Dion never released the song as a single but performed what the magazine called the “offence” against music at a Las Vegas concert six years ago in a duet with Anastacia.

In second place was a Sugababes and Girls Aloud version of “Walk This Way” which was a huge hit for Aerosmith and rappers Run DMC. Third was Westlife’s version of Extreme’s “More Than Words.”

Will Young’s cover of The Doors’ ”Light My Fire” came fourth, while The Mike Flowers Pops’ reworking of “Wonderwall” by Oasis was ranked fifth.

Jimi Hendrix’s cover version of the Bob Dylan song “All Along the Watchtower” came top of the contrasting list of most successful cover versions. This was followed by The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” which was first recorded by The Top Notes.

Guns N’ Roses version of the Wings’ song “Live and Let Die”, Nirvana’s “The Man Who Sold the World” that was first sung by David Bowie, and Muse’s “Feeling Good” were also featured in the top five.

Some in the media were less than impressed. Britain’s Sun tabloid, the country’s top-selling daily, called the stunt “a bit old hat”. Rival newspaper the Daily Mirror ran the story under the headline “Desperately seeking attention” and opened its piece with the words: “Move on Madge!” Having said that, it should be pointed out that the publication nonetheless saw it fit to feature a large picture of the embrace on page 3.

Does the “Queen of Reinvention” need to reinvent again, or has she done it so many times that there’s nowhere new to go?

Now, unless Ritchie was being deliberately ironic, it should not take a genius to work out that the comments might be seen as somewhat hypocritical. News reports say that he and his super-rich wife own a $14 million house in Marylebone, central London, and a $12 million house next door, not to mention at least two non-domestic properties in London and a $20 million country estate. And that’s just in the UK.

“House prices don’t go down, they just go up,” Ritchie is quoted as saying in an interview with Empire magazine. “The natives of England are sort of being left behind because the big money came in and if it wanted something it bought it and made a bigger fortune doing so. And as anyone who has tried to buy a house in central London knows, it’s almost impossible to do so unless you have 10 million quid.”

On the annual Sunday Times Rich List, Madonna and Ritchie were estimated to be worth 300 million pounds, or around $600 million … in other words, enough for 30 more houses in central London.