Gordon in the morning: Adopting fresh positions

You know who's been a rock during the whole story about Madonna's credit card being refused at the baby checkout? Guy Ritchie, that's who. At least, according to Gordon:

THE thick layer of ice between GUY RITCHIE and MADONNA is starting to thaw.

Film director Guy has been consoling his ex over her failed adoption bid in a series of tearful phone calls, I can reveal.

Sniff.

Guy stunned everyone by issuing a statement supporting Madge

Well, certainly he'd have stunned Sun readers, who have been fed a diet of stories claiming the pair hated each other so much they could barely stand the thought that their lungs worked in similar ways.

He said: �I fully supported Madonna in her decision to apply for this adoption, and I am saddened her application has been rejected.

�She is motivated only by being a caring parent who seeks to share some of the advantages and opportunities that her life has given her.�

Just as a sidebar - could someone at The Sun please buy a book about the internet and stop the big diamond question marks appearing all over their website?

Yes, a surprising statement - especially if you'd spent the last two years reading this sort of thing:

GUY RITCHIE has rowed bitterly with Madonna over her plans to adopt an African baby, The Sun can reveal.

The film director fears his wife may just want the child as a celebrity status symbol ? and that she has not considered the potential problems of such a move.

Still, the paper is currently going through a warm patch in its relations with Madonna, trying desperately to paint 'having adoption rejected because it wasn't legal' as being something else entirely:

...after a Malawian judge refused the adoption, even though other authorities gave it the green light, because she hadn’t lived in the country for 18 months.

Oh, it was just a persnickety judge focusing on a tiny, tiny detail. Everyone else in Malawi was fine with it, right?

Elsewhere, Gordon shows respects for elders:

A FLUFFY grey poncho and matching hat sounds like an outfit my gran would wear to the bingo on a Saturday night.

But ANGELINA JOLIE looks dabber, sorry dapper, in old dears’ threads in her latest movie.

Gordon, mate: probably not a wise idea to take the piss out of older people when your ultimate boss is seventy-seven.

And, in perhaps the most horrible image ever published by the Sun, for some reason we're subjected to a snap of Bono with - apparently - his hand down his swimming trunks. Isn't there some sort of law?