Don't you just hate when your favourite soap opera focuses on one boring plot at the expense of a far more exciting one in the background?

That's how it felt this week watching the latest developments in the world's most entertaining real-life super-soap, Blingasty, starring French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his glamorous wife Carla Bruni. On the day that France's first couple touched down in the UK for a two-day state visit, a picture emerged of Mme Bruni-Sarkozy from 1993 in which she artfully posed in the nude, only barely covering her modesty. Mon dieu!

We all wanted to know more about Michel Comte's snap of the naked Italian model and pop star, which is expected to fetch up to €2,500 when it goes under the hammer in Christie's auction house in New York next month.

Instead, we had to make do with acres of coverage devoted to the sombre and respectful business of entente amicale between the Sarkozys and the British royals.

This is because Blingasty's lead actor -- or at the very least, his agents -- fears that he isn't being taken seriously, and so wants to take the immense public and tabloid attention off his volatile private affairs, and back on affairs of state.

Oh and how deliberate all the diplomatic imagery was. Once the main stars arrived in Heathrow, the media descended on La Bruni, salivating over her demure grey Dior coat and, the piece de resistance, an iconic pillbox hat, leading to comparisons to both Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana. Camelot a la francaise was being born before our eyes, as Sarkozy proclaimed how "moved" he was by the reaction to his trophy wife.

However, the 40-year-old beauty came across as more Katie Holmes than Lady Di, remodelled by her husband's people and even placed in flat shoes so as not to tower over her shorter, Napoleon Complex-ridden spouse.

As the Irish Independent's Fashion Editor, Bairbre Power, says: "Her Dior outfit was beautiful, but the grey coat looked too long, and with her flat shoes, it did the unimaginable, and made the statuesque supermodel appear frumpy.

However, I was relieved to see her sexy free spirit being unleashed when she let her hair down later that day and looked stunning in a strapless column dress. It's clear that Carla Bruni won't be stage-managed. While men may be happy to see her without her clothes, women will be eagerly watching her future fashion choices."

Indeed, watching Bruni dutifully interacting with the Queen and Prince Philip, and later at a charity event with her British counterpart Sarah Brown, it's tantalising to speculate how the visit would have panned out had the outspoken sex bomb who supported Segolene Royal in last year's election and who once proclaimed that "monogamy bores me", actually turned up?

Meanwhile, the normally exuberant "President Bling-Bling" was on his best behaviour, ditching his customary va-va-voom in favour of gravitas, and awkwardly projecting images a thousand miles from the ones the world saw last winter when he romanced his new consort on the shores of Egypt and in Disneyland Paris. But will fans and critics of Blingasty buy this transformation? Ever since his election last May, Sarkozy has become a victim of his own monstrous marketing machine that can't shake off the party image.

In the space of 11 months, Sarko has become a punchline in the European press. His divorce from wife Cecilia (who has since re-married in New York), followed by his whirlwind romance of Bruni (who is an ex of Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton), painted an indelible picture of him as a hot-headed, randy playboy.

The French public have reacted angrily. They are used to their leaders being distant and reserved, and don't appreciate the guardian of the Fifth Republic appearing in tabloid rags alongside pictures of Britney Spears falling out of a taxi.

Of course, previous French presidents had 'colourful' private lives. Francois Mitterand had a secret daughter and Valery Giscard d'Estaing was a known womaniser.

But, in Sarkozy's case, he actively pursues media attention, and even took part in a photographic spread for a French glossy magazine last year. For such reasons, it's doubtful how long the First Couple can stick to their new directions from their PR scriptwriters. It clearly runs in both Sarko's and Bruni's blood to seek out the spotlight.

So perhaps they're not trying to break out of their Blingasty soap opera, but merely get re-cast in new roles?

- Declan Cashin