Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson has been named as the world’s sexiest man by Glamour magazine.

It is the second year running that Pattinson has won the award, with this year seeing the competition dominated by vampire characters.

Glamour magazines 50 Sexiest Men poll placed fellow Twilight star and on-screen for, Taylor Lautner, in second, while the Australian Xavier Samuel placed fourth and Kellan Lutz fifth. That Twilight provided four of the top five nominations is a testament to the vampire phenomenon. The current trend towards things with fangs was not broken by the third-place getter, Ian Somerhalder, who is the star of The Vampire Dairies.

According to Charlotte Duck, the acting editor for Glamour, women have been attracted to vampire characters because they are associated with an element of danger. She said that vampires were the ultimate bad boys that female followers wanted to tame. Around 50,000 readers voted in the latest poll, which saw traditional favourites falling well down the rankings.

Johnny Depp came in sixth, while David Beckham dropped from fourth to 21st. George Clooney could only place 35th, while Jude Law, Keanu Reeves and Leonardo Di Caprio did not even make the list. The top ten was rounded out by mop-haired teen idol Justin Bieber, Gerard Butler, Hayden Christensen and Channing Tatum.

Actor Orlando Bloom and musicians Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake also featured in the top 14, with Portuguese footballer Ronaldo voted into 15th place. Other screen stars including Ashton Kutcher, Ryan Gosling and Jake Gyllenhaal all made the top 20 which was completed by Bradley Cooper.

Sainsbury’s has bucked the economic trend away from spending on new technology.

Investment in technology in the retail industry is set to be stagnant in the UK for the foreseeable future, as most high street stores and supermarket chains brace themselves for another economic downturn.

The austerity budget and impending VAT rise has seen widespread speculation that the industry could be confronted with a period of loss, leading to financial outlays for development of existing technology to be capped as most leading companies say that they have no IT overhauls planned. In some cases, computer systems are up to 20 years as old but are kept on as long as they do the job.

According to a report published last week by Martec International, a leading retail sector consultancy specialist, Tesco is the retailer that seems most content with its incumbent IT system. Their latest upgrade was in 2007 while the yearly spend on IT investment is £200 million. Rival Sainsbury’s spends around £220m per year on IT according to the Martec study, which also reported that UK’s leading supermarket chain is planning on updating its store, e-commerce and supply chain systems next year. The in-house system used by staff, installed first in 1995, will be upgraded the following year.

While Frances Riseley, practice manager at Martec, said that many retailers were hesitant to reveal their IT plans for fear of rivals being alerted to their developments, his group’s survey did establish that 19 per cent of the 142 British retailers polled said the reason for not revealing any details was that they were either being finalised or had not been considered.

A new survey has found that employees dress best on Monday mornings.

British women have been found to take up to four times as long on Mondays to prepare for work than on Fridays, while British men also make less effort as the week progresses.

The research was undertaken by leading UK retail chain Debenhams, which found it clear that as the working week wears on, so to do the wardrobes of the workers.

The survey revealed that on Monday mornings, women across the UK spend an average of one hour and 16 minutes on getting ready for work. Around one-third of this time was dedicated to achieving the perfect hairstyle, with an additional 18 minutes spent on applying make-up and a further 16 minutes on trying out different clothes combinations. The remaining time was predominantly spent in the shower or conducting morning chores.

On Tuesday mornings, this figure dropped significantly to just 40 minutes of total preparation time, with a steady decline seen on remaining days. By Friday, a mere 19 minutes were dedicated to appearance. Ed Watson, spokesman for Debenhams, said that workers should make the most of Monday mornings because that was as good as their colleagues were going to look all week.

Men too were found to let their standards slip as the week progressed, with the Debenhams survey – of around 100 customers who use the group’s personal shopper network – discovering that British males took 28 minutes to get ready for work on Mondays. This figure dropped to just 11 minutes on Friday mornings.