When Madonna adopts a child, it’s hard. There’s the spoon-feeding. There’s the bathing. There’s the constant threat of incontinence.

Yup, that Madonna sure does take a lot of looking after. But little Mercy James is bound to cope. Because, just as we’ve been expecting all week, the Malawi Supreme Court has finally approved Madonna’s request to formally adopt Mercy James and take her home.

Madonna has fought so hard for this – it’s everything she’s always wanted. Until next week when she decides that she also wants a diamond-studded unicorn, and throws another pissy fit when someone tells her no, obviously.

Of all her admirable attributes, Madonna’s tenacity is right up there with her slightly nauseating unwillingness to dress remotely like a woman her own age, her swiftness to attach herself to religions which are plainly rooted in bullshit and and her ability to push a Snickers bar through the gap in her teeth sideways. When Madonna sees something she wants, she just goes ahead and gets it. Admittedly a few years later she tends to divorce it because it’s not the express ticket to A-list movie stardom she anticipated and also because it looks a bit like a potato, but that’s by the by.

The point is, Madonna’s tenacity has just ensured that she’s won the greatest prize of her life – a small orphan from Malawi who she may or may not plan to keep in a giant bell jar to use as her primary source of delicious stem cells.

That’s right – after her humiliating defeat earlier this year, Madonna’s adoption of Malawian orphan Mercy James has finally been given the official go-ahead by the country’s supreme court. AP reports:

Madonna can adopt a second child from Malawi, the southern African country’s highest court ruled, overturning a lower court decision it said was out of touch with the times. Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo, reading the three-judge panel’s ruling, also said the singer’s commitment to helping disadvantaged children should have been taken into account when deciding on Madonna’s request to adopt 3-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James.

This news isn’t exactly a surprise – the adoption was widely predicted earlier this week – but it’ll be no less thrilling for Madonna, not least because the court has essentially set a precedent allowing Madonna to rock up to the country in a dirty great JCB and scoop up as many little orphans for herself as she can as often as she likes.

Because don’t forget that Madonna has done a lot for Malawi recently. She’s founded a charity to feed the country’s orphans and provide them with medical supplies – plus she’s built the Raising Malawi Kabbalah School to educate them in the mystic ways of the Kabbalah, ensuring that generations of Malawian orphans can grow up to be at least as clever as Ashton Kutcher. It might not be much, but it’s a start.

It just goes to show that money can’t buy you love. But it can buy you a crapload of bricks to build a school to indirectly guilt a government into giving you a kid who you can then go on to shower with the nearest approximation of love available to you at any given moment of time. Which is a completely different thing. It is.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

It’s time to congratulate Madonna. And not because she only got up to pee 17 times last night – although that is her personal best this year.

Instead Madonna appears to have defied international adoption law and all number of child trafficking protesters by winning her appeal to adopt little Mercy James, the orphan that she couldn’t have a few months ago.

It’s unknown how Madonna convinced the judges to allow the adoption since, when asked, their voices were muffled by the sumptuous collar of their new fur coat and drowned out by the roar of their gleaming speedboat respectively.

If there’s one universal truth about Madonna, it’s that criticising her only strengthens her resolve. That’s why, before we get to the actual meat of this story, we’d just like to publicly berate the following people for strengthening Madonna’s resolve:

* The person who told Madonna to stop dressing like a teenage girl.

* The person who told Madonna to stop talking in that ridiculous faux-Mary Poppins accent.

* The person who told Madonna to stop making bad music.

* The person who suggested to Madonna that a wealthy middle-aged woman like herself should maybe consider tucking in her vagina from time to time.

Right, now that’s out of the way, it’s on with the news. Remember Mercy James? Of course you do – she’s the little orphan from Malawi who can’t win. Earlier this year Madonna did everything in her power to adopt Mercy James, an act that would condemn her to spending the rest of her life in a nightmarish whirlwind of soulless, out-of-touch celebrity obnoxiousness and having to occasionally visit Guy Ritchie.

However, stung by the backlash from her previous adoption, the Malawian Supreme Court then refused to grant Madonna’s adoption application on the basis that she hadn’t permanently lived in Malawi for 18 months, thereby condemning Mercy James to a lifetime of poverty and, probably, an early death from something like Malaria. That poor girl. Malaria on one hand and Guy Ritchie on the other. We don’t know which one we’d chose, in fairness.

