Women won't play away far from home but blokes will go 132 miles for sex

Well, I’ll tell you; he’ll go 132 miles. Roughly from here to Newcastle... plus a bit of a drive around the block to ensure the curtains aren’t twitching.

That’s the average distance a man will travel if he can play away and not get caught.

Women, on the other hand, like to do it pretty much on their own doorsteps. We’re only prepared to go 16.5 miles. Well, there’s the kids to juggle and the ironing to do before you go, isn’t there?

This is according to research by the husband-and-wife team behind illicitencounters.com, a truly disturbing, unless you’re into that kind of thing, website that offers “discreet and extra-marital dating” for married men and women.

I find the idea of anyone setting up a method of making cheating easier – and making money out of it – quite disgusting. But then, the anguish affairs cause could never be uppermost in the thoughts of the selfish and amoral.

However, I’m intrigued by the distance thing – at least a bloke is willing to put a bit of effort into getting it away. And maybe, as he’s driving, he’s also putting an emotional space between the woman he’s supposed to be with and the one he isn’t.

Or have I got this all wrong? Does his willingness to travel actually signal just how much he allows a certain part of his anatomy to rule his head? How sense, responsibility and commitments go straight out of his Mondeo’s window when he thinks there’s the prospect of getting his big end away.

Shamed policeman Masood Khan is a case in point. He was prepared to risk his career for what could be glamorously termed a liaison dangereuse... or, rather more simply put, a kinky shag.

While on duty he drove to the railway station at Gatwick Airport (and no, I don’t know how far that was!) to have sex with a woman he had chatted to on an internet dating site.

He picked her up outside the station and took her into as grubby little police interview room where they took down each other’s particulars and activated a probing investigation.

This week, a court cleared him of wil(ly)ful misconduct, though... because he kept his radio earpiece in.

He claimed he had remained contactable at all times and that if a call had come in during the romp, he would have answered his phone.

No wonder the woman was so up for it; she probably figured Khan was a rare find. The dirty deed might only have taken him 10 minutes but here was a man who could concentrate on two things at the same time.

And at least the brevity of the act meant she could get back home to the dusting.