YOU can never know what darkness lies in a male heart, not really. You can think you’ve got the full measure of it, then two years in he comes home with football stickers. 

Let me explain. It was the summer of 2024 when I began dating Stephen. Significantly, it was August. He seemed like a lovely guy with only one ex I considered a threat and had to slag off mercilessly at every opportunity. 

Yes, he was a Bournemouth fan but that’s quite cute, isn’t it? Gives him a little hobby and one without any women involved, so it’s safe. He mentioned he’d been into the Euros but we all were, England were in the final. I even watched it. 

There were no red flags. I had no idea those nondescript spines on his shelves were anything other than bought-but-unplayed vinyl like any normal millennial man. I let him in to my heart, my life, and earlier this year we moved in together. 

Then it happened. He came home and without even asking how my day had been, sat down at the table with some sort of… magazine. But a blank one. And a pile of foil-wrapped packets. Did he have an illicit narcotic addiction? No. Far worse. 

‘What are those?’ I asked, my heart pounding. ‘Football stickers, babe,’ he replied, as if I was just meant to accept it. ‘The new Panini album. For the World Cup!’ 

‘Like… like schoolchildren swap, in the playground?’ I asked, my world crumbling around me. ‘Yeah!’ he said. ‘I always collect them all and stick them all in!’ And at that moment, I realised I had been tricked. I was in a two-year relationship not with a man, but a boy. 

It’s too late for me. We’re cohabiting and trying for a mortgage. I’m chained to an overgrown child for life. But ladies, watch him this summer and if he even eyes those stickers covetously at the till end it before it’s too late. 

The amendment, written in pen by the prime minister, lists Jess Phillips, Miatta Fahnbulleh, Alex Davies-Jones and Zubir Ahmed as ‘mewling pukes who were absolutely right to resign, as the further they are from government the better’.

King Charles III, after introducing more than 35 bills and draft bills on areas as varied as the NHS, immigration, police reform and nationalising British Steel, will then be required to decry the current health secretary as ‘a stone-ass cry-baby loser’.

He will continue: “And there are those other bitches, who are too many and too boring to list, who have called for me to step down. I note many of them are Welsh or Scottish, which is its own punishment.

“Many of the rest are former followers of Corbyn, yet have remained in Labour rather than join the – I apologise for the language – clusterf**k of Your Party, proving my leadership beats that mess. They may remain anonymous. It is all they deserve.”

King Charles added: “May I add I have no personal wish to introduce a new prime minister at this stage in my reign, given what happened when Liz Truss met my mother.”

On learning that the owner of the property would be present throughout the job, builder Martin Bishop realised it would be a long six weeks being snooped on by a soft-handed prick asking dickhead questions.

He said: “Christ. So we won’t even be able to cut bricks without him popping up asking when we’ll be finished as he has a really crucial Teams coming up.

“It’s not that we’re lazy, though it’s a physical job so the lads needs breaks. It’s that you can’t really get into the foul-mouthed Kiss FM hammering rhythm when there’s some brand consultant nine feet away pissing about on a MacBook.

“They’re always out offering tea and asking ‘how’s it going?’ as if they’ll understand the answer. We can’t swear with the same gusto. You can’t even vape without being judged.

“I miss the days when everyone worked in offices and I could walk around their homes, go through their drawers, and eat their food without them knowing. Now when I do it it’s a whole big deal.”

Homeworker Jack Browne said: “I can’t wank, I can’t work, I can’t watch YouTube. I just sit here staring at spreadsheets feeling emasculated while huge men in paint-stained Ralph Lauren lift massive blocks of stone. I wish I still went to an office.”

Battle-scarred champion Starmer called hopeful Wes Streeting to step into his blood-strewn thunderdome while chewing the flesh of Olly Robbins from a femur and spitting the gristly bits into a jewelled cup.

Under the glow of flaming torches, barbarian conqueror Starmer said: “Is this the best warrior those massed against could muster? A baby-faced dweeb who looks like he’s always forgotten his homework? Mediocre.

