are sexy. So are landscape gardeners, sculptors, carpenters, farmers, nuclear power plant workers, builders, personal trainers and economists.
Presidents are sexy when they're in the Situation Room, less so when they are preening for the world's press at summits.
Professions ignored by the pernicious gaze of the mainstream media are sexy. In America, the pin-ups of the day are Navy Seals.
Following the hit of the century last Sunday, the nations' women have apparently fallen as one into a swoon at the thought of bedding a special forces operative.
The Washington Post reports there is already a sub-genre of romantic novels based on clinches with Seals, and publishers expect an increase in demand after the killing of Osama.
As the careers officer never tells you, the job you choose is vital, because it helps to attract the opposite sex.
Although plenty of young people will say they want to earn millions by 30, then retire, what they don't know yet is that doing nothing isn't attractive.
Mr Darcy, provided with £10k a year and the family estate to "manage", may have set hearts fluttering - but that was back in 1813. Today, only a woman with seriously limited imagination gets off on the idea of being romanced by a layabout.
Prince William, who doesn't need to work at all, has a sexy job, saving lives in his search-and-rescue helicopter. Once, William's riches and privilege alone would have made him hot.
Perhaps he realises the life of a royal freeloader - or doing any job that involves a man being "in make up" for much of his working day - isn't sexy any more.
For some of us, it never was.
The Independent