Berlusconi: another week, another girl

Just when the gossip and innuendo surrounding Silvio Berlusconi appeared to be dying down, a new book is published in Italy in which a former nightclub dancer named 'Sandra' describes a party at the Italian PM's holiday villa where several young women put on 'lesbian' displays for their host, kissed him and threw themselves into the swimming pool almost naked.

In Papi: A Political Scandal, authors Peter Gomez, Marco Lillo and Marco Travaglio claim that in December 2007 Sandra and several other girls were offered €1,500 to attend a New Year's Eve party at the PM's Villa Certosa in Sardinia.

Sandra was resting on her bed when Berlusconi walked in. "His face was coloured with something that looked like self-tanning lotion and it stained his hands too, making them seem greasy. His heels were high."

Berlusconi, who was leader of the opposition at the time - he regained the premiership the following May - gave each girl a silver ring with a large onyx stone and two bracelets with tortoises on them. "It's the symbol of Villa Certosa," he told them.

Girls who were "sweeter" with Berlusconi were later given extra jewels, according to Sandra.

In the course of the afternoon, Berlusconi gave his guests a two-hour "politics class", during which he mostly told jokes and played with an obscene pencil sharpener - a small rubber figure of a man with his trousers down which moaned when the host turned a pencil. It made Berlusconi "laugh like crazy", Sandra said.

At dinner, the young women took turns to entertain Berlusconi and two male guests with songs and performances. "There were some who danced and rubbed themselves, some who kissed him, some who undressed, and some who threw themselves into the pool almost naked," Sandra said.

Some of the girls touched and undressed each other. "Rather than being scandalised, I felt really ill," said Sandra, who claims she was eventually paid only €1,000 instead of the promised €1,500 because she had rejected Berlusconi's advances. "When his hands started to wander, as they had done with the others, I brusquely pushed them away. I came very close to almost breaking his wrist.' ·