“What will it be, Streeting of the Greater London wastes? Will you face the steel of my battle axe with the trident or the short sword? Or are you foolish enough to challenge me to bare-fisted one-on-one combat? Either way, your miserable fate is sealed.

“No, fighting you to the death would be a waste of my terrifying strength. Begone, and tell the people that Starmer the Mighty, Once and Future Prime Minister, former Director of Public Prosecutions, is as merciful as he is powerful.

“Your blood is not worthy of being spilled. Though your nuts shall receive a kick that would shatter worlds.”

Streeting said: “I’ll chalk that up as a win. I think I spooked him into submission by how stoically I wet myself and ran away.”

Ellie Shaw, teacher 

“Is Bridget Phillipson a candidate? The one who slagged off Bob Vylan and hasn’t done anything else of note? She might be standing? Oh my God that’s fantastic news! I’m going to call my mum!”

Tom Logan, delivery driver

“Don’t most people own a Wes Streeting body pillow? I’ve been a stan ever since I first saw him on Question Time in 2017 and every night I go to sleep cuddled up to his stout little body and round, shiny face. God, I hope he betrays me one day.”

Mary Fisher, illustrator

“I feel Ed Miliband has proved himself by hovering on the fringes of power for decades while achieving nothing. These days he looks as if he’s just stepped out of a crypt, but I’d definitely consider voting for him if the polling station was in my living room.”

Lauren Hewitt, student

“Speaking as a genuine young person, I believe Angela Rayner is incredibly cool, or ‘rizz’ in our language. She’s tried DJing and she drinks alcohol, both of which ‘slap’. Plus her ‘fit’, or clothing, looks as if it’s chosen to be fashionable without considering what it looks like. That’s mad tough.”

Josh Hudson, paramedic

“Shabana Mahmood’s been doing a fantastic job of copying Reform so I hope she wins, because I love racist policies while still voting for a nominally left-wing party. Makes my dick hard.”

Donna Sheridan, solicitor

“Yesterday as I was going to work my neighbour Iain rushed out. ‘Have you heard?’ he said, ‘Lucy Powell might stand for leader!’ I howled with excitement, and soon the street was thronged with people chanting ‘LU-CY! LU-CY! LU-CY!’. That’s how much we love her, and if she doesn’t win we’ll start a terrorist campaign.”

James Bates, electrician

“It’s got to be Rachel Reeves for me, with her magnetic personality and incredible good looks. I know you shouldn’t vote for someone just because you fancy them, but face it, Rachel has the lad vote sewn up.”

Martin Bishop, delivery driver

“I like Andy Burnham as he seems normal, competent and committed to improving things. So naturally they’ll make sure he’s excluded and I can f**k off.”

MP Emma Bradford, who accepted the position as part of her long-term plan to unseat the prime minister, has joined the junior minister for Storming Out Angrily and the minister for Self-Important Political Gestures in leaving the front bench.

She said: “The council election results, as well as whatever the thing is with Mandelson, have left me with no option but to tender my resignation.

“The cabinet is now missing several key positions including the under-minister for Pompously Walking Out On Principle, as well as multiple ministerial aides who may only have popped to Tesco Metro. Starmer’s position is untenable.

“If he does not announce his resignation, the under-secretary for One Last Resignation Just In Time For The Six O’Clock News may go. Just a rumour, but media should check their email at 5.30pm.

“Either that or I’ll take my old job back before the consultancies paying me £30k a month notice I’ve gone.”

Jo Kramer, aged 33, has so far branded a barista, a pharmacist, a Evri courier and the 87-year-old he talked to in a Post Office queue as her spouse’s girlfriend and, when irritated, as ‘your bloody tart’.

Husband Chris said: “A female chiropodist dealt with my bunions. Jo said ‘Give your bird a good seeing-to, did you?’ which I feel mischaracterised our relationship.

“Then at Waitrose I said ‘you too’ when the assistant wished us a good day, after which Jo asked why I didn’t go and marry her. It felt unchivalrous to point out she has a growth on her face and was wearing a hairnet.

