Al & Tipper Gore separate

Former US Vice President Al Gore has split from his wife of 40 years, according to a surprise announcement made yesterday.

The decision was originally said to be "amicable" and "a shared decision" - but today the former Democratic Presidential candidate complained bitterly that his wife was "impossible to deal with".

"That woman is never happy with anything I do," Gore told The Daily Half-Truth this morning. "You would not believe the lengths I went to, trying to earn her approval. All that environmental stuff, that was all her idea. She said she couldn't be with a man who wasn't passionately committed to the future of our planet, and kept saying how much it'd impress her if I proved how much I cared."

"Well, I won a goddamn Nobel Prize!" he continued angrily. "They don't hand those out in cereal boxes, you know! I got a big gold medallion saying that I was the best at peace that year, out of everyone. And she just sniffed and said something about how Norman Borlaug didn't need any showy jewellery to save a billion lives."

"And that's why this interview, along with all my public appearances in the future, is taking place on this petrol-driven hovercraft, on my way to my massive house where I leave the lights on all the time and keep several thousand rubber tyres constantly burning in the back yard. Because fuck it, y'know?"

Mr Gore went on to describe the many other carbon-heavy luxuries which he intends to allow himself as of today, interspersed with bursts of manic laughter and occasional muttered curses that sounded like "Norman fucking Borlaug".

In addition, just before today's Half-Truth went to press, it was reported that Gore had been seen boarding a private jet and instructing somebody to "crank up that smog". Also said to be on the plane were Gavin Henson, who recently separated from singer Charlotte Church, and Microsoft Windows, which suffered a very public humiliation this week when search engine Google terminated the pair's relationship.

(inspired by this, this, and this.)