London, Jan. 10: Shilpa Shetty, who is 31, today made it clear that though she likes Dirk Benedict, former star of the 1980s US soap The A-Team, and even finds him “very sexy”, the American actor is just “too old” for her.

“If he was younger, I might give it a go…” she had previously remarked at one point.

Shilpa’s UK agent, Jazz Barton, went on television last night and declared that the chances of a romance between Dirk and her ward were less than zero.

All this ageist talk is a trifle unfair to Dirk.

At 61, he might even be considered a little too young to play the male lead opposite Shilpa in many a Bollywood movie.

It also remains to be seen whether Shilpa, one of five housemates due to be evicted tonight, lives to fight another day on the UK reality television show, Celebrity Big Brother.

Over eight days, desperate Dirk has expressed interest in Shilpa, though sadly for the American, the so-called romance has been one way. He lives in Montana, has an ex-wife like all decent Americans, children, too, and has written a candid book on how he once faced castration as possible treatment for cancer of the prostrate.

Cameras caught a concerned Shilpa asking her informant delicately: “Is that why his wife left him?”

It is worth stressing that such romances are not to be taken too seriously, since they are part of the game to boost ratings, which have not been doing too well lately. That said, in the last version of Celebrity Big Brother, two of the contestants, one of them the eventual winner, did end up getting married.

Such an outcome seems unlikely for Shilpa and Dirk, partly because she has stated she wants an Indian husband, though presumably not like the actor Akshay Kumar, who allegedly dumped her (there has been a big story about that in one of the British tabloids).

Indians viewers have been loyally switching on to Channel 4 to keep track of what Shilpa is up to.

They would have found Dirk telling her: “You have the best laughter — what are your other qualities?”

Hmm.

She has thanked him for his little compliments, blushed prettily, and told him he was, well, you know, embarrassing her.

In the “diary room”, where contestants make confessions to Big Brother, Dirk admitted: “I feel close to Shilpa, but not close enough. Although I can’t pronounce her name, which is a hindrance, I’ve been flirting with her; I have to stop doing that.”

Later in the conversation, Dirk asked Big Brother: “And you’ll give me Shilpa’s phone number?”

Understandably, Dirk’s interest in Shilpa has upset two of the youngest women contestants, Jo ’Meara, 27, former member of the pop group S Club, and Danielle Lloyd, 23, a beauty queen and girlfriend of a footballer. Both are blonde.

“I asked for smoked mackerel and whatshername, Shullup, just looked at me like I was stupid,” complained Danielle. “She’s so controlling and bossy, I don’t like that.”

They agreed that the Indian actress was “too fake”.

Danielle even confronted Dirk: “Do you think there’ll be a happy ending between you and Shilpa?”

Dirk’s reply was not the one Danielle was seeking: “There already is. I have been flirting with her, I tease her... it makes me happy.”

Elsewhere, Shilpa giggled and fell about laughing: “They’re saying I pronounce Dirk’s name as duck. Dirk? Duck? Deuck?”

Dirk said sweetly that he liked the way Shilpa pronounced his name.

Much more of this and, game or not, Shilpa’s mother might be tempted to haul back her daughter on the first flight home.