“The work situation isn’t easy. Last week Jo asked if I was ‘off to see my work wife’ because a woman in accounts I’ve never met had emailed me a spreadsheet. And noted it was ‘interesting’ I got a haircut immediately afterwards.

“I tried returning fire by calling her pilates instructor ‘your boyfriend’. But she just mumbled something about him actually paying attention to her body and I didn’t push it.”

Couples counsellor Dr Helen Archer said: “The sarcastic use of ‘your girlfriend’ is rarely a sign of suspicion and more commonly a ritualised domestic sport, much enjoyed by couples who have run out of shows to watch together.

“However, it is weird that Jo said it when the family cat climbed on Tom’s lap.”

They contain scenes of a sexual nature

So-called sophisticated viewers spent years pretending they relished the social commentary of The Wire or the corporate satire of Severance, but compared to young A-listers f**king they’re boring old shit. Who cares what Euphoria is about – if anything – when Sydney Sweeney jumps a skipping rope in a swimsuit?

There have sexy people in them

Viewers like to watch sexy people do anything. Even picking out vowels or consonants can be erotically charged when Rachel Riley’s doing it. Shrewd producers have noticed this trend and exploited your human failings for streaming cash. Even your secret lust for unconventional sex object Danny Dyer is catered to, you rampant f**k.

The sexy people have sex with each other

A genius move. Not only do Euphoria and Rivals boast a cast of studs and babes, they all regularly get their kit off and shag. Hopefully the scriptwriters are well renumerated for typing ‘they f**k again’ every other page, because it’s got millions tuning in. No mean feat, considering the endless hours of explicit content available for free online.

The sex is more sexy than regular sex

Even the sight of sexy, sweaty actors pistoning away risks getting boring, but the producers of Euphoria are a step ahead. They’ve conjured a plotline where Sweeney bones a microphone and balloon up into a sexy giantess. Ask your dad if you don’t believe it, he’s conducted extensive research himself after reading about it in the Mail.

Sex is a universal desire that will never go away

Some shows alienate viewers with themes and characters that don’t have broad appeal. Euphoria and Rivals cater to anyone with even a faint trace of a libido, which luckily for them includes everyone. And high-quality production values mean future generations will be just as titillated, like we are by classic 70s productions like Au Pair Girls. 

The passengers

You’re trapped with them. Vacuous, boring bastards in pink polo shirts with wives in their 50s made up to be in their 20s. There’s no escaping the twat who’s immensely proud of setting up the most successful tyre supply business in East Renfrewshire, not on this trip, and keelhauling is sadly outlawed.

The food 

Food is included in the price, or the permanent buffet of shite in the prison-like canteen is. They make it as tasteless as possible to drive you to pay for meals in the very costly restaurants. And if you want a drink? You’ll be ordering it from the barman on every single occasion you need liquid. Yes, there will be a queue.

The entertainment

No entertainer worthy of the name would sign up for three months in a windowless cabin at sea. Plenty of entertainers not worthy of the name will. Given an audience of tossers who believe an Elvis impersonator who can instantly switch to Robbie Williams is astonishing, they will pander to them. Night after night. And you’ll be there because that’s where the gin is.

Seasickness

Seas get rough, and once your lavishly-appointed ship runs into a storm and begins lurching around like a drunken hippo with labyrinthitis everyone will be throwing up. You’ll be confined to your cabin and timing vomiting to when the toilet isn’t slopping water all over the bathroom floor you’re kneeling on.

Viruses

And that’s when the metal container you’re locked in with thousands of strangers doesn’t become an incubator for an exciting new virus, keen to work its magic in this petridish with hot tubs and a climbing wall. All while many, many nautical miles from the nearest hospital. You begin to realise why ghost ships were such a frequent phenomenon.

