Madonna's plea for mercy (sorry to all at The Sun, it was just too good)

I never thought Madonna would kick me out of apathy. I dislike her voice. Her music is dull. I really don't care about her ridicule-ridden love life. But her recent antics in Malawi make me really, really mad.

A couple of years ago I thought up a stupid and mildly offensive business plan. I realised how much better Christmas is with children around- Santa is suddenly real again, each present is an explosion of excitement. I thought I could solve this and world poverty in one, by starting up a Rent a Child scheme. Take a child from a war-torn, poverty stricken African country and loan it to a nice childless family for Christmas. These children didn't know it was Christmas time at all- until now. Bono would be so pleased. Problem solved.

Little did I know that Madonna had a similar idea. Sweep in to one of Africa's poorest countries, Malawi, pick the prettiest baby, wave some money and a peculiar religious cult around and poof, you have saved the children. Now we all know that black babies are cuter. It is a well-known truth. But I can't quite see how taking a child from its culture amindst protests from its family and world-wide condemnation could be anything but selfish, imperialist arrogance.

And such arrogance. Over 50 human rights organisations have opposed Madonna's adoption of four-year-old Mercy James. Save the Children, one of the loudest and most respected voices on child welfare have lead the criticism. Charity spokesman Dominic Nutt reportedly said: “What Madonna is doing verges on a puppy parade. People like her are looking for the most beautiful child. They wouldn’t choose a child with a disability or special needs." Ouch. When Save the Children are saying things like that surely it's time for a rethink?

Now I'm not in a position to say who should or should not be able to adopt. So she's fifty. So she's a single mum. So she recently broke up with her boyfriend because he spent too much time on the phone to his family. But Mercy already has a family even if her parents aren't around. The Sun reported that the child's grandmother is devastated and has said she is being "stolen". This is bad enough. Madonna's previous Malawian adopted child David still has a father in the country. Granted he is a peasant farmer. But despite the father's pleas to see his son, this is the first time Madonna has taken David back to Malawi for two years. That, in my opinion, does not consitute the compassion and consideration required of a loving parent. But it's ok because Madonna's nannies will be looking after him anyway. It's horrible.

Snow in Kenya

My Mum has an old friend called Louis who lives in Kenya. He is a priest and is now quite elderly and almost completely blind. He is fiercely loyal and has rung my Mum, my sister and me on our birthdays for as long as I can remember. Every year we get the mysterious, long distance call from someone we know very little about but who wants to know everything, everything about us. When he called for my Mum's birthday in February, I was in bed. But he called back later in the afternoon especially to speak to me, his friend's daughter who he hasn't seen since she was about 6 months old. He knows I study journalism and he is aware of my travels and language studies. When he asked me what was going on in my life, I told him about the snow. The snow had dominated our existence for at least a week by then and it was the first thing that came to my mind as I frantically searched for interesting tit bits of information to satisfy his curiousity and compassion.

"Oh I know all about that," he said. "That has been all over the news over here in Kenya. We, on the other hand, have to kill each other to make the news."

This made me sad. But he was't trying to make me feel bad. It's a good thing of course that beautiful snowy images were ambassadors for Britain all over the world. But it does make you question the concept of news value.