When it comes to intelligence, you would be hard pressed to find anyone smarter than Professor Richard Dawkins or Professor John Lennox — two Oxford guys whose brains are so big, women drool over their cerebral 'lunchboxes'.

And I'm not kidding either. On Tuesday I was invited (God knows why — I only got four O-Levels) to attend a debate at the city's Natural History Museum.

The subject was Has Science Buried God? and walking there that evening, I imagined its audience would consist of me and a few university eggheads who, in daylight, you might wish to shield your children from.

But, suffice to say, I was gobsmacked — a queue of 'groupies' had already formed, snaking back as far as Parks Road.

Yet instead of looking like spinsters or librarians, I was floored by both their age and sex.

These were young people, in their late teens or early 20s, of whom at least half would have put girl band Girls Aloud to shame.

They were smart, leggy and confident, and once inside the museum, were barely able to control their drooling after Dawkins and Lennox had been introduced.

Now it's important here to explain that neither man is, physically speaking, a George Clooney or Brad Pitt (although Dawkins does possess a certain arrogant charm).

That said, I would swear there was enough sexual tension among the museum's vaulted colonnades to give Mary Whitehouse a hot flush (even in her grave).

And as far as the actual debate went, both men soared, their intellectual crossing of swords clearly boasting more than a touch of carnal posturing.

Not, I think, that they would have described it so — but sitting down among their reverent followers, it was clear that these two academic giants could, if they had so wished, given ladykillers Robbie Williams or Calum Best a run for their money.

After all, enough star-struck (and willowy) female fans queued afterwards to shake their hands, Daniel Craig might even have felt upstaged.

And that's when it struck me — how, if I had been born clever enough to attend Oxford University, utterly different (read: better) the path of my life could have been.

Leaving school at 17, I've had to spend 20 years reinventing myself so, on the surface at least, it sounds as if I know what I'm talking about.

But had I attended the university, instead of having to rely solely on my good looks alone to win friends and influence people, I could have become a kind of highbrow Cary Grant; effortlessly dazzling in academic debate and thus devastatingly magnetic to boot.

Maintaining the image of a jet-setter isn't cheap (the suits, the cars, the toiletries, etc), but if all you really need to impress is 20 billion brain neurons all firing at once, then I'm willing to give it a shot.

Indeed, it would be a huge weight off my mind.

So, always believing that it's never too late, I'd like to take this opportunity to apply to the admissions secretary of any one of the university's colleges to become a full-time student.

I may be simple, but I'm a hard worker, am good in a punt, and easy company at dances and tea parties.

Plus, I've got an O-Level in biology...