The stops on land

After what feels like months trapped at sea but has actually been three days, you get the chance to escape. Bliss. Three hours in the most touristy harbours the world has to offer, where every shop is geared to selling you expensive jewellery you won’t notice the flaws of until you’re back on board your floating prison with that twat from the tyre business again.

The employees believe manager Joseph Turner is inarguably unpopular, showing polls that have been conducted around the water cooler with an approval rating of minus 70, but have nonetheless been informed they can go and f**k themselves.

Procurement office Hannah Tomlinson said: “Oh dear. He’s mishandled that badly, and that’s going to hurt him. But oddly, he doesn’t seem to care?

“I explained that he’s lost the faith of the office, that we no longer feel he’s the best person to lead a wholesale packing material importer and distributor forward, and that he doesn’t have to go now but a timetable is imperative. ‘Piss off,’ he said.

“He must not realise the gravity of what we’re saying. That marketing, customer orders, accounts and even human resources have got to the point where we can’t stand by him as the man to cut through the toxicity and reach B2B buyers. Maybe if we say it again?

“Instead we receive a tone-deaf email telling us to ‘answer the phones’ and ‘get the orders placed’ as if any of us could focus on doing our jobs right now. As if this wasn’t a moment of crisis. Maybe if we did the timetable for him?”

Turner said: “Of course I’m unpopular. I’m in f**king charge.”

Piers Morgan

Hated as the editor of the Mirror where he fell for faked photos, hated when he subsequently went to the US and attempted to end guns single-handedly, and hated when he came back to the UK, Piers hasn’t gone anywhere. Even today he can be found in a short clip on a social media site that you scroll past, revolted. Offering hope to Starmer.

Ed Balls 

Ed overcame being personally unlikeable and part of an unlikeable government to take the Piers role on Good Morning Britain, to a national chorus of ‘Why is Ed Balls on this?’ Now everyone has come to love him and the entire nation is up before 6am waiting for GMB to start. Sure, Susanna Reid is also a presenter, but Ed is the main attraction.

Russell Brand

Russell’s career looked over after multiple accusations of sex crimes, but his reinvention as a New Age conspiracy guru who then, without ulterior motive, converted to Christianity won the public around. Now he’s released a new book about it and has been taken once more to the nation’s bosom before the minor matter of his upcoming trial.

Noel Edmonds

Noel was hated for Noel’s House Party and the blobby monster it spawned, but refused to listen to his detractors and came back with Deal or No Deal. Resulting in his being exposed as a weird megalomaniac who believed the cosmos was helping him manifest TV jobs then moved to New Zealand where he’s also unpopular, but definitely back.

Amanda Holden

The star of Big Top and marrying Les Dennis then shagging Neil Morrissey became overexposed when her career took off thanks to Britain’s Got Talent, but responded by simply refusing to go away. Now the familiar sight of her arse in a bikini in the Mail is a fixture of British life everyone just accepts, like weeks of drizzle.

Bonnie Langford

Bonnie went from being am annoying multipurpose celebrity to the incredibly annoying Doctor Who assistant Mel Bush. But by hanging in there on the lower rungs of fame she was able to return to the show once it became terrible again. It’s surely now hit such lows that her own spin-off Dalek musical is not far away.

Ed Sheeran

In a way, Ed has to be respected for ignoring the galactic storm of hatred directed at him and still doggedly continuing to make his godawful music. If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that however much people are screaming at you to stop, just carry on regardless. A lesson Starmer seems to have taken firmly on board.

Marketing manager Carolyn Ryan believes the ‘writing was on the wall’ back in 2010 and does not see why the couple allowed their ‘sham of a marriage’ to ‘limp on’ as long as it has.

She continued: “A relationship can’t recover from that. They’ve kept it behind closed doors since Gordon Brown was in power, but I wasn’t fooled.

“Every time she saw his lying sneer, she’ll have been thinking about those text to Rhian Sugden. Was it her huge breasts he was attracted to, or the sheer overwhelming Northernness of her name? Either way Tess couldn’t compete.

