This is all theoretical, of course, but we think the temporary surge of power must have been so invigorating he just wanted more. He wanted his strength tested. In his mind’s eye he probably saw himself physically beating up all kinds of things that would be awesome to beat up, like King Kong and a string of zombie popes.

And the US military. But a judge just ended that last dream forever.

When Kid Rock (Robert Ritchie) beat up every single living thing inside a Georgia Waffle House for either several days in a row or just a few minutes, he got arrested and taken to jail. Once there he used his awesome beady eye/moustache combo to seduce the guards and escape to freedom. When the guards snapped out of their trance they realised two things – they were covered in mullet-shaped hickeys and the prisoner hadn’t so much escaped as he’d been sentenced to something or other.

That something or other, incidentally, was community service. When his first idea for specifically what to do got shot down, he wasn’t all that surprised. After all, as we’ve heard it that idea was to invite children to his house so he could teach them how to look at pictures of naked tractors. No judge would allow that. But then when his second suggestion got shot down too, well, Kid Rock thought it was just ridiculous.

He wanted to fill all his hours of forced labour with singing songs at the Army, but the powers that be simply wouldn’t allow it. In his own words:

“Apparently [the judge] thinks it’s more important that I do something else rather than sing, shake hands, take pictures and spend time with the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect the very freedom he and all of us live by…I really take it as a slap in the face, and really have trouble thinking of a better way to ’serve the community.’”

We imagine the initial judge/Ritchie conversation went something like this:

Kid Rock: Judge, for my community service I’d like to play for the troops.

Judge: Now, I think those guys have been through enough.

If Kid Rock wants some community service ideas, all he has to do is read some hecklerspray back-stories. He could mop things like Naomi Campbell, he could teach kids about guns like T.I., or he could do whatever it was that Boy George got ordered to do. Which we think had something to do with imprisoning Swedes in his mansion and then rubbing his tenders all over their chained faces for 80 hours or more. All of that was allegedly under the supervision of some sort of a parole officer.

Allegedly again.

Of course, once those things were obtained we’d dote on them, treating them each individually with great love and deep respect at least until age six, when their value in the middle east really peaks.

Speaking of which – thanks for the price guide, Amir, but do you have one in the King’s English?

If you think that’s bad – you should see Sharon Stone’s parenting. She wants to pump her child so full of Botox that his seams start to burst. That’s why a judge just banished her to only seeing him two weekends a month or something.

It is a scientific fact that if the Chinese had properly Botoxed the ground in their country, that earthquake that mercilessly slaughtered them a while back would have been much more fluid in its rumbling. Also it would have been far more enjoyable. Fun even.

Likewise, if Stone had soaked all of her fur-based clothing overnight in tubs filled with Botox, then said attire would likely glow with a radiance it hadn’t known since it was living in its glory. Its glory was probably on a multi-cage mink farm, but you get what we mean.

Perhaps Stone doesn’t know it yet – but Botox could be the answer to all of her worries. Actually, maybe she does know it. We actually have no idea what kind of things are getting tossed around her grey matter up there – except for maybe a rudimentary Basic Instinct 3 outline. And possibly wondering what it’d be like to lick an in-store pumpkin she hadn’t yet paid for. Also maybe she wonders why her school-age son’s feet already seem to have so many frown lines and brow furrows. We really don’t know.

But a certain judge sure seems to have a grasp on her mental goings-on. It’s the judge that recently took Stone’s parental rights (or most of them) and poured them all over her ex-husband. His highness the judge didn’t do it without reason though – he did it because Stone wanted to fill her son’s feet with Botox. E! Online says:

“Specifically, [The Judge] took issue with Stone’s mothering prowess and apparent overreaction to [her son's] complaints. “Mother alleged Roan had a spinal condition,” the judge noted. “There was no evidence to support this allegation.” And this doozy: “Mother suggested that Roan should have Botox injections in his feet to resolve a problem he had with foot odor.”

We know Stone, we know. It’s gotta be hard living in California with a child that can’t wear anything open-toed without you having to lug around one of those oxygen tank things to keep you breathing OK. They make them with wheels you know. You wouldn’t have to carry it.

But obviously something’s gotta be done – and might we suggest that the ’something’ you try be Saran Wrap. It won’t stop your troubles, but it’ll sure contain them.

And it’ll show the judge you can be a parent without inflicting cosmetic surgeries onto your child.

We hear that’s a real plus in most family courts.

Anyone? Just us? OK, well then we’re the wrong ones. In actual fact, the jury for OJ Simpson’s armed robbery and kidnap trial has almost been completely picked. What does that mean? Well, most importantly it means that the scene is set for us to plunge headlong into the nitty-gritty of the OJ Simpson trial itself next week.

