BBC

Madonna attacks UK workmen

Madonna is having her mansion renovated

Pop icon Madonna says she loves the UK - but not when it comes to employing workmen.

The multi-millionairess, whose hits include Material Girl and Holiday, said: "I can't believe how people don't like to work."

"I'm renovating a house right now and the work week starts at noon on Monday and ends at noon on Friday," Madonna, 42, told fans logging on to a webchat on msn.co.uk.

"I'm a bit spoiled," she said.

"I'm used to people in America working seven days a week. It's highly irritating. They leave work at five and there are bank holidays every minute here.

"When you hire an employee here, they remind you they get four weeks' paid vacation."

Madonna lives in a £5.5m mansion in London with British film director husband Guy Ritchie and her two children, Lourdes and Rocco.

She said she had spent almost £1m on renovation work.

But while the pop star enjoys living in the UK, it is not the first time she has attacked its institutions.

Last year she dubbed NHS hospitals "old and Victorian" when quizzed about where she planned to have her second child Rocco.

Meat-eater

The singer also defended herself for bowing to another tradition practised in some parts of the UK - shooting game.

"I'm not a vegetarian. Someone has to shoot the chickens you eat. Everyone seems to be cut off from the fact that the meat you eat is killed," she said.

"I think when you shoot a bird and are involved with the whole process, you have more respect for it."

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2001