Certainly a preppily dressed customer, Marion Pontillo, had a fixed idea of what she wanted the other day at the Paper House in Manhattan.

"I feel my race stands apart from the top of the ticket," said Mr. Green, 62, tall, relaxed and looking preppily rumpled over a cup of coffee at an East Side diner on a recent morning.

In a corner, a stunning young woman with blond hair preppily styled like Gwyneth Paltrow's was making out with one man, while another sat with his arm tucked into the waistline of her skirt.

Speaking in his chaotic office at Simian Films in central London, preppily dressed in beige trousers, blue sweater, brown suede shoes - the ultrapolite, ultrahandsome Mr. Grant seemed an unlikely candidate for a barroom brawl.

Just then, a preppily dressed and strikingly handsome man in his 30's who was pushing a stroller picked up my hardcover copy of "Beginning Greek," a 1961 textbook my boyfriend bought a few years back in an act of unchecked optimism.