“They’ve clung on to save face while both being fully aware that for 70 per cent of their 23 year marriage, it’s been over. Why they’ve kept on with the empty pretence when even I, a regular OK! and Closer and Heat reader, knew I can’t say. Probably pride.”

Colleague Tom Logan said: “Carolyn’s always banging on about this shit. I spend all day hearing about the cracks in the Beckhams’ facade, that Beyoncé should just face it, and that Mary Berry has to stop pretending after admitting cheating on her husband in 1964.

“I’ve never met him, but I have given serious thought to wanking off her husband just to f**king shut her up.”

Wayne Hayes of Watford is in critical condition after newspaper headlines caused him to imagine a Britain where a straight-talking working class Northern woman was installed in Downing Street where once giants like May, Truss and Johnson trod.

Paramedic Lauren Hewitt said: “For those whose bodies are habituated to the columns of Richard Littlejohn, this causes severe toxic shock.

“His middle-aged system can barely tolerate the idea of Starmer or Burnham being in power. A mouthy redhead with a regional twang was always going to be too much for his delicate constitution. He’s haemorrhaged all his organs at once and shat himself.

“The Mail knows the danger running images of Rayner poses to their readership, yet they irresponsibly do so anyway. At least the Daily Star has the moral leadership to put on devil horns and a witches’ nose to soften the anaphylactic shock.

“We’ve stabilised his condition with an IV of Sarah Vine columns, but there’s still no saying whether he’ll pull through. Our scans show massive irreversible brain damage, but that’s consistent with being a Mail reader.”

Wife Yvonne said: “If you think this experience will make Wayne grateful for the NHS, you don’t know him at all.”

Nathan Muir, Hitchin

“He can survive hearings about Mandelson vettings, sure, but can he survive six years in a Mongolian jail, locked up with the dregs of the Russian Mafia, fighting for every scrap of food, living on only his wits and the British reputation as peerless catamites? Because if he can then he deserves to stay the full term as prime minister, fair play.”

Norman Steele, Hythe

“Bollocks to surviving council elections. I’ll only respect him if he survives a pit full of starving wolves, crosses a swamp of alligators, then fights his way out of a soft play centre stocked with leopards, cobras and crazed honey badgers. And if being mugged turns liberals to conservatives, all that should make him further right than Tommy Robinson.”

Jo Kramer, Warwick

“We keep hearing how he’s under pressure, To prove it doesn’t bother him, he should journey to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in a submersible he’s constructed himself, then be catapulted directly into space. Then and only then will he have the necessary authority to propose limited trade alignment with the EU.”

Helen Archer, East Grinstead

“See, this is why we traditionally temper our politicians in the seething Darwinian cauldron of Eton. Because if they can get through five years of insane snobbery, indiscriminate buggery, beatings on the fives court and total parental indifference, politics is nothing.”

Julian Cook, Chelsea

“I’m seeing a lot of headlines about the hantavirus. So that, and then how about he continues to do his job in a Hazmat suit while his body is used as an incubator for a series of terrible diseases, eventually expiring at the dispatch box? While Streeting, Rayner and the rest do their very best to look sad.”

Bill McKay, Warrington

“Global thermonuclear war. The great thing is we don’t have to go to any trouble because Trump’s going to China to meet Xi this week to set it off. If he can clamber to the irradiated surface and deliver a speech about getting the tough choices right as the last man on earth, he’s earned it. Though we all know in that situation it’ll be Farage.”

For decades pubs were a valuable refuge for the married and miserable, but modern men no longer feel that evenings at home with their life partner are a fate to be avoided at all costs.

Publican Stephen Malley says: “People think that it’s high staff wages that’s closing pubs. Couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s bloody women’s fault, as usual.”

“When I took over The Horse and Cart thirty years ago, we were packed every weekday night. Men would clock off work and come straight in to moan about their wives who as far as I could tell they barely saw but loathed immensely.

“Now, even our regulars only pop in for one before saying they want to go home and see the missus. ‘Want to’, mind, not ‘have to’.