Secondly it ostensibly means that there are a handful of people in Las Vegas who say they don’t care about OJ Simpson murder acquittal in 1995. But what it actually means is that there’s a handful of people who’ve either hidden their furious bitter hatred of OJ Simpson well enough to pass the jury selection process or are currently busy phoning publishers and scribbling down the first draft of their new book How I Banged OJ Simpson Up. Fun!

The best way to think of OJ Simpson trials, we’ve found, is to think of them as Rocky movies. Honestly – it fits. The first one was a sensation that captured the public’s imagination and took loads of money even though it didn’t have a traditional feel-good ending, and the second one is Rocky 2 – a bit more spurious and clumsily put-together, but more likely to give the public the ending they crave.

Or perhaps it won’t. This week has seen the jury selection process for the OJ Simpson trial take place, and the judge has gone to extreme lengths to ensure that no jurors picked have any lingering resentment over OJ’s acquittal a decade ago.

How successful they’ve been remains to be seen, but at least they’ve done it quickly. Yesterday, during the third day of jury selection, the judge declared the process to be almost over, which was especially thrilling because they’d managed to catch some real lunatics in the process. AP reports:

One man’s angry outburst against Simpson led to a defense motion to dismiss the entire jury pool because everyone had heard it. The man, who had been waiting for three days to have his say, blurted out a comment that stunned the courtroom. “I feel the case down in Los Angeles — if someone got away with that, you would keep yourself clean and you wouldn’t come back and commit another crime,” he said.

Luckily for OJ Simpson, though, this man and others who shared similar opinions were weeded out of the prospective jury pool, leaving only those with no real interest or memory of OJ Simpson’s murder trial in the running to decide his fate. So basically it’s going to be a jury comprised of elderly Alzheimer’s sufferers and some toddlers.

And that’s probably a good thing because, considering that OJ Simpson faces life imprisonment if he’s found guilty of a crime that he was allegedly actually taped doing, he might just need all the help he can get.

But back to the whole Rocky analogy again. Let’s hope the formula sticks, because that way the OJ Simpson trial after next will include a hamfisted Cold War allegory and Paulie getting a robot for his birthday. And isn’t that what everyone wants to see?

Not to stretch that metaphor, but it would be fine if the fourth dog leg was as famous as the other three dog legs, but it’s not – it’s a weirdly anonymous dog leg that you wouldn’t even recognise if someone hacked it off and waved it around by itself away from all the other dog legs. Understand? Good.

Anyway. Kara DioGuardi, the new fourth American Idol judge, has now been formally introduced to the public. We could have just said that instead of banging on about dog legs and saved everyone a lot of time and confusion, we suppose. Oh, will we ever learn?

We’re gigantic American Idol fans and we literally treat the show like a God-figure, following its every command. For instance, every time we see the Coca Cola logo on American Idol, we drink two litres of Coca Cola. That’s why, if you ever meet us, we always need to go to the toilet and our teeth are brown and soft.

And because of our serf-like American Idol obedience, this week’s announcement that the new fourth American Idol judge would be songwriter/producer Kara DioGuardi sent us scurrying to the shops to buy every single CD she’s ever worked on. And boy oh boy are we ever glad we did that.

Honestly, we can’t imagine how we survived for so long without knowing the majesty of I Am Me by Ashlee Simpson, nor the eloquent magnificence of Dignity by Hilary Duff. And, just so this is out in public, when we die we want Take It Away by Becky Baeling from the album Ultra Dance 04, perhaps the pinnacle of Kara DioGuardi’s professional achievements, played at our funeral.

But just because we already know so much about Kara DioGuardi that we could probably become fairly proficient stalkers, you don’t know anything about her at all, do you? That’s why it’s lucky that the American Idol gang have formally introduced her to the world during the American Idol auditions in New York.

This is your big chance, Kara. Show everyone what a sparkly, effervescent and charismatic wundergurl you really are! People reports:

DioGuardi admits it was initially intimidating to join the judges’ panel, especially due to Cowell’s notorious reputation for being Idol’s resident meanie. “I was a little bit,” DioGuardi confessed, “but I’m going to hold my own.”

Kapow! Now that’s charisma if ever we saw it. Viewers will be able to see Kara DioGuardi on American Idol when the new season starts in January. Our advice to Kara? Wear clothes that contrast with the chair you sit on. We wouldn’t want people to forget you’re even there, would we?

So when the American Idol producers decided to shake up the holy trinity of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul and hire a fourth judge, they aimed as high as they possibly could. So who did they pick? Michael Jackson? Madonna? The resuscitated zombie corpse of Elvis Presley? The T-Rex out of Jurassic Park? No. The American Idol producers picked Kara DioGuardi.

What? Don’t look at us. We never said we knew who she was.

They say that a triangle is the strongest structure known to man, and that’s certainly true of the American Idol judging panel – even if that triangle is made of a smug man with tits, a man whose vocabulary is solely comprised of the words ‘dog’ and ‘Hollywood’ and the only woman alive who can break her nose on a dog.

