Macca Gets Cleaned Out

The red-topped tabloids are warming to the task of either investigating or inventing the minutiae of Sir Paul McCartney‘s upcoming divorce, with both The Sun and The Sunday Mirror reporting that his lawyers have had to fire off a letter to his estranged wife after three half-empty bottles of cleaning fluid were taken from his country home.

The motive for this heinous breach of criminal law, it seems, is that his 38-year-old ex sometimes stays in a lakeside lodge that’s 15 minutes away on Macca’s Peasmarsh, Sussex, estate and she wanted to give its office a good scrub.

The reason for the solicitors’ letter, according to The Sunday Mirror, is that the discovery of the crime left the 64-year-old former Beatle’s housekeeper, who was first on the scene, in a state of “distress.”

Apparently the balance of evidence suggested it was estranged wife Heather Mills’ nanny who took the fluid from McCartney’s kitchen and decided to put it to use elsewhere.

The crucial evidence appears to be the note the nanny left for the housekeeper, which explained exactly what she did.

The paper quoted one of the usual suspects, which it described as “a source,” warning that things – presumably including the cleaning fluid business – have “really got nasty.”

“This is war … Heather and Paul can’t stand each other any more and they will fight for everything,” the so-called source explained.

It turned out to be a prophetic statement because, a couple of days later, all the papers carried stories saying the police were called when Mills popped in to the couple’s London mansion and found the locks had been changed.

With most of the headlines – some of them front page – predicting “a battle royal,” the August 9th dailies reported that McCartney’s divorce lawyer will be Fiona Shackleton, who acted for Prince Charles in his split with Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1996.

Mills has opted for Anthony Julius, who represented Diana – and got her £17 million – in the same high-profile bust-up.

– John Gammon