LIKE A VIRGIN HIGH?

Madonna's Malawian lawyer has been earning his crust this week. He chose yesterday to parade himself before the world's media and remind everyone that Madonna is planning to build a multimillion-dollar school in Malawi for underprivileged girls. And it surely must be a coincidence that Malawi's High Court is ruling on Madonna's adoption of David Banda tomorrow.

The 49-year-old Zelda lookalike is apparently wanting to emulate what Oprah Winfrey did in South Africa, which was to build a £20m girls' school with state-of-the-art facilities. Without the child abuse scandal, obviously.

Her lawyer in Malawi, Alan Chinula, said:

"A task force of four prominent Malawians has already been formed to head the project... It is a multimillion-dollar project and we will get the real costs in the next two weeks."

We know we're just being cynical and Madonna adopting and setting up schools is a very good thing for Malawi, but the timing of this announcement is pretty damn cynical. Just dangle a school in front of the judges and see what decision they come to...