Will Stony get a rocky ride from British blokes?

The Diary is quivering with excitement over the imminent UK launch of Mills & Boon’s Stony Man fiction series for men.

Huddled in their damp cagoules on buses up and down the land, seven-stone weaklings will at last be able to fantasise that they are a steely-eyed, lantern-jawed hero, casually blowing away international terrorists with one hand and ripping bodices with the other.

But is Stony Man really a character the average Brit will be able to identify with? The Diary couldn’t help dreaming up a few more apposite names for a home-grown hero. Moany Stan, perhaps. Or even Stony Bloke.

And when his bus broke down, of course, he’d be Stony (Walk) Man.

Perhaps Mills & Boon should consider launching an offshoot for the so-called “chemical generation”, called Stoned Man. Or, if that seemed a bit too radical, maybe it could put out a series based on a swashbuckling New Labour spin doctor.

Would “Tony Man” catch on? Perhaps his first adventure could be entitled “The Temple of Dome”.