Heather Mills learns to love again

The first cut is the deepest, although rubbing twenty-four million quid into the wound can help, we understand. But now, Heather Mills is supposedly back on the dating scene - at least according to the News of the World:

HEATHER Mills has a hunky new toyboy, the News of the World can reveal.

Given that previously her relationship was with Paul McCartney - a man of parts, certainly, but never a "hunky toyboy" - we're not sure the "new" in that sentence is required.

The "hunky toyboy" is some holiday rep from a hotel she stayed in - the paper doesn't seem think there's anything unusual about Mills, a woman it's portrayed as having a chronically expensive lifestyle, staying in a hotel where they have holiday reps working. He's called Jamie Walker - and at 36, is only five years younger than Mills which hardly qualifies him as toyboy.

Walker has been briefed, clearly, for when the story breaks:

"I'm under strict instructions not to talk to you about this.

Badly briefed, as it turns out - isn't going "I've been told to say nothing about this" confirming that there's a this not to talk about?

And, as if to ram the point home, Jamie then coughs:

"But I guess you already know it all then. Just be nice about me."

Yes. Asking the News of the World to be nice about you. That'll work.

The paper rustles up a friend to spill some beans about their courtship:

"He name-dropped that he had bumped into her showbiz neighbours like Fatboy Slim and Nick Berry."

Who wouldn't be impressed by someone saying they'd seen Nick Berry in the street? That would certainly prove to someone who fucked and fucked over a Beatle that you're from the same stellar background.

Being a Murdoch paper, it has to mention the dark past of Miss Mills, and the words are put into the same friend's mouth:

"Jamie said Heather told him all about her past life working in the glamour industry and as a prostitute," added the friend. "He says it doesn't bother him."

How modest of the NOTW to pretend that Jamie would need to be told about Heather's history rather than just assuming that he'd have read about it in the papers. Having said which, the "prostitute" claim is surprising, given that Mills has denied she was any such thing. The paper will have to hope that she is so busy with her toyboy of the same age to spot they've renewed that particular claim.