It's not every day you get the opportunity to read dating tips from a 48 year old bloke, let alone The Only Way Is Essex's Mick Norcross. So here's a treat for you - on the advent of him choosing his 12 Sugar Hut Honeys (women who get the pleasure of being Mick's "entourage" and an appearance in the Sugar Hut calendar), we interviewed him.

And lucky us, we got the lowdown on his dating tips!

Have you got a favourite Honey so far?

I’ve tried not to have a favourite, but they’re all beautiful so I’ve got 12 favourites.

Mick’s Top 5 dating tips

1. Always make sure you have fresh underwear on. [Surely that goes without saying, Mick??]

2. No garlic before a date.

3. Always make sure you wear your very special, lucky aftershave – My favourite’s Bulgari. Everyone always comments on it.

4. Meet in a group. Believe it or not, I’m actually a very shy person so if I’m going to have a date, it’s very, very rarely a one-to-one. I’ll usually invite the person to come and meet me at the club and invite them to bring some friends and have a nice evening on me.

That way it breaks the ice, and if I like the girl – I like what I see – it’s easy for me to make a move. If I don’t like them or we don’t get on, I don’t feel so bad because she’s had a nice night with her friends anyway.

5. The most important one of all is make sure she doesn’t have a boyfriend. That should be number one really. And what’s your signature chat up line? "Do you come here often?" or "Have you been here before?" I’ve got to be truthful, I have used that one before. For two reasons though – firstly, I’m trying to break the ice and have a conversation, and secondly, I’m genuinely interested whether they’ve been here to the club before and have they enjoyed their evening.

Has the line worked for you in the past?

Yeah, it certainly has. It’s opened the door anyway. But I don’t really use chat up lines to be honest; I prefer someone to come up to me. That way I already know that they’re interested. I hate rejection.

What’s the worst chat up line you’ve ever heard being used at the Sugar Hut?

I’ve heard quite a few cheesy ones – I’ve heard some rubbish ones. My boy’s [Kirk Norcross] terrible for it. He’s got some beauties! He usually crushes a bit of ice and says "Well that’s broken the ice" or some other rubbish like that.

Well, there we go. Now you know all you need to know (and more!) about Mick Norcross's dating habits.