Dorothy, take a pot of Orange Pekoe to Cub Reporter Julie B. before she reads this, and add just a drop of the Tullamore Dew, if you please. Stand by with the vinaigrette.

*ahem*

Keira Knightley discusses her ideal sort of man at femalefirst.com.

Knightley’s ideal mate is ENIGMA actor MATTHEW MacFADYEN - the most manly man she has ever met. Describing her PRIDE AND PREJUDICE co-star, she says, “It was great working with him because he’s one of the few manly men.

“He’s not a pretty boy - he’s a man. It was such a lovely experience because Matthew is so romantic as MR DARCY.”

Better and better!

As the first green shoot of daffodil emerging through the snow heralds the arrival of spring, the arrival of BRIDE AND PREJUDICE on American shores is announced by the first of the big-name reviews, as Peter Travers reviews the film for Rolling Stone magazine. Mr. Travers seems lukewarm toward the film, but is clearly beguiled by Aishwarya Rai.

But first, take a look at the photo above of Aishwarya Rai, who stars as Lalita, the eldest daughter. Rai, a former Miss World and a goddess in her native India, will soon be adding Americans to her worshipful flock. No wonder 60 Minutes just did a major profile of her. Rai is a world-class hottie with talent to match, as she proves in her first English-speaking role.

All the boys fall in love with Lizzy/Lalita, don’t they?

Purists who think Austen will be spinning in her grave will be wrong. She’ll be dancing.

Purists? Who, us?

(The Editrix received news yesterday that she may be attending a special screening the first night of the film’s release on Feb. 11. w00t!)

The Telegraph has a review of Jane Austen’s Guide to Dating by Lauren Henderson.

Undeterred by potential drawbacks - Austen’s books tell us nothing about sex, are set in an age whose social mores bear scarcely more relation to downtown Manhattan’s than they do to downtown Kabul’s, and are novels rather than self-help manuals - Henderson has discovered, at the heart of the oeuvre, 10 key principles of dating.

As she puts it: “I think the books are coded instruction manuals - but they can be novels, too. They are about the best way to find someone who’s going to be a life partner for you.

“What Austen is about is the continual process of observing the behaviour of people around you. And whether you’re country dancing or grinding your bum into someone at a hip-hop club, it comes down to the same fundamental things.”

There’s also a sidebar article with a rundown of “Austen’s Men.”

The article contains the interesting note that the book has been optioned for film. (We hasten to add that optioning a book for film doesn’t mean that a film will be made.)

In an Australian article about fellow horrid-novel writer Dean Koontz, Stephen King is quoted as saying he has never read Jane Austen.

‘NEVER,” Stephen King admitted when asked if he’d read Jane Austen or Tolstoy, “but I have read most of what Dean Koontz has written.”

Like the author of the article, we think Mr. King may have been teasing; we seem to dimly recall Austen references in Mr. King’s book On Writing (though we’ve blocked out much of what we read in that book as it gave us writer’s block for a month; it’s the scariest book that Mr. King ever wrote, in our humble opinion). If not, it would be a shame, for if anyone should read Northanger Abbey, it’s Stephen King.