Look at it this way: if you were running a marathon, would you just pitch up on the day with some trainers and a sense of enthusiasm? Not unless you want some career-ending blisters and roadside CPR, you wouldn’t. Any responsible athlete will tell you to prepare for it with a long-term training programme that culminates in several lengthy practise runs. Several exhausting, acrimonious, spirit-sapping runs. You’ve got to build up for the big one, and with the hard yards of marriages one to four in my legs, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Of course I didn’t realise that when I was getting married the first, second, thrid and fourth times. With the confidence of the rookie, I thought I had what it takes for the long haul. But looking back today with the wisdom I have now, I can see those early-season outings could never have ended in success. And thanks to a closet lesbian, a back-stabbing best friend, the vigilance of the staff at the Vietnamese embassy and another lesbian, that’s exactly how things panned out.

What’s important, though, is not falling into the trap of being too hard on yourself. It would be all too easy, with the benefit of hindsight, for a lesser man to blame himself for the recurring marital themes of profound sexual inadequacy, consistently unreasonable behaviour and prolonged professional failure leading to intractable financial problems – especially if this is topped off every time by in-laws and spousal friends prone to rushing to unfavourable judgements. That would not only be wrong, it would be oversimplifying things. And where would it get you – certainly not down the aisle for a fifth pop at the cherry.

Life is a complex business, and so you mustn’t underestimate the role played by downright bad luck. There’s only a one in three chance a marriage will end in divorce. Those are pretty good odds, so you can imagine what a run of bad cards you need to end up with a royal flush of four consecutive decree absolutes in your hand. That’s a one in 81 chance! I thought I’d had my fill of bad luck at the roulette wheel where I spent much of my second marriage, but it turned out not. Little did I know that Fate had lined me up with eighty other guys, marked me out for special attention and then let every other single one of them walk away before wife numero quatro could take their home, their car, their pension and their masculinity.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Nice try though, Cathy, if you’re reading this.) The important thing is always to learn from what life throws at you, and you don’t get hitched a third of a dozen times without picking up a few pointers along the way. There are simple lessons, lessons like it’s always worth making an effort to scrub up on your wedding day and not drink till after the service because you can count on some joker bringing along a camera. Lessons like make a note of the date you get married because you’re expected to remember it next year. And lessons like never suggest an ex-wife as a bridesmaid. These are little things you can only learn from experience, and I’m more than happy to share them with you.

But there are also bigger lessons, lessons like it’s important to have shared interests (but not your best friend Geoff), like you should always show each other respect (even if one of you has just sold an irreplaceable family heirloom for £50 or made an obviously ironic pass at your sister), and like – and this is crucial – not marrying evil, manipulative bitches who thrive on your misery like a vampire on your blood and will screw you for every last penny you have.

Most of all, though, as I approach the altar with hope in my heart for another honest shot at marital bliss, what four marriages have taught me is this: if things don’t work out you can always try again later with someone else, so you mustn’t put yourself under any pressure to succeed. They tend not to make a big deal of this on the day, but it’s well worth remembering for future reference.

‘From next week postmen and women will be delighted to provide ‘home-birthing’ to expectant couples by delivering their newborn child direct to their door at any time between 9am and 3pm,’ said Moya Greene, Chief Executive of the Royal Mail Group. ‘But not on Sundays or bank holidays – and if they’re out when we call, we’ll leave the kid with a neighbour for safe-keeping.’

Anxious parents can choose the recorded delivery option with its ‘track and trace’ facility to monitor their parcel’s progress as it is kicked around the sorting office, while those preferring not to know when their offspring will arrive can opt for the standard first and second-class services. On the big day the postman will ask parents to sign for receipt of the child before weighing it to determine the precise delivery charge.

‘What’s great is you can tailor things to your needs,’ said one satisfied customer and mother-of-three. ‘I’d had difficult labours before, and I’d seen our postman’s approach to getting my Good Housekeeping through the letterbox, so we decided to go for the guaranteed next-day Parcelforce service. And credit to them, they drove dangerously fast across town before shunning the garden path and trampling the flowerbeds to put little Louis in our arms before midday. It was a magical occasion.’

Yet despite initial enthusiasm, some parents have reported teething problems with the new service. A number of disappointed mothers have refused to accept delivery of particularly ugly babies sporting their mother-in-law’s nose, instead marking the packages ‘Return to sender’, while one career woman from Dulwich is furious at twice receiving twins addressed to the last-but-one resident.

And only this morning one expectant mother was frustrated to find a ‘While you were out’ card on the doormat after failing to get to the door on time, only to discover that her local post office had closed last month leaving her with no way of collecting the child. ‘Why couldn’t he just have waited and rung a second time?’ she asked. ‘He was quite happy to nine months ago.’

‘Alice in Sunderland is very much like the original novels,’ said Professor Terry Eagleton. ‘It might be grittier and racier, but it contains the same trademark cast of unbelievable characters performing inexplicably bizarre pastimes. I don’t think I’d be spoiling the ending for the readers to say that the things they will witness in these pages could only have happened in a dream.’

As with Carroll’s first novel, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, the action begins with the young heroine lazing by a river one summer afternoon. ‘Only this time Alice is a teenager and she’s spread-eagled on a bench beside the River Wear, her soporific state explained by the two dozen empty bottles of WKD and vodka whose DRINK ME labels she had no choice but to obey.’