It just works. Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul are basically American Idol’s good cop, bad cop and splutteringly incoherent cop. You’d have to be a gigantic fool of epic proportions to meddle about with that line-up. Which is why someone from American Idol has done exactly that and announced that, as of next season, Kara DioGuardi will become the fourth American Idol judge.

Oh, come on. You know. Kara DioGuardi. She’s that woman who did that thing. You remember. She’s got that haircut. Possibly wears make-up sometimes. Come on.

Oh, alright. We haven’t got the foggiest idea who Kara DioGuardi is either. But Wikipedia knows, and it says she’s a songwriter and producer responsible for hits like Spinning Around by Kylie Minogue, Rich Girl by Gwen Stefani and Ooh Ooh Baby by Britney Spears. You just can’t argue with a pedigree like that. Unless you have ears, in which case you can go right ahead.

We can’t help feeling that this is a massive misstep on the part of the American Idol producers. Sure, Kara DioGuardi might know her way around a song, but when has American Idol ever been about songs? Everyone knows that it’s about wet-mouthed little turds belting out the occasional bad karaoke standard to punctuate the constant sadfaced retelling of their tragic backstory. And we’re fine with that. But songs? Urgh. How crass.

But why has American Idol suddenly decided to hire Kara DioGuardi as a judge anyway? We think we know why – the new season of X Factor has seen its audience boosted by about a million percent because Cheryl Cole out of Girls Aloud is the new judge and, since American Idol’s ratings have dropped slightly in recent years, it clearly wanted to pull the same trick.

But here’s the thing – people didn’t watch X Factor to see Cheryl Cole give considered feedback to people’s singing ability. They watched it because her footballer husband shagged a load of other women and they hoped that she’d start crying about it.

So we’re doubtful that Kara DioGuardi will make much of an impact on American Idol. That is unless her boyfriend once got so drunk that he puked on a slag while having sex with her. We’re not idiots.

Prophetic lyrics indeed, because that’s now what Gene Simmons has found himself doing. But before we tell you exactly what creatively suspect reality TV show Gene Simmons has agreed to judge, we should warn you that it absolutely isn’t a joke – this show really is going to exist quite soon.

OK. Ready? Jingles. Advertising jingles. Gene Simmons from Kiss is going to judge a reality TV show about advertising jingles, where contestants have to write advertising jingles for various products and Gene Simmons judges the jingles and someone wins some cash. The show’s called Jingles, by the way, as opposed to its working title of What’s That In The Toilet? Oh, It’s Gene Simmons’ Career.

As we all know, Gene Simmons is a business mastermind. He can slap the Kiss logo on anything he wants and he’ll make a buck out of it. He can spot world-changing music talents like Lil’ Chris a bloody mile off and he’s so sexy that women want to sleep with him even when he’s all gross and inert and on film and stuff.

And now that Kiss have properly broken up forever, Gene Simmons can go back to his first love – shamelessly narcissistic self-promotion. And what better way to do that than by judging a reality TV show based on the creative process of writing advertising jingles? Huh?

Oh wait. Every single way you could possibly ever think of in a million lifetimes is better than that. Never mind, Gene Simmons has already signed up for the bastard, so there’s not a lot he can do about it. Reuters reports:

CBS has tapped Simmons to judge the reality show “Jingles,” the latest TV series from Mark Burnett. The show, slated to premiere later this year, will feature contestants writing and performing jingles for a variety of subjects, ranging from food products to sports teams.

Read that again. Read it slowly. There’s going to be a reality TV show about jingle-writing, and Gene Simmons is going to judge it. A reality TV show about jingles. Gene Simmons. Jingles. Gene Simmons. Jingles. Gene. Jingles. Gene. Jingles. Genegles. We think we’ve just had a stroke.

We genuinely can’t imagine how terrible Jingles is going to be. There’ll be five minutes at the start where someone will say to the contestants “Write me a jingle about biscuits,” then 45 minutes of the contestants looking into the distance with a notepad on their knee, then five minutes of the contestants hitting the ‘Samba’ button on their Casio keyboard and singing “Biscuits biscuits yum yum yum/ I can stick them up my bum,” and another five minutes of Gene Simmons telling them it’s rubbish. End of show.

We’re starting to get the impression that Mark Burnett picks his reality TV show subjects by jabbing a pin into a copy of the Yellow Pages, you know. That theory will no doubt be proved next year when he premieres his new show about carpet and rug manufacturing. Judged by the bassist out of Def Leppard.

In a final desperate bid to wriggle out of a jail sentence after being found guilty of tax fraud, Wesley Snipes has enlisted the help of two of his most famous friends – Denzel Washington and Woody Harrleson – to write character witness statements pleading with the judge to let Snipes keep his freedom.

