Is anyone really shocked by alleged affairs anymore? It seems the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover is having one nowadays.

The recipient of The Father of The Year Award 2006 and Celebrity Family of The Year 2007, Gordon Ramsay, has been linked to the author of Having An Affair? A Handbook For The Other Woman - 38-year-old Sarah Symonds.

The dad-of-four reportedly met Symonds in the vury classy China White's nightclub in 2001 (around the same time Symonds was enjoying an affair with, um, Lord Jeffry Archer) and has been conducting a series of Popper-fuelled liaisons ever since. Yep, according to "and insider" wittering to the News of The World, "Sarah said Gordon had specifically asked her to go to Soho and get him some poppers for their romp. He likes the buzz.." The chef enjoys relaxed pipes and banging headaches, people, you heard it here first. Said insider was speaking of the illicit couple's last dalliance which took place (within a 1.5 hour window) in The Marriot on Thursday. Prior to that, they enjoyed a two-hour date in Gordon's Mayfair flat.

Ramsay, who happily posed for photographs with his wife of 12 years, Tana, yesterday in front of their home, has previously said of his marriage: "She is the only woman who can turn me on. Tana and I have a great marriage, even though we spend very little time together. We're always together at weekends, mainly on a Sunday, and the time we have together is quality rather than quantity." He also divulged that his 34-year-old yummy mummy likes him to sport his chef's jacket in the scratcher. Hot. She probably started requesting the presence of raw veal, the wielding of a cleaver and live chickens… no wonder he went running to a professional mistress. Only joking - he's simply greedy and weak, like most people out there.

It's time to pull the cynical hat on (mine's black satin with a velvet bauble) and say, isn't it mad how these stories break around the time some side project or other requires a good plugging? Gordon was photographed with Tana on Saturday, feasting at a dinner table, to promote his new Taste of Christmas thingy - which is a four-day extravaganza at London's Excel arena. Meanwhile, Symonds is starting to promote her second book, Mistresses Anonymous. It's based on the correspondence she's received from fellow fancy women who've read her first book, which featured such insights as:

"If you want to have an affair, at least act like a man. Don't get hurt and use him as much as he's using you"... "Liberally apply the strongest smelling perfume you can find (and why not spray a tad on his clothes while he's not looking?)"... "Never date a poor married man. Expect to travel extensively and be provided with a car and a nice flat. Don't be out of pocket!"... and, my personal favourite; "Don't do any sock washing or any other boring duties that go with matrimony. Leave these obligations to his wife." Nice.

Will this news taint Ramsay's image? Will it f***. It didn't even muss that of David Beckham's, and Cheryl Cole's TV career has taken off since Ashley did that hairdresser. Symond's herself said that many of the married men she had interacted with claimed their wives were well aware and turned a more than willing blinkered peeper. And it's not just the men folk having it every which way - just look at Tilda Swinton and her partners.

To quote a spokesperson for the Ramsay's: "Everything is fine. Life is good and its business as usual for their marriage."