On the surface, Madonna has it all. Her unrivalled fame, admirable physique and mass of wealth have been the envy of many over the years; and at 50 she continues to set the boundaries of what women can achieve. Furthermore, as a mother, Madonna has appeared in a variety of familial roles in the past decade – from single mother in the late 1990’s, to a seemingly adapted English country wife in the early 2000’s, to a trendy, saving-the-world African adopter more recently. As a wife however, Madonna has never been very comfortable. She refused to have her wedding photos released publicly, and whilst there is an abundance of highly analysed red carpet photographs of her and Guy Ritchie displaying interesting body language, there has never been one portrait of the couple looking happy and united. They have never represented anything exceptional or idealistic with regard to marriage - celebrity or not - and it comes as little surprise that their relationship ended in divorce this month. This is not a first for Madonna, who also divorced actor and husband of five years, Sean Penn, in 1989. What is it about this crucial part of her life that Madonna just cannot seem to get right?

Obviously relationships are never going to be easy for someone who is strongly career-driven, and Madonna takes that characteristic to a whole new level. Whilst she admitted her love for Penn in her 1990 documentary In Bed with Madonna, it was a turbulent relationship, and it is obvious that she used their coupling to strengthen her public profile, during the crucial years in which she solidified her dominance in an exclusively male industry. Madonna’s work always comes first, and men are merely accessories. Short-lived relationships with men like Warren Beatty and John F Kennedy Jr. in the 1990’s were merely for gossip and spectacle at various points in a career which was founded on the principle of the independent woman. In fact, Madonna has stated that losing her virginity at the age of 15 was “a career move” which put her on the map in high school. It can be claimed that having used men for so long, she has managed to work against her own interests in the long term – she has now failed to place her husband on an equal par with her career, never mind putting him above it. But Madonna is striving to maintain her status and wealth. She has worked single-handedly for almost thirty years to put herself at the absolute top, and her fame has never faltered. Her career is something she had before her marriage to Guy and something she’ll have long after it, and some of his well known, believable complaints about her suggest that he is being unreasonable.

Guy has said that she spends too much time working, setting very little time aside for family life. Sure enough, Madonna could sit back and relax if she wanted, and never have to worry about a pension, but for a workaholic such as herself, the prospect of becoming idle is inconceivable. If a woman is thoroughly committed to her work, must she ultimately sacrifice it if she wishes to have a successful family life? Furthermore, Guy resents the time she spends on rigorous exercise and training - maintenance which she regards as compulsory to keep up with Britney and Christina’s music videos, as well as Justin’s energetic stage shows. Guy doesn’t sympathise with this – he has allegedly said that sleeping with her was like cuddling up to “a piece of gristle”. So what does that say to women who are concerned with their body image? To top it all off, Guy is said to be jealous. In 8 years of marriage, Madonna’s career has continued to prosper, whilst his has dwindled, not to mention the fact that he is worth only a tenth of her rumoured £300 million. This doesn’t act as a good advertisement for ambitious female earners.
This could all boil down to the fact that Madonna and Guy are not a suitable couple, but family and friends will insist they were in love once. It has been thei

What is it about America’s contest for the presidency that captures the interest of the world? Most people would mutter something about “superpower” and being informed of the state of world politics. But look at how the global spotlight has abandoned the troublesome situation in Zimbabwe, or how the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto has become Pakistan’s new leader. Few people were glued to their screens in March when the Russian president Vladimir Putin was succeeded by close friend Dmitri Medvedev, who subsequently held on to the former leader as Prime Minister. So let’s face it, truthfully, we watch the Americans for the sheer entertainment value.
With the November 4th election day looming closer, we watch the polls as though awaiting a vote for the latest imported reality TV show, the pages it covers in our newspapers are more meaty than the gossip columns now and the personalities involved themselves could rival any gripping soap opera.
For months, we sat on the edge of our seats, waiting to see who would be the Democratic nominee – Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, with every primary looking like a Saturday night X Factor showdown. Their party was a bit more appealing because of the mix of gender and race, and they’re closer to our idea of liberalism anyway. Over on the other channel, the Republicans were losing viewers. They’d been on TV for too long, and had little chance of revamping following 8 years of George W. Bush. Just like Big Brother, he was fun to watch for a while, but then once he’d overstepped the line, it was a touchy subject and you didn’t bring it up over the water-cooler the next day. Hillary Clinton’s dramatic exit from the race this June was like a much loved matriarch figure being killed off, and we felt for her. It was like Peggy Mitchell being sacked from the Queen Vic without so much as a pension - and Hillary was forced to play out this final scene before millions of gawking viewers around the world. However would the Republicans respond to this? Enter Sarah Palin.
Palin sailed in at the last minute all the way from Alaska (that’s somewhere near Russia I believe) to play the new kid on the block whilst McCain stands grinning at his vice-presidential pick as though he had unleashed a new weapon in Robot Wars. She may have dazzled right-wing Christians with her conservative views, but to the rest of the world she is pure comic relief, in a show that was getting a bit too serious for us since the Obama/Clinton mud-slinging finished. What with her ‘lipstick pit-bull’ catchphrase, her trademark wink, and her hilariously outrageous gaffes, it’s clear that if this were Shakespeare, Palin would be the clown.
The candidates’ live televised debates are the ultimate test of their political and charismatic strength, and fall somewhere between University Challenge and a showdown from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Here, they are supposed to be exposed, raw and convincing in their bid to win over voters, although many believe them to be farcical, over-rehearsed performances. Irrespective, it makes for terrific viewing, and is far removed from what we associate with election campaigns.
And yet in Britain, we like to laugh at all these shenanigans as if they were preposterous, unnecessary, and those who takes themselves very seriously when it comes to politics would look down their nose at their counterparts across the pond. Yes, over here we do it the correct way. It’s formal, it’s traditional, and we don’t engage in the razzle dazzle which the Americans endorse. They’ve got carried away, and have got it all wrong. Or have they?
Their primaries and caucuses see them deciding who represents their party from grassroots level, and they then continue to pay close attention to who may be moving into the White House. Millions of them are Democratic or Republican to the bone, as though it was a stamp on their DNA, and campaign fervently and passionately for change

