The unhappy ending without an end

With some commentators (notably The Independent's Richard Ingrams [online but requires subscription payment]) are suggesting that the leak of the "Paul hit me" documents came not from Heather Mills' side, but could have been a leak from Macca's people. The thinking being that people wouldn't go "Ooh, Paul McCartney is a wife-beating sod" but - slightly more tortuously - "Heather Mills is a terrible woman, not only making up these stories but then leaking them to the press."

Well, it's possible - assuming that Paul's hired a bunch of idiots for lawyers. If you rule out that possibility, it's hard to believe anyone would think the risk of releasing even the suggestion that you're a domestic barbarian into the public domain would be a wise thing to do. Especially since, unless I've missed something, it's going to be a judge who decides the final settlement, rather than a text-vote amongst the British population.

Doubtless Ingrams would suggest that today's story in the Sunday Mirror is a further ploy from Macca's side: clearly, starting a rumour that Heather claims Paul hit Linda as well is such a horrible slur on McCartney it can only prove these leaks are coming from the Mills camp. Which must, therefore, mean that it's an inspired move by McCartney's advisors.

Whoever has rung these stories into the papers, it's clearly a sign that this laundry is going to be washed in public until there's nothing left of the sheets to scrub. McCartney's advisors are fuming at the "he hit Linda" reports:

A source close to Sir Paul said: "This is a step too far. Next she'll be saying she's discovered a brand new colour. It's getting more ridiculous by the minute. There's one thing to make all the claims she has last week - but this is just outrageous. It's nonsense - Paul and Linda had a fantastic marriage."

Is it just us, or did this source say, in effect, "nobody minds much if she claims he hit her, but how dare she say he hit the good wife as well?"

Meanwhile, the News of the World (which, we shouldn't forget has its own reasons to see Heather Mills' reputation entattered) claims that, if anything, the violence was flowing from Mills to Macca, and not the other way:

For the first time since the showbiz divorce of the century started, one of Sir Paul's aides has broken ranks to tell the News of the World how Heather:

SMASHED up chairs and threw ornaments at the singer in screaming rows at their Peasmarsh home.

HURLED a bottle of ketchup at him during one blazing hour-long bust-up over dinner.

"They had to get special cleaners to clear up the mess. A very expensive carpet was ruined and had to be chucked out."

The paper doesn't record if the bottle was one of the glass sorts, or the plastic, squeezy type.

More damningly still, in the NOTW's eyes, is Heather's bid to not only usurp the position of the beloved Linda of the burgers, but... well, somebody else:

[She] LONGED to have her own chat show—and FANTASISED about becoming the new Posh.

Good lord, is nothing sacred? How dare she cast her eyes at our own dear Victoria.

Even the Sunday People has managed to find a story, despite now being staffed by three people using potato-printing kits. They've found out that Heather is angry with Paul and that Paul used to be in The Rolling Beatles, a band which made pop music in the mid 1980s.

music heather mills paul mccartney