DOM AND LILY: MY EXPERTS REVEAL ALL

Gossip issue of the week — are Dominic West and Lily James having an affair? or do those photographs from Rome show an innocent flirt and nothing more?

A network of experts (my pals) have had their say. Luke says it was innocent flirting after a boozy lunch in the sun. But surely the image of Dominic’s hand on Lily’s bottom in the church was pretty damning? ‘it was her upper buttocks,’ pleads Luke, as if the higher reaches of bum de Lily were some kind of Nato no-man’s land.

it’s not virgin territory says sally and no one argues. Victoria gasps at the paparazzi following the couple into a church in the Holy City of Rome, God forgive them and He probably will. But why were the couple there, is what i am wondering? Claire (she Who Knows Everything) says Lily likes her wine, but don’t we all, says Morwen on Zoom, uncorking her post-work magnum, and i don’t mean an ice cream treat. Claire says remember those reports that Lily had an affair with Ben Chaplin, the 51-year-old actor who played her father in that Disney film?

Well, listen, Dominic (also 51) plays her father in The pursuit of Love, which is what they have been recently filming, so Claire has decided Lily has a daddy complex, but i said perhaps she has just got a smokin’ hot dude complex because, we all agreed, both men are extremely attractive. Morwen said if it was a flirty date she hadn’t made much of an effort, scuffing about in those espadrilles, and Claire said they are Yves st Laurent and cost £195.

Luke says Dominic is ‘a really nice bloke’ but that he is very flirtatious. Tell us something we don’t know chorused all, while some of the more forward members added that he could flirt with them ‘any time he wanted’. susie said his wife should hang onto him no matter what, because ‘why should another woman get all the fun of him?’

Regarding those photographs he and his wife Catherine posed for and the handwritten note assuring the world all was well with their marriage, Andy said if Mrs West had been a Tory wife she would have been out there in her best frock and pearls. i said it was molto aristo to pop out to face the cameras in ballerina flats and old jeans.

Ultimately, Mrs West seems to have taken a pragmatic view of her husband’s — shall we say — friendly nature and whatever happens next, we wish them all the best.

still, wasn’t that note — written by him of course — absolutely cringe?

But he has got lovely handwriting, says Luke.