THE FIGHT FOR SANITY Mills, straitjacket
Conventional wisdom maintains that the person, place, or thing left standing at the end of a fight is the winner. In Beef of the Week, Radar unravels the most prominent spat of the last seven days, deconstructing its causes and effects, and issuing a final verdict on the battle's victor. Let the games begin.

We at Beef of the Week are quick to surrender. We're not being cavalier, it's just inevitable sometimes—like in the case of the battle raging between Paul McCartney's soon-to-be-ex wife Heather Mills and the world-at-large. What keeps her going? Strength of character? Idiocy? Vital questions for this week's contest: Heather Mills vs. Insanity.

Heather's one juicy parvenu, a low-grade fashion model/semi-pro ho turned amputee activist who married into that highly enviable Beatle juice and jacked herself up to a spot infinitely higher than her previous station. In the end, though, she failed to fill the Tivas of Paul's lionized ex and supreme animal rights activist Linda. Nobody ever really liked Heather, either. With her crushed fairytale and subsequent balls-out money-grab, she compounded the crime of trying to demonize the world's most famous and agreeable balladeer by taking the battle to a ruthless and faceless media. It doesn't even matter if what she says is true or not.

For its part, Insanity's taken strides to suffocate her fully: when Mucca asked half-cocked questions about rat's and dog's milk replacing cow's earlier this week, she put one prosthetic foot deeper in the mental grave. Sarcasm, rhetorical questions, hyperbole ... they don't always track on the page, especially when they seem to come out of the blue, and Mills's line was framed and twisted unflatteringly in papers across the globe. Paul, are you watching this shit?

It can't help that, despite her presumptive war, Paul's already moved his Beatle boner over to well-heeled Nancy Shevell—who also happens to be a cousin to the same Barbara Walters who brought Mills (partially) to task on The View. They've even scheduled a coming out party: Harvey Weinstein's wedding!

Mills has since gone and hired publicist Michele Elyzabeth, who may well be the only person battier than her. She's, in effect, put a pasty, off-kilter face to those antagonistic voices in her paperbag head. Elyzabeth's first order of business: pinching off the media. The result? As expected: doubled exposure—and many chuckles.

Still dizzy no doubt, Mucca was asked to appear as an honorary patron of Trinity College's Philosophical Society and took the opportunity to pitch her own martyrdom with a charming dollop of self-hatred: "Sadly, you have to mix at a certain level of people to raise the level of funds you need to bring about the greater good," she said. Of course, by ranting on she's made Paul re-evaluate his settlement numbers by about, oh, £43 million, lowering the offer to around £7 million. Which could still buy a lot of slurpy rat juice, were one so inclined.

Welcome to insanity, Heather, there's not much saving you from its clammy clutches now.

PREVIOUSLY
• The War in Lahore: Bhutto Vs. Musharaff
• George Clooney is No Fabio