All Madonna wanted was to collect African orphans and secretly drink their spinal fluid to preserve her youth.

Or, you know, look after them and give them a lifestyle they could never even imagine. Or whatever. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now because it’s all off. Madonna has discovered that her appeal to adopt three-year-old Mercy James from Malawi has been shelved indefinitely.

‘Indefinitely’ is a deceptively woolly term, so let’s try to break it down for you – it’s roughly the period of time that Madonna falsely thinks she can still get away with dressing like someone 35 years younger than her.

Madonna, for her faults, has done a lot for Malawi in her time. She’s helped to raise global awareness of the poverty that affects the country, and when she built that academy there she only managed to trample across a few people’s property to do it. Plus, let’s not forget that Madonna also took the liberty of removing David Banda from Malawi – something all Malawians are hugely grateful for because, well, he’s grown up to be a right little spoilt bastard, hasn’t he?

And all Madonna wanted in return was to adopt little Mercy James. In Madonna’s mind it was a win-win situation – Malawi would have one less desperate mouth to feed and a free space in one of its overcrowded orphanages, and in return Madonna would be able to school Mercy James in the traditional ways of the west, such as learning how to have unconvincing candle sex with Willem Dafoe and not understanding the true value of money.

Of course, that plan was dealt a fatal blow last month when Madonna’s adoption bid was turned down by the Malawi courts – but now Madonna has just learnt that her plan to appeal has also been indefinitely shelved. ABC reports:

“There is a gripping temptation to throw caution to the wind and grant an adoption in the hope that there will be a difference in the life of even just one child,” Justice E.J. Chombo wrote in the lower court ruling. “But removing the very safeguard that is supposed to protect our children … could actually facilitate trafficking of children by some unscrupulous individuals.”

He’s got a point, obviously – granting an international adoption to Madonna before she’s spent two years living in Malawi would really put them on thin ice. Sure, first it’s just one child to Madonna, then the next thing you know there’s a whole bunch of other pop singers coming to Malawi to do exactly the same thing. Would you be able to live with yourself if you saw a picture of Gina G holding down six or seven Malawian babies under her foot while she sucked the spinal fluid out of them through a straw? Would you?

But, all credit to Madonna, she knows when she’s been beaten. So it’s with a heavy heart that she’ll leave Malawi, possibly for good. Just Madonna on her own. Just Madonna and her special wriggling luggage that sounds like muffled cries for help. She’ll be missed.

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