Happy families

Having set the sales horse free from the field by dropping hints about the not-great state of Madonna's love life, her brother Christopher Ciccone has now generated more free publicity by defending the state of Madonna's marriage:

"I believe that she will do what's best for her family and her kids, and I think that she'll do her best to maintain the marriage and keep it going."

He told the Good Morning America programme it was "highly unlikely" his sister was responsible for splitting up Rodriguez's marriage, adding the claims seemed "absurd".

"First of all, despite everything else, she's still a Catholic girl and I don't think… although he is kind of her type, so it's difficult to say," Mr Ciccone said.

It's almost like, you know, he's not spoken to his sister for ages and has about as much clue as any of the rest of us as to what's actually going on, isn't it?