So distorted have football values become that the old maxim "winning is everything" seems a bit lightweight to cope with the prevailing madness. Winning isn't so much everything these days as the only thing. In the black and white world inhabited by people such as Roman Abramovitch, for whom the price of failure as a youth may literally have been death, there are no degrees of success. This is obviously a view shared by Abramovitch's former employee Jose Mourinho. Interviewed in Sunday's Observer newspaper the Special One came up with some special phrases to describe his successor. "In my philosophy it was a very bad one" he said of Chelsea's season. "After two titles per season for the last three years there were zero titles this season, which in my philosophy means a really bad season" he continued, declining as usual to play down his own achievements. "Maybe in the philosophy of a loser this was a great season." There was little doubt which loser he had in mind.

The smart money is on a swift return to Stamford Bridge for Mourinho. He has apparently been in regular contact with not just his former players and coaching staff, but with the boss. Although there was little love lost between the two towards the end of Mourinho's reign, it turns out that Abramovitch treated the Coated One to a £2million Ferrari in the days that followed Chelsea's defeat by Spurs in the Carling Cup final. Presumably this magnificent gesture of reconciliation tells us that, even then, the writing was on the wall for Grant.

First came the Raconteurs and we all thought Fantastic! A Zeppelin sound alike band. Not heard anything like it in years. Then came Led Zeppelin The Return and everybody in the world seemed to want a ticket. I would love to know the typical demographic profile of one of these applicants. My imagination says male and over 40, with a large cd collection that mostly duplicates the vinyl stashed in the attic, and a strictly private archive of photos of himself, long-haired with a joint on, dressed in the denim and leather he finally threw out a few years ago when the spare room was turned into the nursery for .

Perhaps I'm just a walking cliché who's overlooked the growth of a whole new generation desperate to listen to a hairy man beat the hell out of a herd of cow hides with a pair of big sticks for half an hour while the musicians in the band drink beer backstage. Or perhaps Mr Ex-rocker is about to regret discarding his uniform. Either way, the truth will be revealed this summer when a line up straight out of 1980 takes the stage at a series of gigs designed to test the noise restriction policies of various councils to the limit.

I can hardly bring myself to type out the roster. Even mentioning some of these names should be breaking the law. Judas Priest for instance, who will once again unveil their 'twin guitar sound' to an expectant audience at Donington Park, scene of innumerable 'Monsters of rock' triumphs nearly thirty years ago. Joining them on the bill at the Download festival will be Kiss, Motorhead and Saxon. Why don't they just move the thing to Reading and have done with it?

Meanwhile Iron Maiden who, in fairness, have been back on the road for nearly ten years, will be reviving their 1980s heyday when they play a show based on their apparently seminal 1984 'Powerslave' album to 50,000 people at Twickenham. And if that wasn't bad enough, retro fans will have the chance to see Whitesnake and Def Leppard strutting their stuff as they share the billing for an arena tour across the UK.

Apparently it's cool once again to listen to this sort of music. Which is remarkable, as it certainly wasn't cool when I was a long-haired, greasy, spotty, denim-clad youth. Let's just say I liked Kiss but didn't get to do too much kissing. Who knows, maybe this will be the last chance for a whole load of regretful 40 somethings to make up for lost time.

The film, which Madonna wrote and produced, was actually directed by Nathan Rissman, who worked variously as the singer's "manny", gardener, research assistant and video archivist before his filmmaking skills were discovered when he started making movies of his boss's children and sending them to her while she was away on tour. Filmed over two years, it explores the devastating story of one of the world's poorest nations. It's to be hoped that the film's positive reception will guarantee its director a succesful future in the industry. It's producer certainly doesn't need the extra publicity.

Madonna recently caused controversy when she adopted a Malawian baby. David, whose mother was an Aids victim, became an international cause célèbre amid allegations that Madonna had abused her celebrity status to sidestep Malawian adoption procedures when she made her tokenistic gesture. The all-round entertainer claimed in her defence that she felt 'a connection' with the child before going on to compare the pain of adoption with that of childbirth. "It was painful and a big struggle" she said of the process, before generously acknowledging that "when a woman goes through natural childbirth she suffers an enormous amount". But apparently no more than when she adopts. "I went through my own kind of birthing pains" she added, just in case we'd begun to imagine that the adoption might be about the child rather than the monstrous ego of its washed up iconic saviour.

It's good in this cynical world to be reminded that this kind of imperialism is alive and well, and that rich publicity-hungry white folk are prepared to endure such suffering to save photogenic poor black babies.

It's equally hard to know whether the second part of the statement is true. Does Amy really know what love is? Not if we are to judge by her choice of friends. She needs Pete Doherty in her life like Sid needed Nancy. Her troubled life has been compressed beyond all recognition. Pete's too. To describe this bizarrely-matched pair as unfulfilled talents is to overstate the case drastically. As artists they barely got out of nappies before imploding. Billie Holiday destroyed herself over a 25 year career littered with classic performances and recordings. Amy looks set to self-destruct in five, judging by the difficulty she's had holding a microphone recently. Likewise, Pete Doherty's natural ancestors Keith Richards and Motorhead's Lemmy have managed almost a century of sparkling, creative self-destruction between them. Pete's career amounts to a couple of Libertines albums that barely hint at the possibilities, followed by a rapid descent into incoherence.

It doesn't take much staying power to turn yourself into a legend these days.