Who said he was "sexiest cerebral man"?

John Geddes of Maclean's is not sure how he or the magazine got credit for calling Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff the "Sexiest Cerebral Man", a phrase credited to Maclean's in a New York Times article.

Geddes says in this week's issue that he's puzzled about where the phrase came from, since he didn't write it in that form and he doesn't know who coined the term, if anyone. In Geddes' June 2003 Maclean's profile of Iggy, the term "sex symbol" was used in the sub-head and "cerebral media star" appears in the body of the story.

"...here’s the problem: we can’t find any electronic record of having described him in those three words. Some online references to the “Sexiest Cerebral Man” title link it to a June, 2003, profile of Ignatieff, which I happened to write. But I didn’t describe him so pithily....

"If anybody wants to claim authorship [of] the lapidary description “Sexiest Cerebral Man,” please contact us. We can’t in good conscience go on taking the credit."

To keep the fun going, the magazine has set up a separate web page where readers can nominate their candidates for Canada's sexiest cerebral man.

[Hat tip to J-source]