So the French are trying to ban prostitution in Paris and one of the world's biggest insurance companies in Germany organizes an orgy with prostitutes for its top salesmen at a Hungarian spa! Ergo, a division of the firm Munich Re, has confirmed that this happened in 2007. Gerhard Schneibel, journalist for the media organisation Deutsche Welle, said: "There was plenty of alcohol and 20 prostitutes there. They had colour-coded arm-bands, apparently. One was for regular hostesses, the other was for prostitutes, and the white ribbon was for prostitutes reserved for top management." Top management always get the cream do they not? Didn’t the girls not chosen for top management feel their noses had been put somewhat out of joint? There’s nothing more depressing than being second class.

Still on the subject of sex, a subject of never ending interest you must agree, those of a religious bent are totally engrossed with it one way or another, an account of a frenzied encounter in a shower has earned US writer David Guterson the annual Bad Sex In Fiction Award. He beat the likes of Stephen King with a scene from his novel Ed King, a modern version of the fable of Oedipus. The offending passage in the book is introduced as "the part where a mother has sex with her son". On hearing of his win, Guterson said: "Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I'm not in the least bit surprised." East Enders star Barbara ‘boobs to the fore’ Windsor (who else?) presented the award to the author’s publishers, he being unable to attend the ceremony which is now in its 19th year, having been established by Auberon Waugh in 1993. Previous winners include Norman Mailer, AA Gill, Melvyn Bragg and Tom Wolfe. The award is run by The Literary Review, which says its purpose is to "draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it". It’s a pity there isn’t a similar for film, or is there?

Ed King, Guterson’s fifth novel, takes the Sophoclean tragedy Oedipus Rex (the title is a pun on the original and I’m glad he didn’t call him Thornton) and transports it to late 20th Century Seattle. As with the Oedipus tale the story revolves around a baby boy who is given up for adoption and goes on to become one of the world's most powerful men, killing his father and sleeping with his mother in the process. Branded a "sweaty-palmed narrative" by the Washington Post, the novel contains several pages of explicit exposition. One goes into exhaustive detail about an erotic massage, where the protagonist "massaged, kneaded, stretched, rubbed, pinched, flicked, feathered, licked, kissed, and gently bit her shoulders." But judges said they were finally swayed by a passage that begins: "Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap." The scene concludes: "Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch." Reviewing the novel in the Express, David Robson argued that "Guterson's descriptions of hyperactive incest are absolutely unbearable and not in a good way".

Well it’s all good publicity I suppose even if it’s not good literature. Should make the best seller list in no time if it hasn’t done so already.