Mr Marr, who is married, also admitted that alcohol played a part in the pictures, taken outside a bar in London's Soho.

Writing about the incident for the first time in a magazine he admitted he had been a "fool, fool, fool".

Mr Marr said the incident happened on a night out to celebrate with the team who put together his new television series A History of the World.

Describing the two years of work the series took to create, Mr Marr said the process had driven him to the brink of exhaustion.

"I've never been so tired," he wrote. "We then celebrated, no doubt excessively, and I embraced a colleague too enthusiastically and was snapped – or papped – or whatever.

"The pictures looked awful. All my own fault. I've since been going about apologising, not least to my wife, for embarrassing all and sundry."