So what did Madonna do? Did she simply give up on Mercy James? No chance – she gave up on Mercy James, then fell off a horse, then changed her mind and decided to appeal the court’s ruling. And if reports are to be believed, she’s only gone and done it. The Daily Mail reports:

Three Malawian appeal court judges will reverse the original verdict, blocking the singer’s bid in March, her lawyer said. Alan Chinula passed on the news, after persuading two of the three appeal judges to alter their decisions… The official ruling will be announced next Sunday at Malawi’s Supreme Court of Appeal.

So congratulations Madonna. You finally got what you wanted. You’ve proved us all wrong with your steely resolve, and for that you should be commended.

Now, for crying out loud, nobody tell Madonna that she can’t make a sequel to Body Of Evidence.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

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.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

It’s a big day for Madonna – although at her age any day that she doesn’t shatter her hip slipping in the bath is a big day.

What’s the occasion? Why, despite her best efforts, a court has rejected Madonna’s bid to adopt Mercy James from Malawi. It’s sad news – Madonna had already ordered Mercy 25 genuinely offensive leotards and purchased a special little drill to gap her teeth and everything.

What’s Madonna’s next step? Well, she can either appeal against the ruling or adopt a kid from Gloucestershire and just black it up a bit. The second one’s probably easier.

Today was supposed to be a big day for Madonna – although at her age any day that she doesn’t almost die of pneumonia alone in her house is a big day – but it was going to be an even bigger day for young Mercy James. When she woke up this morning, she knew that one of the following things would definitely happen to her:

1 – Madonna would fly home from Malawi without her, leaving her to probably die young in extreme poverty, or

2 – Madonna would be allowed to adopt her, and she’d spend her formative years listening to a lycra-clad pensioner thump on about Kabbalah like a wild-eyed ninny all the time.

Basically our point is that Mercy James was going to be effed either way, but you probably got that.

However, in a piece of frankly stunning news, the Malawi High Court has decided that Madonna won’t be allowed to adopt Mercy James after all. Reuters reports:

A Malawian court ruled on Friday that U.S. pop star Madonna cannot be granted an interim adoption of a second child from the country, three court sources said. Rights groups have accused Malawian authorities of giving her special treatment… Malawian civil society groups opposed the adoption attempt and a local human rights activist said it would amount to child trafficking.

Madonna had certainly put in the legwork when it came to adopting Mercy James. During this week’s visit to Malawi, she did all she could to show the authorities that she’d be a good mother – like taking David Banda to disappoint his biological father, deciding to bulldoze a load of houses so that she could build a high-profile vanity project there and, crucially, divorcing that mockney potato-man who followed her around last time.

But still, things weren’t completely cut and dry as far as having the adoption granted went – especially because of the furore over her last adoption and the fact that she’d be raising Mercy James alone – and that’s what made today such a big day for Madonna. Although at her age any day that she doesn’t start crying because she’s forgotten the names of her own immediate family is a big day.

What happens next is anybody’s guess. You’d imagine that someone as pugnacious and used to getting her own way as Madonna won’t take this ruling lying down, making an appeal almost inevitable. But on the other hand she might just stick with her ridiculously young boyfriend instead, seeing as how he’s only a couple of days older than Mercy James anyway. But still, right now Madonna is at a crossroads – making today one of the biggest days in Madonna’s life.

Although, technically, any day that Madonna isn’t forced to spend an entire week in her stairlift because it stopped mid-journey and she left her panic button in the kitchen is a big day.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

The best thing about Madonna going to Malawi this week is Malwai getting to see what a leotarded vagina looks like.

No, wait, that’s disgusting. What we meant to say was that the best thing about Madonna going to Malawi this week is that her adopted son David Banda can meet his biological father Yohane for the first time since Madonna took him out of the country. Because, really, what’s the worst thing that can happen? David Banda not recognising Yohane and asking him who he is and why he’s so poor through an interpreter?

Oh, that actually happened? Awkward.

Adopting a child from another country can be an incredibly bittersweet affair. Although on one hand, you’re taking the child out away from a life of poverty, misery and a criminally low life expectancy, you’re also destroying part of their cultural heritage.

What’s more, for every moment of joy you derive from giving your new child a silly, made-up name, you’ve also got to cope with the moment of agony that comes when you realise that People paid more for Christina Aguilera‘s stupid baby photos than your own. It’s a ruddy minefield.

