The divorce of Sir James Paul McCartney and Heather Anne Mills after four years of marriage was never going to be a simple affair. The couple, who wed in 2002, had no pre-nup - a move which Macca's hotshot lawyers must have been cursing him over as the estranged husband and wife squabbling over his wealth, estimated between GBP500-800 million.

She wanted GBP100m in cash, as well as property in Beverly Hills, Long Island, Sussex, Hove, and cash to buy houses in London and New York. She was awarded 24.3m, a quarter of what she was chasing, yet proclaimed victory was hers on the steps of a London courthouse - after tipping a jug of water over the head of McCartney's lawyer Fiona Shackleton in a fit of rage.

The Honourable Justice Hugh Bennett made judgment on the pair's settlement, and his 58 page judgement made for very juicy reading. Check it out here.

While Justice Bennett admitted Heather was a generous supporter of charity and ‘strong willed and determined' in overcoming her disability, throughout the settlement he basically called her a liar, liar, pants on fire.

He said her evidence was "not just inconsistent and inaccurate, but also less than candid." He called her out on her over-inflated opinion of her career ("I was his full-time wife, mother, lover, confidante, business partner and psychologist," she declared in evidence.) He questioned her announcement that ‘80-90 per cent' of her income went to charity. He asked for evidence. She didn't have any.

She spent two million quid a year on her ‘lifestyle,' including half a million annually on holidays (a girl can dream!); 30,000 on horses she didn't ride, and 39,000 on wine she doesn't drink. She was also in the process of constructing a 400,000 quid swimming pool in her backyard.

"I am afraid I have to say her case on the issue is devoid of reality," the judge commented in his findings.

Mahahahaha.

"If the wife feels aggrieved about what I propose she has only herself to blame."

Oh, she was aggrieved. She was aggrieved alright. But the world celebrated a rare show of commonsense, including the Y!X commenters on my blog, who left remarks including "down with Pinocchio," "an absolute tart," "that man deserves a beer," and "the best thing she could do for charity is to feed herself to an endangered tiger."

Harsh? Fair. And nothing she didn't deserve. As we head into 2009 Paul McCartney is now quietly seeing Nancy Shevell, an American sociality with plenty of money of her own.

I made that quite long, didn't I? In brief: dumb skank attempts to fleece rich husband, told a whole lot of porky pies to get share of his money pile. Wily judge sees through golddigger, tells her to beat it. Golddigger gets more money than most of us could ever dream of having in our lifetime, still complains. Rest of world hopes golddigger will shut up and go away.

And suspiciously, Heather Mills has been rather quiet of late...

In news that cause a generation of women to tear up, it was announced that Patrick Swayze was suffering from pancreatic cancer! Dirty Dancing was slotted into thousands of DVD players around the world, and, as luck would have it, it's December now and Swayze is still going strong.

The gardeners at George Clooney's Italian villa were doing the lawns in March, so naturally a wedding to girlfriend Sarah Larson was in the works. Long grass equals nuptials. Surely you know how the rumours work by now!

Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson rekindled their flame in Miami, although the mags tried their very best to pair him up with Marley and Me co-star Jennifer Aniston. The pair was filming on location in Florida at the time.

The Jolie-Pitt clan, due to expand from four to more in a few months from then, planned to move to France, although reportedly Daddy Brad had his difficulties with the language - and the location.

"He's an American boy through and through," New Idea reported at the time. "He likes fast motorbikes, watching football and drinking beer. He is not going to want his sons growing up ice skating or playing lacrosse, or whatever they do in France."

What else, pray tell, about Brad and Angie? It was revealed their foundation gave US$8m to charity the previous year. Their peeps denied a wedding between the two took place in New Orleans, and a genealogical society revealed that Brad was related to Barack Obama and Angelina to Hillary Clinton. They are ninth cousins, respectively. If you believe that sort of stuff.

After rather mean stories which ran in a certain British tabloid mocking her weight gain and comparing her appetite to that of her legendary fathers, Lisa Marie Presley. Lisa Marie announced she was not fat, she was pregnant, and sued The Daily Mail for the nasty ass stories they'd written about her. She won, and they were forced to issue an apology thus:

"On March 4, we published a photograph of Lisa Marie Presley while she was dining with friends. We suggested she might have an unhealthy appetite similar to her late father. We now accept that the suggestion is untrue and apologise to Ms Presley for any distress caused."

Twins Finley and Harper were born in October.

And on the subject of babies...

Born: Nahla Ariela Aubry; daughter of Halle Berry and model Gabriel Aubry, on March 16. With those genes little Nahla was bound to be blessed in the looks department, and those suspicions turned out to be right when snaps emerged of mama Halle visiting the zoo with her five-month-old later in the year.