WAITING FOR MADONNA

Do you remember when you were an teenager and you knew every song in the top 20? And do you remember when you found a song or an album that you liked and you would play it again and again and again until your mom banged on your bedroom door and told you that if you didn't stop, she'd throw your record player out the window?

I'd forgotten about that affliction until Madonna's Hard Candy album. Not for many many years have I come across an album that is so addictive that if I go more than three and a half hours without listening to it, I start to get the shakes. I have to get up at 3am every morning to have a sweet fix.

When I saw the set list for the Sticky and Sweet tour then, which was heavy with songs from her new album, how excited was I? I was going to get to listen to Madonna's Hard Candy album being played really really loud, and no mother was going to come knocking on no door.

Ace or what, man?

Only thing is, I'm not actually a teenager any more. I've just turned 36 years of age. Going to see Madonna at her Wembley tour date last Thursday would mean a lot of walking and standing around. Would these old bones be able to take it?

Wembley didn't help me out there. The doors were supposed to open at 5pm, but when Mr Scribbles and I wandered over to the stadium from a nearby pub at about 5.30ish, the doors were still closed. This meant that huge queues were already forming. Mr Scribbles had the additional problem that there were announcements saying that 'large objects' could not be taken inside the stadium and he said he feared he'd be stopped because of his large penis.

In the end, we stood for half an hour before the doors were open and the queue started to move. Mr Scribbles' penis passed unnoticed inside his jeans and he was allowed in. Once inside, I queued for the ladies loo. Then I queued for a drink.

We got about an hour's respite sitting on the pitch before the 'support act' started and we all had to stand up. DJ Paul Oakenfield played some songs. Whatever they paid him it wasn't enough. Not everyone would be able to stand there and play one song after another for half an hour. Breathtaking skill.

Then the lights came up again and all we had to do was wait for Her Madgesty to turn up. 8pm came and went. We carried on waiting. Nothing else to do. The skies darkened. We waited.

8.30pm came and went. The top tier of the stadium got a Mexican wave going. Then one of the other tiers got a slow hand clap going. Meanwhile, we carried on waiting. I started to get the odd impression that I had always been there, standing on that pitch, staring at those two great big M's either side of a black stage that heaved with lighting rigs. Had always been there, would always be there.

Despite the fact that the crowd were mostly British, people started talking to the strangers next to them, such was the desperation. Suddenly, at about 9pm, the guy standing next to me, who appeared to have come on his own, and whose picture I had taken for him with one of the great big stage M's in the background, turned in my direction and said in a tone of soul-shaking awe GWYNETH PALTROW IS BEHIND YOU!

I swear, dear reader, if Jesus Christ had risen out of the ground there and then amongst us all, there couldn't have been more reverence in his voice.

As it was, Gwyneth Paltrow was enough, and she had brought Kate Hudson with her. They had arisen out of a small tent just behind where we were standing. They stood there, like royalty stand in the royal box at the theatre so everyone can see them and adore them. And we so did. We all fell over ourselves to stare and take their picture and stare.

I was so excited I had to eat my Mars Bar to shore up my blood sugar levels. Kate Hudson, poor girl, looked terrified and soon sat down. Hollywood Royalty are used to space on a red carpet and polite paparazzi behind barriers, kiss-arse interviews and unknown people seen only through the black-outed windows of limos. And here, within touching distant, were thousands of tired, slightly hysterical British people. I felt for her.

Gwinny, however, looked right at home. I'm assuming that's because she has practice of such terrifying situations because of her husband's job. She kept standing up to greet new people to the tent of the rich and famous, and we all kept taking photos and staring, and she kept right on smiling and looking really happy to be where she was. She is incredibly beautiful. Kate too. Even had they not been famous, you would probably have had to stare at them. Such symmetry in a face, such sculpted jaws and cheek bones, such shiny eyes. That level of beauty elevates mere humans to demi-goddesses. Although Gwinny's hair needed a good brush.

Madonna was forgotten now. Rich people in a tent seemed the point of everything. I mused that lessons could be learnt from this. People obviously don't mind waiting if they have famous people to stare at. I thought perhaps Virgin Trains could have some famous people on contract to walk up and down station platforms when engineering works held up their services. Who'd care if you were going to be twenty five minutes late into Euston when you had Jodie Marsh or Phil Mitchell from Eastenders to gawp at? Just an idea.

Soon after the descent of the Hollywood Godesses however, the lights went down and a wave of vocal excitement rose from the crowd like a living thing. The great big M's lit up. She was ready to come among us.