After an evening that didn't finish until 4.45am today, perhaps it wasn't surprising Victoria Beckham needed a little help negotiating the steps out of a London casino.

Mrs Beckham placed a steadying hand on the shoulder of her minder while another large chap guided her slowly down the steps. A smiling Gordon Ramsay, one of her companions for the evening, looked on.

The evening began just after 10.30pm with a meal in Nobu Berkeley, the fashionable Japanese restaurant in Mayfair.

Posh, wearing a lace creation that left little to the imagination, enjoyed dinner with the interior designer Kelly Hoppen, Gordon Ramsay and his wife Tana, and Sun editor Rebekah Wade and her actor husband Ross Kemp, the one-time EastEnders hardman.

The Beckhams, the Ramsays and the Wades - or should that be Kemps? - have been best friends for some time, enjoying regular Sunday roasts chez Ramsay.

When the party left Nobu, at 2am, that would be the time for most mothers of three to go home. But not Mrs Beckham and her entourage.

They made the short trip down Piccadilly to 50 St James's Casino in St James's Street, emerging again at 4.45am.

By now Mrs Beckham was, according to some of the 40-odd paparazzi massed on the pavement, a little the worse for wear. One described her as "rather unsteady" as she attempted the casino steps.

But she kept her balance and reached her car without falling over. Assuming she went straight home to Hertfordshire, she would have arrived back just in time to make the babysitter breakfast.