Convert an excel or spreadsheet column letter to its number in Pythonic fashion

Question

Is there a more pythonic way of converting excel-style columns to numbers (starting with 1)?

Working code up to two letters:

Answer 1

Using openpyxl

import openpyxl
(column_string, row) = openpyxl.cell.coordinate_from_string(address)
column = openpyxl.cell.column_index_from_string(column_string)