It might just work – the naturally-authoritative Washington appeals to the judge’s sense of leniency by referring to Snipes in his letter as ‘a mighty oak’. Harrelson, meanwhile, has just drawn a big picture of a happy cat in wax crayon on his, and then written ‘I like kitons’ underneath it. Might help.

There’s a chance that the next time you see Wesley Snipes he’ll have a brand-new Islamic name, a messy tattoo on the side of his arm and the sorrowful expression of a man who’s seen another man crap in his pants for sport. That’s because Wesley Snipes could be going to jail later today.

As you may know, Wesley Snipes is going through some tax troubles at the moment. The disagreement is actually quite simple – Wesley Snipes says it’s OK that he didn’t pay tax for a bunch of years because he doesn’t recognise the IRS as a proper government agency, and the government says that Wesley Snipes is a massive dick and should go to jail. Oddly enough, the government won the disagreement.

After being found guilty of not filing tax returns for three years, Wesley Snipes now faces a three-year jail sentence. That’s bad enough for us – we want to see Passenger 58 get made so badly it makes us cry – but it’s even worse for Wesley Snipes, who’ll miss everything from the South African World Cup to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore while he’s behind bars.

And it looks like there’s no avoiding it, either. There’s literally nothing that any normal person can do to stop Wesley Snipes from going to jail. But Wesley Snipes has some friends who aren’t normal. Wesley Snipes has some friends who are better than normal. Wesley Snipes have some friends who are… famous.

And between them, Wesley Snipes is hoping that Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson will be able to sway the judge. According to documents published by TMZ, Denzel Washington says that Wesley Snipes is:

Like a tree – a mighty oak. He stands for so many, “like a tree, planted by streams of water with leaves that do not wither.” Many who know him have witnessed the fruits of his labours, have sat in his shade and even been protected by his presence. I am proud of him, proud to call him a fellow thespian and most importantly, proud to call him my friend.

Stirring, poetic stuff there, even if the whole tree analogy started wearing thin by the time Denzel started banging on about eating Wesley Snipes’ fruit. But full marks for effort. And what about Woody Harrelson? How has he chosen to try and stage a last-minute big for his friend’s freedom?

My first movie was also his first movie, Wildcats with Goldie Hawn. Both of us were 23 and our birthdays are only one week apart.

Christ. See you in 2011, Wesley.

Read more:

Celebs Sign Up as Snipers – TMZ

With this in mind, you'd expect that Donald Trump would be locked away in his panic room at the moment until the threat subsides, but that's not how Donald Trump rolls at all.

Donald Trump believes in looking fear in the eye, which is why – rather than hiding from Heather Mills, he's invited her to become a judge in his Miss USA pageant. Miss USA, of course, is the beauty pageant that keeps getting brought into disrepute thanks to all those naked pictures from the contestants' past. That's got nothing to do with Heather Mills. We just happened to mention it. Ahem.

Although Heather Mills got £24.3 million in her divorce from Paul McCartney this week, she'd better spend that money frugally because there's probably not a soul on earth who'd employ her at the moment. Not only would Heather Mills disrupt the office with her constant squeals of 'Paedophile!' but also there's that little matter of the judge's insistence that she makes most stuff up.

But just when you thought that Heather Mills might have to go back to making disturbing naked German sex books for a living again, help has arrived in the obnoxious monkey-haired form of Donald Trump. Heather Mills has always maintained that she's more popular in America than the UK – although who knows how true that is anymore? – which means the ideal job for her now is something with word 'USA' in the title.

Like, ooh, say, a Miss USA judge? That's just what Donald Trump wants, says the New York Post:

Heather Mills is hopping onto US television again, this time as a judge on Donald Trump's Miss USA pageant… Trump yesterday shrugged off Mills' reputation as one of the world's most disliked media personalities. "So is Omarosa," he joked. "And look how well we've done with her. She's been through a lot," Trump said. "She has great courage and you have to respect her – she's been through the wringer."

Actually, perhaps Donald Trump has a bit of a point here. The more we think about it, the more we think that Heather Mills would be a perfect Miss USA judge. She's certainly forthright enough for the job, plus the wealth of experience she has will mean she'll be better equipped to empathise with the girls.

For instance, former Miss USA Tara Conner got in trouble for being at the centre of a humiliating sex scandal – and Heather Mills has to deal with all those reports that say she used to be a prostitute. Then there's former Miss USA contestant Katie Rees, who was arrested for kicking a policeman, while Heather Mills, um, wants people to drink rat milk. OK, the comparisons fall down there a bit, admittedly.  

But the main reason is that Heather Mills has plenty of modelling experience which she can bring to the Miss USA table. Although if she does take the job Donald Trump should probably quietly remind Heather Mills that she shouldn't mark down the contestants because they haven't swathed their naked breasts in whipped cream and aren't chewing on a red jelly penis. The world of modelling has moved on since Heather's day, see.

