Michael Gove's guide to getting back in the game

REGRETTABLY and for no apparent reason, I have split up with my wife Sarah Vine. So here’s how I plan to get back in the dating game and take a beauty home every night: 

Practise pick-up lines

Long-term relationships can make your pick-up game rusty. My spad’s been good enough to set up a folder of solid gold lines, including ‘What’s your favourite post-Brexit trade deal?’ and ‘Fancy coming back to my grace-and-favour apartment so I can stimulate you with my engorged member?’

Make sure you’re over your ex

Don’t date a new parter as revenge. It’s unhealthy and unfair to them. Though I am very much over Sarah as she’s a foul, stunted troll who kept writing articles for the Daily Mail which managed to portray both of us as a massive twats.

Prepare for non-stop shagging

Bulk-buying 4,000 ribbed condoms is as prudent as it is anonymous online. I’ve read up on all the hot new sex acts like doggystyle, and imposed a rigorous three-a-day masturbation routine to increase my sexual stamina. I expect you’re grateful I shared this with you.

Hit the gym

After comfy married life, long evenings in hating the poor and so on, you’re probably out of shape. So I’ve been hitting the gym for five hours a day. My personal trainer Steve assures me I’ll soon resemble The Rock with Penfold from Danger Mouse’s head grafted on. Not sure who that is, probably another handsome actor.

Update your look 

My new super-tight skinny jeans are getting a lot of admiring stares in the street. I’ve also invested in some new NHS glasses and a pair of Air Jordans. Once my skateboard arrives from Amazon I am going to look, as young people call it these days, ‘fly’.

Don’t be tempted to get back with your ex

Don’t mope about your ex. It will bore friends rigid (note to self: get friends) and the reasons for you splitting up won’t have changed. You’ll still be a semi-aquatic arsehole and she’ll remain a loathsome cow who gets paid for poison. Nothing personal.

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Six comforting fantasies where Gareth Southgate makes everything alright

ENGLAND fans are lost in reassuring fantasies where suddenly Gareth Southgate appears to fix everything in a humble, middle-aged way. Here are six of them:  

Your car’s broken down in the middle of nowhere and you’ve been towed to a rural garage. Can it be fixed? What will it cost? Will you need to find a hotel? And there, turning and wiping his oily hands on his overalls, is Southgate, who tells you it’ll be fixed by 7pm for £65 all in.

At a bar you’re chatting someone up and make the mistake of claiming to be the inventor of the mp3. Your date’s doubts are instantly cleared when barman Gareth Southgate turns to you and asks ‘Still making those mp3 millions, eh?’ before mixing two perfect Negronis.

You click the wrong button at work and the system begins busily deleting the entire years’ accounts. Panicked, you run to IT and see the waistcoat-clad Southgate smiling at your foolishness, which he spotted straight away. ‘Careful next time,’ he warns paternally.

You enter a restaurant and see your wife dining with another man. What? Is this why she’s been so secretive lately? He turns and you see it’s Gareth Southgate, who gives you a broad wink and texts explaining they’re planning your surprise birthday party. It goes brilliantly.

Your plane crash-lands in the Pacific Ocean and you’re washed up on an island. A bearded figure helps you to shore: none other than Southgate himself, who builds a shelter, collects fresh water and hunts food, all the the while insisting it’s a team effort. You hope you’re never rescued.

The whole UK is in the grips of a pandemic, has cut itself off from its nearest economic partner and seems doomed. Until the prime minister appears and it’s not some blithering f**kabout baboon but calm, sensible Southgate. Everything gets fixed and it’s all fine. Thank God. Thank God for Gareth Southgate.