“The wives of old – the angry harridans brandishing a rolling pin – are gone. Now men see their wives as a person they like being with, watching telly with and talking to. Women have upped their game and it’s devastating the traditional British pub.”

Malley will retire after four decades as a landlord next month and his pub will close. He said: “Funnily enough, I remarried recently and I’d like to spend a bit more time with the wife myself. I’m a hypocrite, but I prefer her to some random pissed blokes.”

Garstang

Also covers five other regions and has the ‘Hidden gem’ seal of misery. Lists three local attractions, but if you’re not into farms, fishing, or flogging yourself over fells, you’re f**ked. Does have a Booths, a posh North-only supermarket chain the very existence of which would be unfathomable to Southerners. But not so much they’d want to check it out.

Batley

Like many other towns in the region, Batley’s attractions are something old and once industrial. There’s a museum, an interiors design outlet called Redbrick Mill in an old mill, and a place called The Mill that isn’t in an old mill. Expecting the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium to be the Yorkshire equivalent of the Wonka factory will lead to disappointment.

Accrington

Boasts the usual Northern tourist magnets: parks, an art gallery in an old house and a shopping arcade in an old mill. Accrington Stanley, one of the twelve founder members of the football league, has has survived by being on land not interesting enough to develop into a retail park. When said in Scouse, the town’s name conjures phlegm.

Northallerton

Located in a car park, Northallerton’s Tourist Information Centre provides visitors with fantastic reasons to leave Northallerton. Determined to stay? There’s an old house with gardens that isn’t yet a David Lloyd health club. Rishi Sunak’s the MP here. Tourist Information doesn’t know where, or if, he can be located.

Bolton

Is it in Lancashire, or Greater Manchester? Bolton doesn’t know. Largely empty, as most of its inhabitants populate mainstream TV and radio, visitors can hang about on Le Mans Crescent to be in the background on the latest Maxine Peake detective drama, or pretend to be Paddy McGuinness by going to Park Cake Bakeries and feigning interest.

Thirsk

The World of James Herriot, who wrote books about vets putting their arms up cow’s arses, is here. Cow not included. Otherwise you’ll be directed to the war memorial, a supposedly cursed and but to appearances very ordinary chair in the town museum, and to f**k off 36 miles south to York where there’s something to see.

Dad-of-two Joe Turner woke up, saw the sun streaming in, knew immediately what would be the best use of his and his family’s Saturday and went about making that dream a reality.

He said: “I’ve needed that housing for a month now, but the time just never felt right. But I think today’s the day.

“The kids didn’t have any specific plans – just stuff like ‘play out with my mates’ – so I piled them into the car and we drove 40 minutes to the dodgy bit of town and visited a back-alley warehouse called John’s Spares and Replacements.

“I wanted them to be safe, so I locked the car and turned off the air-con. They’ve got phones, though I found out later they hadn’t brought them. Still, it only took John 35 minutes to find he hadn’t got the one I needed.

“Then a mere two scrapyard visits where they churlishly refused to play with the snarling, chained Rottweilers, then home. At which point they ruined a lovely day by moaning to their mother.”

Son Jack said: “I asked if we could go to the park, and he remembered he was low on lawnmower blades, put us back into the car and went to Screwfix where he was gone for almost an hour.

“Bless him, he loves Screwfix.”

Tom Booker, web editor: “My alma mater, Rayner Stephens High School in Dukinfield, which has been failing and shit for 40 years. Because it’s not like he needs qualifications.”

Helen Archer, cartographer: “It is deeply suspicious that even the Royals acknowledge Eton has too many twats to be worthwhile.”

Norman Steele, furrier: “What about one of those Steiner schools where they teach them to be creative and the like? I mean, if it’s good enough for Melinda Messenger’s kids.”

Jo Kramer, psychiatric nurse: “Kate seems to me the homeschooling type, what with her father-in-law leading his own church and her being mental.”

Margaret Gerving, retired: “When do they announce it? Only I don’t want my grandson going there. I’d like him to be in with a chance of being head boy.”