However, this imbroglio wasn't half as entertaining as Berlusconi's gaucherie while welcoming a newly elected MP from his Forza Italia party, Mara Carfagna, a comely 30-year-old showgirl from his Mediaset empire. "I can assure you all that Mara is very clever as well as beautiful," he told a group of new MPs. "However, dear Mara, I am obliged to remind you of a rule in the Forza Italia group, the jus primae noctis," Berlusconi reportedly added--a Latin reference popularly used to describe the purported legal right of the lord of an estate in the Middle Ages to deflower its virgins. Cue uncomfortable grins all round.