HEFNER WATCH: Here's Oliver Willis on how to save Playboy, which I will counterblog:

No more airbrushing. Women's skin just shouldn't glow

Agreed. Women are not cars --though one of Hefner's achievements is the conflation of the two. And no more airbrushing private parts into mysterious shadowy areas. Either take another picture or publish what you have.

Get cartoonists with a sense of humor that have been out in the public since 1972 and aren't just adding boobies to the New Yorker's toons

Just get rid of the cartoons, nobody likes them there or in the New Yorker.

No more Pamela Anderson

Agreed agreed.

More non-Blondes. Barbie's all nice and good but you can only take so much

Agreed to the nth degree. Sadly, I don't think it'll happen until Hef's dead and thus prevented from forcing his "girlfriends" upon the rest of us.

Resist the urge to go "hardcore". That's Penthouse's territory. Do your thing, just do it right.

I dunno, I've said this before but I think Playboy might ultimately be a transitory magazine in the world of pornography, that made sense in the more prudish 60s but doesn't now. If we want cheesecake we got Maxim; if we want hardocore we got every magazine that is not Playboy. Playboy the magazine only exists for the distribution of Playboy the brand.

More imaginative photo shoots. Take a cue from Sports Illustrated and find amusing old buildings that look nice behind a naked woman. Yes, we know we get bubbles with the girl "washing the car" but frankly there's not a lot more you can do with that

Yes. The centerfold formula is worn out and predictable. So are the centerfolds.

Girls with glasses. Trust me.

I'd go for that.

Taller girls. Don't ask, do.

I think this is a lot to ask for. The neat thing about Playboy is that it gives jobs to girls who are highly good-looking but too short to be fashion models. This is a good thing.

Overall, just stop being such prudish stuffed shirts. You don't have to be unrepentant beer swillers like the frat boys at Maxim but you shouldn't emulate their fathers either. Aim for the frat boys' older cousin who has a job but likes to hang out with the guys ever so often.

Good idea but another that I don't think has a chance of happening until Hefner is dead and gone. He's spent his whole life living the idiot "Playboy philosophy" of naked ladies being one more trapping in a sophisticated gentleman's life and is always going to right up to the final Viagra-fuelled heart attack. That Hefner bashing article is making more and more sense to me.