Read more:

TRUMP HIRES HEATHER MILLS - NYP

At the time, Heather Mills said it was for the protection of her daughter. And it turns out that she was probably telling the truth – now that the ruling is out poor Beatrice is probably going to get bullied by her infant peers because it says her mother is 'ridiculous', 'her own worst-enemy' and pretty much makes makes all sorts of lofty unsubstantiated claims about herself.

However, just because Heather Mills has come in for a sensational kicking in the judge's ruling, don't think that Paul McCartney got away scot free either – the ruling said he had a face like someone's granny and that if he closes one more all-star charity concert with a prolonged rendition of Hey Jude the judge will come round and chop his cock off.

Sometimes, in our weakest moments, we feel a little bit sorry for Heather Mills. Aside from a couple of confused rednecks with temporary telephone privileges and some horny 14-year-olds, there isn't a single person in the whole wide world who even slightly likes her.

Everyone dislikes Heather's constant references to her charity work, the sense that she's a bit of a fantasist and her over-inflated sense of self-importance. And now everyone's views have been legally verified by the judge who oversaw the Paul McCartney/ Heather Mills divorce.

Although this week Heather Mills won £24.3 million from Paul McCartney and even managed to chuck some water at his lawyer, it's a pyrrhic victory because the judge's ruling slates her so much that it's basically one red jelly penis reference away from being a hecklerspray article. A 58-page, 327-paragraph hecklerspray article. We know, we can't think of anything worse either.

If you've got a spare hour, we'd urge you to track down a copy of Judge Hugh Bennett's full divorce ruling on Paul McCartney and Heather Mills because it's nothing short of brilliant. Heather Mills gets trashed for making unsupported claims about her income, her status, her role as a wife and a 'counsellor' to Paul McCartney, her annual travel expenses and – perhaps best of all, the £40,000 a year she needs for wine even though she doesn't drink.

The Washington Post has a neat summary:

Mills had sought a $250 million divorce settlement. But in the papers, Bennett rejected Mills's justifications for her demand as "ridiculous" and "wholly exaggerated." He said Mills "flagrantly overeggs the pudding" with demands for just under $1 million a year for travel expenses, including $370,000 for private planes and helicopters… Bennett said he thinks Mills believes "she is entitled for the indefinite future, if not for the whole of her life, to live at the same 'rate' as the husband and to be kept in the style to which she perceives she was accustomed during the marriage… Although she strongly denied it," Bennett wrote, "her case boils down to the syndrome of 'me, too' or 'if he has it, I want it too.'"

The ruling must have stung Heather Mills pretty hard – after all, future generations will now be able to look back on these legal documents and confidently assert that Heather Mills was an out-of-control divpot no matter she does to change this in the future. 

Yep, we're certain that thanks to this divorce ruling Heather Mills is right now crying hard into her gigantic pile of cash that's bigger than anything we could hope to earn in hundreds of years. One-nil to us!

Read more:

Judge Portrays McCartney's Ex As 'Out of Control' – Washington Post 

Well, OK, maybe not forever – we're pretty sure that by teatime Heather Mills will have decided to take the whole thing to an appeal court because she's not happy with the tens of millions of pounds that she's been awarded – but for a bit at least.

How much money will Paul McCartney be ordered to pay Heather Mills? At the moment, newspaper reports are saying £25 million which, going on the accuracy of previous reports, means that in truth the real total could be anywhere between one pence and sixteen hundred jillion quid and a floating space-palace made out of kitten-breath.

In the future, scrotum-faced old millionaires are going to think twice before they marry one-legged former pornstars, and it's all thanks to this divorce between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. Sure, Paul and Heather looked like a cute couple to begin with – OK, not a cute couple; more like a wonk-faced disabled lady taking her granddad out to keep his mind active – but just look at the way things have fallen apart.

The divorce has been equally acrimonious on each side. Heather Mills has accused Paul McCartney of stabbing her, plus she's done several deranged screaming television interviews about the divorce, while Paul McCartney possibly had it off with a rich American and waggled his head about like the Churchill dog a bit afterwards.

But today all the nastiness will come to an end. Yes, we know we said that a month ago when Paul McCartney and Heather Mills were supposed to finalise their divorce but couldn't stop arguing – but this time it looks like it really might be all over. As BBC News reports, the judge who decides how much cash Heather Mills gets will make his final decision today:

Sir Paul McCartney will find out later how much of his fortune he is expected to hand over to estranged wife Heather Mills in their divorce settlement. The couple failed to reach an agreement in court last month, leaving the judge to determine the final figure. Divorce experts have estimated Ms Mills could walk away with £60m of Sir Paul's estimated £825m fortune. Speculation over the sum has been rife in the press, but Mr Justice Bennet is not obliged to reveal the details.