With an air of unreality common to all Carroll’s novels, Alice is then led into a strange and beguiling place, Sunderland town centre, by an oddly-dressed white rabbit – her classmate Chantelle who is late for her shift as a bunny girl at the Blu Bambu nightclub. Here she witnesses all sorts of bizarre goings on, including men wearing short sleeves in January, people urinating in shop doorways and, in celebration of the city’s victory over Middlesbrough in the local derby, sporadic outbreaks of singing and violence.

After accepting a mushroom from a stranger in a bar, Alice then meets a host of mythical creatures, including a miner and a shipbuilder with whom she forms such a strong bond in the high street in the early hours of the morning that all three are arrested on public decency charges. In the novel’s final scene Alice pleads with magistrates for her trial to be dismissed on the grounds that ‘all persons a mile high should leave court’, but she is taken away to a police cell where she eventually wakes from her reverie.

‘To outsiders the whole episode will look fantastical and other-worldly, but the author’s skill is that it has the certain but unfathomable logic of a dream,’ said Professor Eagleton. He is now continuing his search for the rumoured sequel to Alice Through the Looking Glass describing a hen weekend in Gateshead.

‘If you look carefully, the trademark voyeuristic camera stops for a moment on the church entrance just as a portly gentleman walks past,’ said film critic Mark Kermode. ‘Pausing the footage reveals that the man is carrying a violin case in one hand and The Interpretation of Dreams in the other. Then – and this is typical Hitchcock – as the camera pans back round to the church, you hear just the faintest suggestion of frenzied squawking, flapping and blood-curdling screams.’

Hitchcock, known for his cameo appearances in many of the films he directed, died in 1980 after a long battle against a knife-wielding assailant in his bathroom.

‘I’m just not getting anywhere with that bitch,’ he sighed. ‘If I start in with the small talk, I get nothing back, but if I skip the foreplay and get straight down to it – well, she might as well not be there. I just don’t think I’m doing it for her, you know? Either I’m barking up the wrong tree or she’s frigid as hell.’

Later the same day Prince told next door’s retriever that he was now ‘completely over’ his owner’s leg after finding a sultry-looking fence post who pays out every time.

‘He chose exactly the right moment to withdraw from Britain,’ said a Vatican spokesman. ‘If His Holiness had stayed in too long, then things could have got complicated a little further down the road. The pontiff was clearly a little hot under the dog collar from all the attention he had been getting, and for everyone’s protection he thought it safest to step back from the brink.’

It is understood that future papal visits to the UK will be scheduled according to a little-understood rhythm method, though many believe that abstinence may be the safest option.

‘You know how it is,’ explained Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi. ‘Unless you remember to opt out of these things they automatically renew your membership, and it’s easy not to spot them on your bank statement. It seems that over the years his Holiness has progressed through the ranks from Hitler Youth to Hitler Adult, then Middle-Aged Fascists and most recently Aryan OAPs. I would stress that the pontiff had no choice but to join the organisation as a child in Nazi Germany, though over the years he has grown quite fond of its magazine’s quirky world view and the informed debate on the letters page.’

In addition to a monthly magazine providing ‘a lighthearted look at the changing face of bigotry’, other benefits of membership to the Aryan OAPs includes discounts on coach trips to up-and-coming dictatorships, and concentration camp getaways with Club 80-130.

‘It’s like Saga for the discerning fascist,’ said general secretary, Lothar Neumann, ‘though if I’m honest the organisation probably peaked 70 years ago. Not many of our remaining subscribers are leaders of world religions, as most have trouble finding the common ground between fascism and the central tenets of their faith. But fair play to the pope, he’s managed to move with the times and bring together traditional Catholic piety with a proper hatred of the poor, women and gays. And in that sense he shares many of our aims – breaking down boundaries between different groups, much like we did in Poland in 1939.’

Although the Vatican has attempted to distance itself from the controversy, further examination of its accounts reveals that the Pope may have forgotten to tick the ‘no publicity’ box on his original Hitler Youth membership form after subscriptions were also found to sister publications ‘Birth Control – What Every Celibate Needs To Know’, and the ever-popular pastoral companion, ‘Shhh, Don’t Tell Your Parents!’

‘It’s been a Cruel Summer, and that’s Really Saying Something,’ Afridi told reporters after his team’s latest loss to England. ‘But I think the media has given us Rough Justice. I Heard a Rumour that we were deliberately trying to lose today’s game after I accidentally ran out our top six batsmen, but let me say for the record that I Can’t Help It. They were all genuine mix-ups, though I’m sure some of the guys would have run a bit faster if they’d known how much was riding on it.’

Suspicions were also aroused about Pakistan’s performance after they picked the previously unknown Nathan Jones to open the batting. ‘Nathan is in the team on merit and thanks to his Pakistani step-uncle,’ said Afridi. ‘He brings something different to the squad, and I don’t just mean sun cream – I mean Love, Truth and Honesty. Yes, I can see how his unorthodox style of running away from the bowlers might have raised a few eyebrows, but T’aint What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It).’

When asked if Nathan Jones would be picked for the next game, Afridi said he was ‘less likely to say to him I Want You Back, and more likely to Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.’ The press conference ended shortly afterwards when the Pakistan captain told surprised journalists that he had to cut things short because Robert De Niro’s Waiting.

As if things could not get worse for the game of cricket, later the same day the entire Radio 4 Test Match Special commentary team was arrested on suspicion of spot-fixing. Police say they recorded 38 mentions of cake during the morning session alone, and in what they can only assume to be a complex code to underground bookmakers, noted Henry Blofeld making extraneous references to a No.27 bus going down the Marylebone Road in the third, eighth and tenth overs of each innings.