Mills takes the cash: Some of the fall-out

The Sun - having laboured under the "Lady Mucca" yoke for so long - finally managed to turn in the sort of headline for which it was famous this morning, with the judge's dismissal of Heather Mills' ability to keep a story straight generating the headline:

Pornocchio

The trouble is, this surely would have been a better headline for a story that actually involved some porn or - at the very least - about someone who the public associates with porn. Despite "her porn past", I don't think even Sun readers think of Mills as a glamour model first and foremost.

The Mail is outraged at Mills' next plan:

Now the woman a court says you can't trust is appointed a judge herself

Goodness - that does seem strange. What part of the criminal justice system is Mills going to be presiding over?

Respected American news entertainment show Extra revealed today she is set to help pick the beauty most deserving of the Miss USA crown.

Aha.

Even more strangely, the Mail thinks this is going to upset Paul:

In a move sure to rile her former husband Sir Paul McCartney, the 40-year-old plans to hold court again.

Do you really think that McCartney is going to be any more or less bothered at the idea of Mills striding into the world of the sideshow and VH1 special?

Even odder coverage of the courtroom antics in the Guardain, where the usually-sound Marcel Berlins suggests that Mills did a valuable public service:

Mills has, though, perhaps despite herself, contributed to an important debate. The government's policy on legal aid, which has resulted in a drastic decline in the number of people eligible for aid in civil cases, has resulted in thousands of litigants being forced to act for themselves.

He does allow that she didn't actually go unrepresented because of lack of funds, and that she had had a legal team which did a lot of the work for her (and, indeed, has had a solicitor popping up issuing statements on her behalf all week). But somehow this is meant to throw a light on the plight of ordinary people without a brief.

Although since she clearly was judged to a liar and unreliable, she came out of court with twenty five million quid. You might argue it was something of an advert for not needing solicitors - which is hardly a useful contribution to the legal aid debate.