He's not obliged to, but he probably will anyway. Today's not going to a particularly brilliant day for either Paul McCartney or Heather Mills – they're both effectively having 'shit at marriage' rubberstamped into their permanent records – but at least it means that their painful 22-month separation process will be finished.

Yeah, as if. Common consensus says that Paul McCartney will be told to pay Heather Mills £25 million today. For the average British worker that's about 834 years of wages, but for Heather Mills it's half as much as she thought she'd be getting. And that means that Heather's now far more likely to drag the divorce through an expensive, emotionally-draining and – most importantly - public appeals procedure. Joy.

Like most people, we're past caring what happens in the Paul McCartney/ Heather Mills divorce any more. All we hope is that, whatever Paul McCartney has to pay, it'll be worth whatever he made letting American Idol massacre all those Beatles songs last week. Somehow, we don't think it will.

Read more:

McCartneys to learn divorce deal – BBC 

But that's not all, because the judge has decided that the Paul McCartney/ Heather Mills divorce is so important that he might as well make the whole shebang public afterwards, too.

That could mean that we could get to find out the exact nature of those wife-beating claims that Heather Mills made about Paul McCartney, and who doesn't enjoy hearing harrowing claims about granny-faced old men brutally stabbing annoying amputees? Huh?

Even though you probably think that it's just an alarmingly bitter squabble between two stubborn idiots who stopped being interesting the day they either quit The Beatles or stopped posing naked for bad-haired 1980s soft porn sex guides, the Paul McCartney/ Heather Mills divorce is so much more than that.

You see, now that the judge presiding over the divorce has taken things into his own hands, there's a very strong chance that Heather Mills could be the recipient of the biggest divorce settlement in British history. And if that's the case, then the judge might have to make details of the divorce public, thanks to the important legal precedent that it'll set for future divorces between wealthy prune-faced pensioners and their shrewish one-legged former porn star wives. The Telegraph reports:

A spokesman for the Judicial Communications Office said: "The Judge will hand down his judgement in private on March 17. He will then decide, having heard submissions from the parties, whether or not to make the judgement public in whole or in part. The submissions from both parties will be heard in private. "It is not unknown in high profile cases, or where the judges think the case has legal significance, for some or all of the settlement to be made public."

So it's not set in stone that the divorce details will be made public yet, and we can expect that both Heather Mills and Paul McCartney will fight tooth and nail to keep the judgement private – especially McCartney, since all the settlement offers he's allegedly offered Heather Mills have come with the stipulation that she shuts the hell up forever.

As for Heather Mills, she's probably less worried about the divorce details going public because it'll allow her to do a big television interview about Paul McCartney's alleged wifebeating, then a series of high-profile newspaper interviews about it, then write a book about it, then serialise the book, then turn the book into a film then roll out her much anticipated 'Paul McCartney Went Stabby Stabby On My Arm' range of stationery and plastic lunchboxes. We get the feeling she'd probably quite like that.

However, it might not matter that the judge plans to take the divorce details public, because if either Paul McCartney or Heather Mills chooses to disagree with the settlement they can take the divorce to the court of appeals and then the House Of Lords, which would make the details public anyway.

You're probably thinking that neither Paul McCartney or Heather Mills would have the emotional capacity to drag out this already-interminable divorce through another round of petty squabbling and media scrutiny. But then again, this is a world where Heather Mills is considered sexy. Nothing surprises us any more.

Read more:

Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills divorce details to be published – Telegraph 

Or something. Anyway, this attorney – Jon Eardley – had been pushing to move Britney Spears' conservatorship case to a federal court because of this apparent civil rights hoo-hah.

But it isn't going to happen. A judge has ruled that the Britney Spears case has to remain in California because the attorney isn't really Britney Spears' attorney. Interesting, huh? OK, on with your lives now.

If ever there was a human being who doesn't deserve normal civil rights, it's Britney Spears. Give Britney Spears an inch of civil freedom and next thing you know she's using it to wear a bright pink wig and lead a small army of paparazzi around a fast food restaurant car park while she mutters at herself in a British accent and weeps.

Face the facts – the only thing that's helped Britney Spears recover from her horrible mental breakdown last month was the way that her father Jamie Spears took control of her conservatorship and imposed a strict set of rules on her. But some would say those rules were imposed a little too strongly. 

Like Jon Eardley, for example. He argued that Jamie had stripped Britney Spears of her civil rights and wouldn't allow her to think for herself or wee by herself, and that when Britney tried to phone Eardley the phone was snatched away from her because it was in the middle of Jamie Spears Jabs Britney's Ankles With An Electric Cattle Prod To Make Her Dance Like A Sad Puppet Hour. Or whatever.

