Another day, another guru. Willard F Harley Jnr, counsellor extraordinaire, was credited yesterday by one listener to the Ray Darcy Show for saving his marriage.

Another day, another guru. Willard F Harley Jnr, counsellor extraordinaire, was credited yesterday by one listener to the Ray Darcy Show for saving his marriage.

Harley advises, for instance, that it is wrong to become too fond of 'Love Busters'. According to his guide, "Love Busters are your habits which cause your spouse to be unhappy. Whenever you engage in one of them, you withdraw love units from your Love Bank account."

He then goes on to warn against the practice of using a Love Buster to "make you feel good while your spouse feels bad".

Who woulda thunk it?

He also points out that after all the years he has been providing marriage counselling "in less than three hours I can know more about a person than the one who has lived with him or her for more than a decade".

This proves two valuable things: F Willard Harley Jnr is quite creepy and he obviously tends to the needs of the most stupid married couples in America.

Far more valuable, we like to think, is the ISpy guide to a happy marriage - "compromise is when you both agree she is right and every house should have two bathrooms".

Now where's our book deal?

Oh Jehova, she's at it again Okay, we're breaking our self-imposed no-more-than-one-Madonna-story-a-week rule, but this one is simply too good to pass up.

Apparently, we're all going to hell, according to Madge (pictured). "People are going to go to hell if they don't turn from wicked behaviour. The material world, the physical world, the world of illusion that we think is real, we live for it. We're enslaved by it. It will ultimately be our undoing."

So, the woman who once proudly and swaggeringly sang "we are living in a material world and I am a material girl" has now decided that we're all doomed.

Still, let's hope Kabbalah is the one true faith - at least that way when we're all in hell we will be spared her rubbish new album.

And for my next trick... You have to feel sorry for David Copperfield (pictured). He's named after a famous literary character, he has a face like a lightly roasted satsuma and he has been cursed with the kind of rictus-like grin which means that even when he tries to be sincere he looks like he's mentally undressing your father.

Even when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear, people mocked his sexuality and he must be the only bloke alive who could marry Teutonic totty Claudia Schiffer and still be called a bender.

Now, in a new stunt entirely unrelated (our lawyers have asked us to point out) to questions of his sexuality, he plans to impregnate a woman. While on stage.

Dismissing the idea that there are only seven true magic tricks, he told a German newspaper: "Bullshit! There is a great deal of new territory to conquer. In my next show I'm going to make a girl pregnant on stage. Naturally it will be without sex. Everyone will be happy about it, but I'm not telling you any more."

Yes, David. Naturally, it will be without sex.

Anyone feel nostalgic for the days of dwarf tossing? Thanks to the ever vigilant gauleiters of modern politeness, numerous English councils have decreed that forthcoming Christmas pantos should be more sensitive to the potential feelings of the wider society at large.

As an example they have recommended that Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs now be changed to Snow White And The Guardians Of The Forest.

Yup, dwarf has now been replaced with "guardian of the forest".

So stay tuned for the likes of Conforming To Unfair Social Body Standards and the Facially Challenged and Joseph And His Amazing Multicultural Dreamcoat.

And yet when you point out that dwarfs actually enjoy the recognition, like to be patted on the head and dangled upside and all the other fun things we can do with these latter-day munchkins, people look at you like you're a monster.

Sad, really.

Sudoku ... opium of the precocious? Think you're good at Sudoku? Think clearing a 'fiendish' challenge after only a few stops on your Dart journey makes you an expert?

Well, step aside for the child competitors of The Times Childhood Sudoku Challenge which took place this week.

Among the entrants was the child who cut short his trip to Venice to return for the event, the kid who could complete the hardest section in six minutes and the child who cried: "It was too easy, far too easy. You must make it harder next time."

Still, at least it gives the bullies a head start in knowing who to pick on next term.

If you go down to the pool today... A British man has claimed st£50 from his travel insurance company for emotional distress after he woke up beside a Fiji rock pool with a barnacle attached to his old chap.

Arriving at the nearest hospital, he was then further humiliated when an attractive female nurse tended to the injured area, resulting in le petit general standing to attention.

In the end, a male nurse had to be called to finish the crustacean extraction.

It sounds amusing, we'll grant you that.

Until you realise that this wasn't an isolated incident: the Giant Schlong Eating Barnacle Of Fiji is actually indigenous to these waters.

Ian O'Doherty iodoherty@unison.

independent.ie