LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

The New Statesman once ran a competition to discover the phrase you'd least like to hear as you arrived at a party; the winner was "Come in, Sir Geoffrey's on sparkling form this evening...". Real life has now trumped that, with the words "You're just in time, Sting has got his lute out..." a real possibility. In fact, Madonna's fourth wedding anniversary sounds like a riot from start to finish:

Madonna invited her famous chums to her Ashcombe Manor home in rural England to celebrate her fourth wedding anniversary with director Guy Ritchie and asked them all to perform a song, a poem or a short acting performance.

Cheeky Martin and his wife rewrote the lyrics to American Life and renamed it American Wife - and performed it in the Ritchies' living room.

Madonna recalls, "Gwyneth did fantastic rap and Stella sang background vocals and, well, Chris played the piano."

Another musical interlude came when Sting performed on a lute and Madonna herself performed a scene from Restoration play The Town Wench Or Chastity Rewarded.

Good grief. Apparently the barbecue pits was still warm come dawn, and the air of self-satisfaction still glowed even longer.

music madonna sting chris martin gwyneth paltrow