Anyway, Jon Eardley used this argument to try and move the Britney Spears case to a federal court, but yesterday a judge decided that he wasn't having any of it. Reuters reports:

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled the case of pop singer Britney Spears' conservatorship should remain in a California court, effectively allowing the troubled performer's father to keep control of her affairs. U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez said attorney Jon Eardley, who claimed Spears' civil rights were violated by California officials, could not be Spears' attorney and, as a result, was not entitled to move the case to federal court. "Mr. Eardley had no authority to remove the case from state court. He is neither a party nor a defendant," Gutierrez wrote in his ruling.

It's probably for the best that Judge Gutierrez made this decision, because a move to a federal court would have only brought more attention to Britney Spears, and that's just about the last thing she needs. Plus this way Jamie Spears can continue doing the seemingly fine job of keeping Britney Spears in check. And let's not forget that it keeps Judge Philip Gutierrez in the limelight, too, bringing his dream of hosting a daytime cookery TV show one tantalising step closer. 

However, this legal kerfuffle hasn't been without its drawbacks. It's been reported that the cost of fighting Eardley's claims ran to more than $40,000. And, since Eardley claims that he was hired by Britney Spears, then his fees will also be coming out of the Britney Spears bank balance.

Eventually, if this continues, Britney Spears is going to run out of cash. So maybe it's time for her to think about marketing a new perfume with a name that reflects her current situation. How about Britney Spears: Locked In A Cage That Used To Belong To A Spider Monkey?

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Britney Spears case to stay in California court – Reuters 

You see, there's been a fight between Britney Spears' dad Jamie and a lawyer working for a mystery client about – we think – whether or not Jamie keeps Britney Spears locked in abandoned monkey cage to stop her getting into trouble. And the lawyer had been trying to move Jamie Spears' conservatorship to a federal court to sort it out.

But it's OK, because a judge has denied the move. And that's important news because it, um, has something to do with Britney Spears. Vaguely.

Deep down, the whole world wants to be Britney Spears' conservator, but they're all just too scared to admit it. All that money. All that power. All that stopping Britney Spears from weeing on her own. It's enough to send you crazy with power. So crazy that you end up in a psychiatric hospital. Possibly.

As you already know, Britney Spears' current conservator is her father. Jamie Spears has done a pretty good job of keeping Britney under tight control so far – he's sacked her manager and managed to halt the flow of 'look what a crazy old nutter Britney Spears is' stories. But some would say that Jamie is imposing his will on Britney Spears a little too much.

Back on Valentine's Day, lawyer Jon Eardley – ostensibly working on the behalf of Britney Spears, although nobody seems too sure who actually hired him – filed papers seeking to move the conservatorship case to a federal court. The exact details are far too long and boring to go into, but the jist of it is that Jamie Spears is said to have so much control over Britney Spears that it violates her civil rights. And also that, at night, Jamie Spears dresses Britney up as a Russian dancing bear and makes her jig along to accordion music while standing on a heated plate. Or something.

However, yesterday a judge decided to deny the federal move, as Reuters reports:

A federal judge has denied an attempt to move the conservatorship case over the affairs of troubled pop star Britney Spears to U.S. jurisdiction from a California court, documents showed on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez ruled the claims "may not arise under federal law" and indicated that not all necessary supporting documents were submitted, according to court papers.

The judge gave Eardley until the end of the month to get his argument in order, but it doesn't look likely to go any further unless he reveals who hired him. At the moment, the frontrunner seems to be Britney's old manager Sam Lutfi, although it could really be anyone. 

Jamie Spears is thought to be against a move to a federal court, because it would mean temporarily giving up his conservatorship of Britney. And we're not so keen on the move, either, because it means there'll be even more Britney Spears news around than there already is. And who the hell wants that?

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Judge denies attempt to move Britney Spears case - Reuters 

After a week at the High Court failing to thrash out a deal in private, the judge presiding over the Paul McCartney/ Heather Mills divorce has decided to take things into his own hands and will decide how much cash Heather Mills gets himself.

And then, in a month, that'll be it – Paul McCartney will be divorced from Heather Mills. Unless Heather Mills decides she doesn't like the decision and drags it out through the Court Of Appeals and the House Of Lords for months and months, of course. Which, let's face it, she probably will.

By now Paul McCartney was supposed to be divorced from Heather Mills and quickly moving on to whichever middle-aged sexpot he's rumoured to be boffing at the moment, while Heather Mills was supposed to have taken the tens of millions of pounds that she got in the divorce settlement, realised that nobody particularly cares for her and disappeared out of view forever.

Hasn't happened, though.

