Clive James fingered?

The broadcaster and critic Clive James appears to be the victim of a "kiss-and-tell" by the English mezzo-soprano Anne Howells. In an article for the Oldie magazine, Howells, 68, has described in considerable detail an affair with an Australian she calls 'Clyde' who liked to give a running commentary during their lovemaking "as if a camera were mounted on a track running the length of the bedroom". She added that she sometimes felt that a voice should say 'cut'.

Howells (left, pictured as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Royal Opera House, 1969), who has so far been unavailable to comment on whether 'Clyde' is really 'Clive', tells in her Oldie article how she first met him years ago when she was first establishing her career, performing with the Oxbridge Operatic Society, and he was a "duffel-coated student". It became apparent, she said, that 'Clyde' was nursing a passion for her.

When they got in touch years later, by which time he had "found fame and fortune as a distinguished writer and critic", he invited her to his Docklands flat and, after they had shared a couple of bottles of wine, he peered across the table at her and said: "Be my mistress."

Howell responded: "All right, I'll give it a go."

She writes that Clyde "seemed to have a thing about switching on the lights" during their lovemaking and that he once told her: I've been eating shortbread, so you can start by sucking the crumbs from between my teeth". He also enjoyed singing opera while they were together.

The affair came to an end when Howells was "summoned" to the Docklands flat and given his "long-winded and abstruse" reasons "why he could Berlioz no longer".

Clive James (above right) is known to live partly in a converted warehouse flat in London and partly in Cambridge with his wife of more than 40 years, Prue Shaw. She told the Sunday Telegraph: "I'm not saying anything and I know he won't comment on this".

At CliveJames.com, the very successful website the Aussie now uses to share his thoughts on literature, art and poetry, there is no mention of the Howells story. ·