All true. Apart from the bits about the divorce being over by Christmas and people experiencing any sensation other than bitterly violent hatred. Because, for all the talk of a brief and amicable divorce settlement process, both Madonna and Guy Ritchie have hired some kickass divorce lawyers.

Madonna has hired Fiona Shackleton, the divorce lawyer who stopped Heather Mills from getting the huge settlement she wanted when she divorced Paul McCartney; with Guy Ritchie plumping for Lady Helen Ward, the woman responsible for securing Britain’s largest-ever divorce payout for one of her clients. What does this mean? It means that the Madonna/ Guy Ritchie divorce is going to go on for so long that we’ll all feel like killing ourselves soon. But you probably knew that already.

Oh, it’s so on. Madonna and Guy Ritchie are getting divorced, we all know that. We also know that it’s been brewing for a while, thanks to those rumours about Madonna using sci-fi mind control on baseball players. But that doesn’t mean that the divorce is going to be quick or painless by any means.

For the last couple of days, newspapers have been full of endless speculation about what caused the divorce and who Madonna and Guy Ritchie will date next and – genuinely – how much horses contributed to the divorce, but they might be shooting their wad a little early.

Because, let’s face it, we’re never going to stop hearing about this divorce. Ever. For a start, Madonna and Guy Ritchie have a child together, so with any luck we’ll get to experience a protracted custody battle that destroys the reputation of everyone involved and ultimately ends up with little Rocco writing a book about how much he hates his parents that gets adapted into a film starring Faye Dunaway and a cockney Mr Potato Head.

And then there’s the money. Madonna is one of the richest women on the planet – rich enough to buy a new toilet seat for every time she poos but not rich enough to invest in some age-appropriate leotards for once – and, as much as they’re both making out that her fortune isn’t a big deal, both Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s choice of divorce lawyer would suggest that isn’t quite the case. The Independent reports:

Fiona Shackleton, 52, nicknamed the “Steel Magnolia”, is reported to be advising Madonna. She acted for Sir Paul McCartney and Prince Charles in their divorces, Ritchie is believed to have plumped for Lady Helen Ward, 57… she secured Beverly Charman her record-breaking £48m divorce from John Charman, the Lloyds insurance tycoon, last year.

So on one hand you’ve got a woman famous for getting large divorce payouts, and on the other hand you’ve got a woman famous for stopping large payouts. That sounds like a recipe for a stalemate to us. In fact, we’d even go as far to say that the Madonna/ Guy Ritchie divorce is going to be the equivalent of either the fist-smashing opening title to Rocky 4 or the end of War Games where the computer realises that it can never win and goes into meltdown.

Or, you know, a part from a 1980s movie that goes on forever that nobody really cares about and are already sort of sick of listening to. Yeah, probably that last one.

No, in short we'd like to have been a fly on the wall at the Paul McCartney/ Heather Mills divorce ruling because it sounds like Heather Mills went properly berserk.

Although it's common knowledge that Heather Mills tipped a bunch of water over Paul McCartney's lawyer's head in court, it's now been claimed that Heather Mills also started slashing her fingers across her throat at Fiona Shackleton in court. And, as all schoolchildren know, that's literally the worst threat you can give. Fiona Shackleton is lucky that Heather Mills didn't mean business, or she's be fishing her pencil case from on top of the woodwork block by now.

Being Heather Mills can't be that much fun, because each of her victories come strapped to a larger failure. Take her recent divorce from Paul McCartney – Heather Mills won $24.3 million in a day, more than the average worker would earn in 800 years, but the money came with a divorce ruling that basically called Heather Mills a massive twat.

Worse still, Heather Mills apparently marked the end of the divorce by pouring a jug of water over the head of Paul McCartney's lawyer Fiona Shackleton. Although the ethics of making such a scene are slightly ropey, it must have been incredibly satisfying for Heather to get her own back like that. At least until everyone saw that the water had squashed down Shackleton's gigantic bouffant haircut and made her about 30% sexier in the process.

True, that still put Fiona Shackleton's sexiness percentage at about minus five, but it must have made Heather Mills feel pretty stupid.

And if today's reports are correct then it didn't stop there. As well as tipping water over Fiona Shackleton's head, Heather Mills also made a throat-slash gesture with her fingers directly at her, in the way that we thought only pikeys and fictional pirates did. The Sun reports:

Furious Heather Mills made a throat-slashing gesture at Sir Paul McCartney’s victorious divorce lawyer, The Sun can reveal. Mucca, 40, glared across court at Fiona Shackleton and drew two fingers across her throat. The dramatic moment came shortly after the divorce ruling that exposed Heather as a scheming fantasist and left her with a £24million settlement – just a fifth of what she wanted. Mucca had read Mr Justice Bennett’s damning judgment and realised that Shacka’s courtroom success had left her reputation in tatters. A source said: “Paul thought Heather had gone completely off her rocker. He was shocked because it was so completely out of order and just not the way to conduct yourself in court.”

However, let's not rush to conclusions – none of us were there so we don't know if Heather Mills really did the throat-slash at Fiona Shackleton. And if she did, who's to say that it was meant in the terrifying 'I'll find you and slash your throat' threat way. For all we know, Heather Mills could have been motioning to her throat to tell Shackleton how deep in whipped cream, cherries and translucent bondage gear she was when she made that German sex book of hers in the eighties.

If it was a genuine threat, though, then Heather Mills has been dreadfully shortsighted. Not only would it suggest that she could be held in contempt of court for her behaviour, but it's hardly likely to endear her to the next elderly out-of-touch multimillionaire that she decides to briefly get married to. Accusations of stabbing they can live with, but finger-slashing a lawyer? What ghastly form.

Read more:

Mucca's Slasher Threat To Shacka – The Sun