When Madonna went and picked up Malawi Dave from his African orphanage, she can't have know what a tidal wave of controversy she was going to unleash, but – Madonna being Madonna – she's learnt just about nob-all from the experience.

In fact, Madonna has turned all the extraordinary adoption criticism she's received on its head and virtually demanded that everyone should immediately go to Malawi and do exactly what she did. There are more than one million orphans in Malawi, Madonna says, and if she can fly over there, bend the international adoption laws at will and rush off back to her English castle to teach her new child the rules of croquet while Malawi tries to figure out what just happened, then so can you. And you don't even have to dress up like a comedy pensioner gymnast to do it, either.

You wouldn't have guessed it but Madonna has a film out today. Well, it's no so much of a film, more of a cartoon that she does one of the voices in – making it one of the only Madonna films where you know you'll be spared the sight of a Madge-minge or freakishly sinewy farmer's arm. But now she's in this film Madonna thinks she can go around blathering on about all sorts of vaguely controversial stuff in the hope that people will listen to her opinions and say "Thank you Madonna, I will go and see that fairy cartoon now."

So far Madonna has limited herself to barging in on the Rosie O'Donnell Vs Donald Trump fight for no good reason at all, but that's not what people want to hear about – people are more interested in the adoption of Malawi Dave, and since Madonna is so eager to please, that's what she decided to talk about during an appearance on David Letterman last night.

Everyone has an opinion on Madonna's adoption of Malawi Dave, you see – human rights groups are against it, Angelina Jolie is against it, Guy Ritchie was against it but he probably isn't now, the father of Malawi Dave is all confused by it and Newsnight doesn't doesn't care so long as it can interview Madonna in a pretty tent about it. But Madonna – showing all the strength of will of a woman who once got on a big cross in a pair of horrible knickers – doesn't care what people think about her adoption. She likes adopting children from Malawi so much that she's more or less urged everyone to do the same, as Reuters reports:

Madonna said she initiated the adoption, which she saw as "saving a life," despite the laws of adoption in Malawi being less than clear and little used… "We were basically creating the laws as we went… There's over a million orphans in Malawi, and in my opinion the laws need to change because these children need to be rescued," said Madonna. Madonna said she was warned by a social worker that adopting a child from Malawi could be difficult. "She didn't say don't do it, but she just said expect challenges, and, boy, did we get them," said Madonna.

Perhaps, now that the initial outrage over Madonna's decision has died down, Madonna's words will be heeded this time around, and hundreds of potential adopters will head off to Malawi to pick from the army of beaming orphans, who we expect to be beaming less when they realise that not everyone who wants to adopt them owns a bloody great castle in the middle of nowhere, a diamond-encrusted Nintendo Wii and a walk-in wardrobe full of all the ponies you could ever wish to eat.

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Madonna urges more people to adopt from Africa – Reuters