There's some good news this morning for Bill Gates: if he ever finds himself fallen on hard times he can always make a few quid offloading his sperm on eager Chinese female recipients.

That's if China's Self magazine is to be believed, because the IT potentate secured second spot in a poll which asked 1,000 women from 15 cities whose precious bodily fluid they'd most like to accommodate for some hot baby-making action.

Indeed, so sought-after is Bill's magic water that he beat Becks and Brad Pitt into fifth and tenth places, respectively. The ideal sperm donor was not, however, George Clooney or Larry Ellison, but Hong Kong entertainer Andy Lau.

Regarding how on God's Green Earth a bespectacled, middle-aged Yank came to rate so highly on the Oriental "give me a baby, big fella" scale, well, as Mrs Merton might have put it: "So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Bill Gates?"

Here's the full top ten. No, we've never heard of most of 'em either:

Andy Lau Bill Gates Takeshi Kaneshiro Liu Xiang David Beckham Li Ka-shing Tony Leung Louis Koo Lee-hom Wang Brad Pitt