He added that the affair had ended before his wife, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with an incurable form of breast cancer.

ECONOMIST: A disappointingly grubby coda to a political career

Paradoxically, the alleged affair added rather than subtracted from his already iconic status, introducing a dash of devilry and rescuing Beckham from a kind of borderline piousness, and perhaps issuing a reminder that, despite all the affectations, his manhood was beyond doubt.

CNN: David Beckham: Rise of the metrosexual

By offering a brief, direct apology well before the rest of the story's stranger details unfolded, Williams says Petraeus has added strategic heft to the traditional post-affair apology.

BBC: Petraeus affair: Is this sex scandal different?

"This piece is a love affair of mine, " he added.

BBC: Picasso thief pleads guilty to theft of Tete De Femme

It added that the Italian president "hoped to provide a solution to an affair considered by the United States to be without precedent because of the conviction of a US military officer of Nato for deeds committed on Italian soil".

BBC: Italy Abu Omar rendition: Col Romano pardoned in CIA case