Fa loves Papa Don't Preach: Madonna's dolphin house only a glint in an architect's eye

It would have been easy to believe that Madonna might own a house in Dubai, one which had dolphins in a tank swimming by the living room.

It sounds like the sort of thing that someone with too much money and a sometimes questionable ethical approach might do. And there was a celebrity architect, too, happily sharing the details:

The news came to the fore, when a profile of celebrity architect Joaquín Torres, revealed the plan and a rendering of Madonna’s new Dubai pad, complete with a dolphinarium in her living room.

Torres is best known to have designed the homes of high profile sporting stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and a majority of the Real Madrid team; also, let’s not forget styling the plush villa for Hollywood’s golden couple Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

Making it worse, the first of Madonna's acolytes who made it to the internet launched a defence which was based on the dolphins being shared with neighbours.

Eventually, the story started to fall apart:

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton carried a statement by the Grammy winner’s rep, which simply said: “Despite reports to the contrary, Madonna does not own a home in Dubai with dolphins.”

Of course, this is actually denying that Madonna and some dolphins co-own a home in Dubai, something which yet hadn't even been suggested.

Torres then made things worse, by taking to Twitter to talk more about the house. And the dolphins. Oh, those beautiful, beautiful dolphins:

When Twitter user Julian posed the question to Torres, whether he has built a home with a ‘dolphin area included’, the architect did not deny this.
He replied: “Yes, we did.”

When Stephanie Wireman asked whether the dolphins were captive or free, Torres simply stated: “Captive.”

Of course they'd be captive. You can't have dolphins wandering round the house, sticking their salty flippers into the cookie jar and constantly putting the water polo on the television.

But Twitter decided to push this point.

However, when Shona Polona asked him whether the house has been physically constructed, Torres further explained: “No, it has not been built. It is just a project.”

He later added to a similar query: “This is just a concept. I am not the developer I am just the designer.”

So that's "yes we did build a home with dolphins trapped in it, if by build you mean 'draw a picture of a house with some dolphins looking through a window".

It is of course ridiculous to think that Madonna would share her home with dolphins. They'd be ripped to shreds by the three Siberian tigers she keeps in her shed.

Kanye West reckons he could have a go at being an architect

Is there nothing that Kanye West won't turn his hand to? (By "turn his hand to" I mean "grunt at drawings of and sign off his name appearing upon", of course.)

He now fancies a spot of architecture:

What I want to do post-Grammys is I want to work on cities, I want to work on amusement parks, I want to change entertainment experiences or life.

There's a couple of things here. First, the way he says "post-Grammys" where most people would say "after my music career", as if he just expects the end of the process of making music is being given a small metal gramophone and a round of applause.

More crucially, it's the extent to which he's thought this through. For what could be more obvious a sign of having considered his many options than saying "I want to work on cities" before suddenly changing that to "amusement parks".

Still, how difficult can it be, changing entertainment? (Or, possibly, life?) I know that I'd be delighted to ride a rollercoaster put together by someone who's doing it because he's got bored of collaborating with Jay-Z.

U2 Tower tumbles as stock markets turn to dust

Some good news out of the economic gloom: the ugly tower that U2 was going to throw up to spike the Dublin skyline has been put on hold for 12 months as nobody wants to invest in a Bono vanity project right now. No word yet on if the group's plans to despoil The Clarence will similarly be reined in as Ireland wins the European race to recession.