And because of this, Madonna won’t be spending this Thanksgiving with rumoured new boyfriend Alex Rodriguez. Well, in truth it’s because Alex Rodriguez would rather spend Thanksgiving with his children in Florida than with the human equivalent of frozen giblets, but the bum-slicing thing just seemed funnier.

But anyway, contrary to several reports, Madonna and Alex Rodriguez won’t be spending Thanksgiving together. Which just goes to show, most men would prefer to spend a holiday with an ex-wife who’s bitter because she was dumped for Madonna and some children whose births were almost missed because their father wanted to go and meet Madonna than actually spend it with Madonna herself. That’s got to sting a bit.

This Thanksgiving will be the first one in ages that Madonna and Guy Ritchie won’t spend as a married couple. The knock-on effects of that are huge. It means that Guy Ritchie won’t have to eat a gigantic turkey dinner, and can settle for the 14 giant turkey dinners that he usually has at every mealtime regardless of the day, the greedy cockney fool.

And as for Madonna? Well, she’s free to spend her Thanksgiving with Alex Rodriguez, the man rumoured to have played some part in the Madonna/ Guy Ritchie split. You’ll remember, of course, that Alex Rodriguez is the man who apparently ran out on the birth of his second child to meet Madonna because Madonna brainwashed him into thinking that she was his ‘fucking soulmate’. He’s obviously a highly intelligent gentleman.

Well, now that her divorce saga is finally over, Madonna can make this Thanksgiving a celebration of her new-found freedom and the love that she apparently has for Alex Rodriguez. They can cook a huge Thanksgiving meal together that Rodriguez can eat and Madonna can lick a molecule of before whining to her personal trainer about it and then doing tantric sit-ups for nine hours to burn off the calories.

Except, despite what’s been reported, Madonna and Alex Rodriguez won’t be spending Thanksgiving together at all. People reports:

“He always had every intention of spending the holiday with Cynthia, the family, and his two daughters. There was never any intention of him flying back. The allegations regarding this trip to New York [to be with Madonna] couldn’t be anything farther from the truth”. A-Rod is planning on having dinner with Cynthia and their two children Tuesday night.

So, in short, something you didn’t know was happening isn’t happening. You may let this news affect your life in whichever manner you see fit.

But still, at least you know that however you are or aren’t spending Thanksgiving, at least you know yours will be better than Alex Rodriguez’s. Unless you happen to be spending it sitting around a table in icy silence with a woman who clearly hates every fibre of your body and some children who want to know why daddy doesn’t love them any more, in which case your Thanksgiving will be identical to Alex Rodriguez’s.

But don’t think that Madonna will be upset about this Thanksgiving shun because, as she so clearly stated, she works too hard to be upset about anything. And if she doesn’t happen to be working over Thanksgiving? When then she’ll be too busy, um, being a bit lonely to be upset. Does that work?

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Amy Winehouse? Don't be silly – we're talking about the queen of substance-deranged power-ballads here, not the scabby-faced pretender to her crack-addled throne, here. That's right, Whitney Houston is back.

Well, sort of back. Whitney Houston's comeback album – her first for six years – will be released in time for Christmas. It'd be ready sooner, but it's going to take nine months of round-the-clock labour to photoshop the album's artwork so it looks like Whitney Houston's pupils are the same size and that she's got teeth and generally looks a bit less identical to Samuel L Jackson in Jungle Fever.

If the American government wants to catch Osama Bin Laden, it'll have its best shot at the end of the year. Everyone knows that Osama has a giant crush on Whitney Houston, and Whitney Houston has a new album coming out in the later stages of 2008, so if the CIA wants to know where he is, he'll either be found at the new releases section of HMV or smooshed up against the Today show window mouthing "Death to America! Marry me Whitney!" when Whitney inevitably does her comeback interview.

Yes, just when you though she'd given up music forever in favour of batting away imaginary demons in a crack-blasted frenzy, Whitney Houston is back. It's been a long journey for Whitney over the last few years – as well as being smashed out of her mind on hard drugs, she's also ended her possibly-abusive marriage to Bobby Brown, was forced to sell off just about everything she owns to prevent losing her house and had to endure dozens of witless arseholes murdering her best-known songs on Simon Cowell TV shows. No wonder she turned to crack.

But that's all in the past now, because the new Whitney Houston comeback album is almost ready according to Whitney's record label boss Clive Davis. Reuters reports:

Four songs have been completed for the as-yet-untitled project, and four more will be put to tape later this month, Davis said during Billboard's Music & Money Symposium at New York's St. Regis Hotel. "We're on track for a holiday release," he said. "We're not going to compromise who she is to fit into today's hip-hop radio market. The public wants Whitney material." Tracks earmarked for the album have been produced or written by Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am, producer/songwriter Sean Garrett and R&B singer Akon.

OK, two things immediately come to mind here. 1) Four songs? That's rubbish – Whitney Houston's comeback was announced 17 months ago. That's 119 days a song. At this rate we'll be lucky to hear the Whitney Houston comeback album before the Sun expands and engulfs the earth, and 2) Did Clive Davis mean to say "The public wants Whitney material?" Because if Akon and will.i.am are in charge then we think he might have meant "The public wants material that sounds like it's from a fizzy drink commercial."

Still, however dubious we are of Whitney Houston's comeback album ever happening, we've got our fingers crossed that it does. Not only will it give Whitney Houston a feeling of success that she's been missing for a decade, but it'll also mean that we won't have to see shelves full of lazily-repackaged Whitney Houston Greatest Hits albums like we've done for every year of our adult lives. And that has to be worth something.

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New Whitney Houston album set for holiday release – Reuters