Attending concerts with great expectations worries me. It’s not so much a case of worrying that I won’t get my monies worth (somewhere in the region of £75), but with someone like Stevie Wonder, it’s important to me that I gain a live music experience to complement my extensive listening to his perfectly crafted records for the majority of my teenage years. I’m glad to say I wasn’t disappointed.
Stevie entered the stage in the packed O2 arena, beat-boxing into his microphone, and immediately engaged the audience in maintaining the rhythm, one of many times when he enlisted our participation throughout the night. The sight of the 58 year old soul legend himself earned a standing ovation, and brought smiles to the faces of everyone sitting near me (a mostly middle aged, yet surprisingly well mixed crowd), providing a testament to the respect this man has accumulated in a career that has spanned almost half a century.
Despite my love of the grandeur and spectacular displays which are now typical of arena concerts, I was quite impressed to see that Stevie Wonder had little more than a few light screens behind what was an otherwise basic stage (albeit absolutely loaded with a multitude of musical instruments, several of which he plays effortlessly during the course of the show). It’s obvious that when music sounds as good as his does, there’s little need for excess decoration.
The show did, however, get off to quite a slow start, with the first hour containing too many obscure tracks (even for a dedicated fan), and quite lengthy instrumentals, designed to spotlight the accomplished musicians with whom he shared the stage. This resulted in some grumbling and a generally unsettled audience. When he did play a hit, the audience’s collective enthusiasm for the songs shone, most of them being spontaneously transformed into joyful sing-a-longs.
The first crowd pleaser came in the form of Master Blaster (Jammin’), in which he substituted the lyrics about peace in Zimbabwe with a proclamation, “Barack Obama’s gonna be the next president!” which gained a considerable number of cheers from the crowd, but he pushed his political convictions a bit too far when he encouraged the crowd to chant the candidate’s name later in the show.
Another highlight came in the form of Stevie’s daughter, and one of four backing singers, Aisha Morris. In the second half of the show she sang a solo, and then blushed as her smiling father performed Isn’t She Lovely, which he wrote in celebration of her birth. Throughout, he exerted a warm aura and displayed a good sense of humour, showing off his average British accent and, rather peculiarly, singing London Bridge into a vocoder amidst a selection of English ‘classics’. He’s also very comfortable serenading the crowd of 20,000 alone, when he plays Overjoyed and Lately at the piano, to the delight of many unreserved, cuddling romantics.
For the last half hour, Stevie bombarded the crowd with a string of classics, including Sir Duke, I Wish, I Just Called To Say I Love You and Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) that evoked sheer delight from the audience, and reminded everyone of just why this man is so wonderful (no pun intended). London, a city not exactly famed for being funky, managed to bust a collective move, without concern for who was nearby and watching. The show was brought to a rousing climax with Superstition, the 1972 song with which he is most often associated, and the one in which his band really did sound best. It’s incredible to feel the classic bass line intrude upon that simple drum part, but when the full brass section enters with the jazzy counter-melody, it serves as a reminder of just how powerful live music can be, and why we are increasingly prioritising it over purchasing CDs. The audience cried out for an encore, and received a gospel-fuelled version of As, leaving us with the line, “I’ll be loving you always”. Stevie, the feeling