George loses at numbers game

George Clooney has melted hearts as many a woman’s ideal mature man, but his reputation as a suave middle-aged sophisticate comes at a price, he has revealed.

He told reporters of a time he asked a young Italian woman to guess his age.

“I am stupid enough to ask the question: ’How old do you think I am?’ he said.

“She says: ’50.’

So he asked her to guess again.

The reply: “51?”

Clooney, 43, decided not to ask the question again.

The Intolerable Cruelty star told the anecdote to Steven Soderbergh, director of his latest movie Ocean’s Twelve.

Soderbergh found it so funny he included a scene in the flick where Clooney’s partners in crime wonder about his age.