So Madonna has turned fifty years old today and I’m sure that there will be huge numbers of journalists, all queuing up to fawn over her under the spurious guise of an interview.

I’ve never quite got what it is about Madonna that everyone seems to find so fascinating, nor why her words seem to carry so much weight. She’s a singer for God‘s sake! She sings songs (probably written by someone else) and performs in concert. I don’t doubt that it isn’t hard work, but she gets paid a pretty hefty wedge for doing it. She’s not a doctor or someone trying to discover a cure for cancer. If she was, I could understand a bit more the interest that many people seem to have in her every move. Her music is ok, but nothing life changing and, in my opinion, it certainly doesn’t warrant the acreage of press coverage that it seems to attract.

Many things annoy me about this woman, her patronising attitude to the rest of us trying to be clean and green, in as much as our budgets allow, is just one example. However, it is mainly the adoption by Madonna of David Banda, the little boy from Malawi, that sends me off my anger scale. Why adopt one little boy from Malawi, when she has enough cash to make a real difference to the lives of so many other children that live there?

David’s mother, Malita, died a few days after his birth and hadn’t even reached her thirtieth birthday. I don’t know how the adoption came about, but it would be hard to blame David’s father, Yohane, for going through with the it. According to news reports at the time, Madonna did offer to support the child and have him remain with his family, but Yohane declined.

While I can see the logic behind that decision, it still strikes me as a bad idea to take David away from his home and make him part of the whole Madonna extravaganza. With all the speculation over her marriage, the almost constant press attention and general lack of privacy, I’m not sure if the obvious materialistic benefits of life with Madonna is really enough to make it worth it.

Would David be better off had he never been adopted ? I think that would be a hard question to answer yes too, however, I still maintain that Madonna could have transformed the lives of so many more than just one child had she invested her time, efforts and money into the area instead. This together with her celebrity connections could have made a real difference and David would have grown up with his roots and culture intact.

Taking one child away from a situation, even if it is as horrific as it was reported to be for David Banda, solves little in the long-term, especially for those still there.