DID WE MENTION THE HEATHER MILLS PORN?

Yesterday, The Sun made space amongst the ads for sex phone lines and adult DVDs to get itself all over-excited and outraged that Heather Mills did some porn work when she was younger.

In fact, so flushed with horror at the pictures is the paper, that it's printed some more of them today. We're a little at a loss as to what the point of this second slew of photos are. Okay, we're not - that would be like us saying we didn't know why Jimmy Mulligan used to charge ten pence or a packet of ET biscuits for a peek at his brother's Fiesta in the upper school playground - but we're not sure how the paper can pretend that these pictures are so bad and yet still feel happy to print more of them in a "family" newspaper.

Still, the paper is busy congratulating itself on upsetting everybody, dragging out a "source" to confirm that Paul McCartney is upset:

A source said: “This has come as a real shock to Paul and those around him.

“He is a very sweet, kind, caring guy who doesn’t deserve this. He’s a real family man. He is shocked beyond belief and beside himself over the whole thing."

McCartney is shocked to discover his wife was a model? Or are we supposed to believe that a man who made his name playing strip clubs in Germany might find a spot of nudity beyond the pale?

True to form, though, Heather has managed to make things worse. She could have just asked "Yes, it's porn, and?"; she could have said "I was young, I had no money and I had to eat. It was terrible. Can you imagine what it's like having no choice to remove your clothes and be photographed because you've got no other option? You could ask Zoe, 24, from London." No, instead:

Heather, 38, said the shots were part of an educational “lover’s guide” to “caring relationships” and “instructive sex”.

Right. And people buy the magazines for the articles on aeroplanes.

Of course, The Sun loves that lame explanation, and has pulled in an expert witness:

THE creator of the Lovers’ Guide last night poured scorn on Heather Mills’ claims that her sleazy picture book was “educational”.

Robert Page said he had no doubt it was porn.

He added: “What we do is erotic rather than pornographic. We show people how to do it without showing everything off.

“This, on the other hand, does it in a particularly lewd manner.”

Mr Page said the point of the Lovers’ Guide was a delicate attempt to teach couples how to have fun in the bedroom, rather than a lurid representation.

This is one of those irregular verbs, of course: I have illustrations teaching couples how to have fun in the bedroom, you show everything off in lurid descriptions, they make lewd hardcore porn.

But Page hasn't finished:

He said of Lady McCartney’s pictures: “You can’t really argue that showing an erect manhood and other graphic acts is necessary when it comes to educating people about sex."

Oh no? To be honest, I'm not sure someone who's so uncomfortable talking about the naked human body - go on, say penis - is the right person to be writing sexual health manuals; and we've heard doctors in the past saying that they have treated couples who didn't realise the cock had to be hard to have sex. Indeed, having an illustration in which the knob isn't ready to go is arguably like a cookery book showing someone trying to make an omlette with unbroken eggs.

Still, it allows Victoria Newton (joined in her byline by another writer today) to ram home her key reason why this is disgusting filth and not cheeky fun:

The German book featuring Heather contained page after page of no-holds-barred images with NO WORDS.

That doesn't actually mean it couldn't be educational - after all, those cards which show you how to get out a plane on fire don't have any words on them, but you don't see sweaty businessmen sneaking them off into the Business Class toilets for a quick five minute pant over the woman trying to open the overwing exit.

Not that it really matters - the key thing, of course, is that the paper is in such a hypocritical frenzy over a woman with no pants that it feels it needs to bring in an expert to knock down a paper tiger.

It's all very odd from the paper which set out its stall when it first started printing its own porn: "We, like most of our readers, like pretty girls. And if they are as pretty as today's Birthday Suit girl, 20-year-old Stephanie Rahn, who cares whether they are dressed or not?"

Apparently, dressed or not doesn't matter. But if they're married to someone you've heard of? That's a different thing entirely.

music heather mills mccartney paul mccartney