Last Monday Paul McCartney and Heather Mills went to the High Court to finalise their divorce. A week later and things have progressed so badly that the judge has decided to take things into his own hands. Reuters reports:

Pop icon Paul McCartney and ex-model Heather Mills failed to agree on a divorce settlement on Monday after six days in court, leaving the judge to decide how much of the former Beatle's fortune Mills should receive. Judge Hugh Bennett will make his decision at a later date, probably in about a month, in a judgement that could set an important legal precedent for future short-lived marriages of the super-rich.

The last week of negotiations have been carried out in private, so nobody really has any idea what happened. We know that Heather Mills represented herself, and that she probably bought up that old wine glass-stabbing story again for everyone to hear, but aside from that nobody has the foggiest. Paul McCartney and Heather Mills might have had a fight in the court room with McCartney using platinum discs to protect himself from Heather Mills' jelly penis attacks for all we know, but it hasn't got them any nearer to an agreement.

Whenever the judge does come to his decision, it'll be closely watched. Because if both Paul McCartney and Heather Mills agree on it, it'll remain private. But if either party disagrees with the ruling – which is likely given the rumoured £25 million discrepancy between what Heather wants and what Paul is prepared to pay – then the whole thing becomes messily public as it gets hauled through an appeals court and possibly the House Of Lords after that.

So now we all just have to sit and wait. It's thought that if Heather Mills does accept a divorce settlement from Paul McCartney in the meantime, one condition will be that she has to keep quiet about the ins and outs of the deal. But we think we can do one better than that – if we all chip in a fiver each, perhaps we can get Heather Mills to shut up completely forever. Or £10 each and she'll actually sew her mouth closed with shoelaces.

Think about it, it'd be worth it not to hear her squeaking the word 'paedophile' over and over again like a morally-outrage guinea pig. Whaddaya say?

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Judge to decide on McCartney divorce deal – Reuters

OJ Simpson was in jail between Friday and yesterday because he broke court orders and left a voicemail for Clarence Stewart, one of his alleged accomplices in the armed robbery he's accused of staging.

And yesterday, before freeing him, Judge Jackie Glass decided to explain why this was wrong to OJ Simpson, by basically bellowing the words "Arrogant!" and "Ignorant!" at him until everyone in the courtroom ended up deaf and crying.

Things aren't looking great for OJ Simpson. To be fair, things haven't looked that great for OJ Simpson since the day his wife was murdered – but now they're looking especially bleak. But that's what happens when – as OJ Simpson is being accused of – your idea of a polite negotiation with some sports memorabilia dealers involves a gang of thugs, some guns and the phrase "You think you can steal my shit?" hollered over and over again like a disgusting poop-centric mantra.

If OJ Simpson is found guilty of the million or so charges he faces when his trial comes up in April, then he'll most likely spend the rest of his life in jail. And, as a kind of induction to that, OJ Simpson has been spending the last few days in jail, just to size things up and test out some paint samples on the wall, maybe order a few copies of If I Did It, Here's How It Happened for the library while he was there, that sort of thing.

Actually, the reason for OJ Simpson's almost week-long stay in jail was because he was caught leaving a voicemail for Clarence 'CJ' Stewart, an alleged accomplice of his, when the court had ordered him not to. In the voicemail, OJ Simpson told Stewart:

"I just want CJ to know that… don't be trying to change this motherfucking shit now. Fucking asshole, I'm tired of this shit. Fed up with motherfuckers changing what they told me."

Forget contacting an accomplice, OJ Simpson should have been jailed for his fickle attitude towards shit. First he was angry because someone was trying to steal his shit, then he decides that he loves his shit so much that he don't want nobody to motherfucking change it, and then all of a sudden he's tired of his shit? No wonder OJ Simpson is in so much trouble – doesn't he know that nobody likes a shit flip-flopper? Find your line about shit and stick to it, that's the golden rule when it comes to shit. Even a child knows that.

Anyway, yesterday OJ Simpson appeared in court to find out about his immediate future. Would he be set free or would the judge keep him locked up until his trial starts in April? Turns out that OJ Simpson caught Judge Jackie Glass in a good mood, because she let him out of jail with nothing more than doubled bail and a public bollocking. Here's what the judge said to OJ:

"I don't know, Mr. Simpson, what the heck you were thinking – or maybe that's the problem – you weren't. I don't know if it's just arrogance. I don't know if it's ignorance. But you've been locked up at the Clark County Detention Center since Friday because of arrogance or ignorance – or both… Don't get on a boat. Don't go on a trip. You stay on dry land."

This fresh double onslaught of a stretch in jail and a public telling-off from a judge must mean that OJ Simpson's spirits are just about as low as they can get at the moment – but it's not all bad. Perhaps these last few days that OJ Simpson has spent in jail will count towards his full sentence if he's found guilty of his charges. 

That's great news – it means that OJ Simpson can spend the last six days of his life out in the open air instead of dying a broken man in prison. How ace is that?

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Judge gives O.J. Simpson a tongue-lashing; he goes free on bail – NY Daily News