And that’s why you need to be delicate about it. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, for instance, famously observe each of their children’s geographically-specific indigenous Christmas traditions. And Madonna, um, gives her children funny haircuts and then ignores their biological parents for so long that they completely fail to recognise each other on the rare occasion that they do meet. Which is sort of the same thing, really.

Madonna is currently in Malawi trying to adopt a girl called Mercy James – who is either a poverty-stricken orphan or, judging by her name, a feisty wild west prostitute – and she used this visit to briefly reunite David Banda with his father Yohane. It was a touching gesture, or at least it would have been a touching gesture if a) David Banda knew who his father was, b) spoke the same language as his father or c) managed to show even the slightest flicker of empathy for his father. Now quotes:

‘He asked me in English who I was and what I do. When I told him, “I am your daddy” he looked surprised. We spent three hours together… he played with my nose and although he did not know who I was he asked me lots of questions. He asked me why I am poor.’

Sadly the visit was cut short when David Banda mistook one of his biological uncles for a cocktail waiter, ordered him to scare up a Mai Tai while clicking his fingers, then went after him with a horsewhip when he didn’t instantly comply. This didn’t happen.

However, despite all the obvious awkwardness in the encounter – and the larger illustration of the heartbreak that foreign adoption can cause – Yohane Banda also said that he’s grateful that Madonna adopted David and saved him from ‘possible early death.’ He then hopped onto his gleaming new motorcycle and zoomed off to the jetski marina leaving a cloud of money in his wake.

This didn’t happen either. Probably.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

Madonna – essentially Chitty Chitty Bang Bang‘s Child Catcher with a more prominent vagina – is in Malawi.

You know what this means? Madonna isn’t leaving until she’s snagged herself an orphan. It doesn’t matter how – whether she does it legally or has to bend a few rules or resorts to wedging one between the gap in her teeth when nobody’s looking – it’s going to happen.

Of course, Madonna denies this. But then she would – otherwise this story would never stretch out for so long that it makes us want to kill ourselves. And surely that’s the only reason she’s even doing this.

No matter what she does, Madonna always manages to bugger things up one way or another, doesn’t she? Like when she married Guy Ritchie, for example – that would have been great if it weren’t for that bloody film they made together. And when she popularised Kabbalah she inadvertently set Ashton Kutcher off down a path that’s ended with him filling up nine-tenths of Twitter with piss-boring self-conscious messages about social awareness. The bloody great cow.

Most conspicuously, though, Madonna has buggered up just about everything to do with her adoption of orphans from Malawi. First any philanthropic aspects of her adoption of David Banda almost came undone when it was revealed that he was one of those special orphans whose parents weren’t quite all dead yet, and now the school she’s building in Malawi might derail her potential second adoption.

Madonna is due in a Malawi court later this week for a hearing, probably over her application to adopt three-year-old orphan Mercy James. But for all the good that would come from the adoption – like the fact that this one won’t have to spend every other weekend at Guy Ritchie’s house and that she’ll be given a life so extravagant that she’ll wake up every morning thanking her lucky stars that her mother died when she was a baby – the controversy over the school she’s building in the country might just overshadow all of that.

Why? Because it’s an obvious ploy to bribe the government into letting her adopt another baby? No. Because Madonna’s proposed curriculum includes lessons on tongue-kissing black Jesuses, wearing leotards that a person half your age would look silly in and how to rhyme “super-duper” with “Mini Cooper” in the most dreadfully cackhanded way imaginable? No. As People reports, it’s because Madonna is knocking down roughly half of Malawi to build the poxy thing:

“We are told to leave our gardens after this year’s harvest; we are told our houses are to be pulled down – but nobody is talking about compensation,” said Esinati Nkhoma, a local mother of four. “Where will we move to?” … When a journalist asked Madonna whether she was worried about the land concerns, she shouted back, “No!”

Of course Madonna isn’t worried by the land concerns. This is all part of her evil plan. Look – if she evicts villagers from their homes to build a school, then they’ll need jobs to buy new homes. And where will they work? Why, in Madonna’s proposed inappropriate leotard-stitching sweatshop, of course. And they’ll need to work 23-hour shifts every day to cover their rent. And they’ll die young from the stress of it. And then Madonna will adopt their children. And then she’ll drink their spinal fluid to maintain her illusion of youth.

Fiendish, Madonna, fiendish. Completely fictional, but fiendish.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!