Madonna turns to writing fairy tales

When Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie - best known for his gritty movies punctuated with mockney expletives and random violence - get together on a project, you would think it was time to take cover.

So it may come as a surprise that the home life of the celebrity couple comes straight out of the Brady Bunch and that they are writing fairytale-style books for children together.

"Morning has broken, like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird" is hardly rock 'n' roll, you might think. But it has also emerged that the Cat Stevens song is played by the couple on guitars every morning at the London home they share with their son Rocco and Madonna's daughter Lourdes.

Ritchie gave Madonna a guitar because, he says in an interview: "I fancied playing with someone." Yet he admits it hasn't worked out as planned: "We tend to get ratty with one another. I've got no sense of time - and I always want to lead."

The revelation is bound to raise eyebrows - but not as much as news that the pair have written a book for children aged five to eight, giving them allegorical advice on how to live their lives.

Madonna tells Vanity Fair magazine: "I've just written a collection of children's stories with my husband. In fact, I'm just finishing one at the moment." Ritchie adds that the books, which are not for profit, "do something to shatter the illusions that we're all misguided by". He says: "There's always a wise woman or man in each story."

In the interview, Madonna, who has lived in London for the past three years, says she is in awe of the capital's architecture and gardens. "I love the way the city looks, minus all the council estates randomly and profusely built up everywhere," she says.