Madeleine McCann: Gordon Brown Investigates, Gerry McCann’s ‘Fears’ And A Ghost
MADDY WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE – GERRY’S FEARS FOR KATE HOURS BEFORE DISAPPEARANCE”
“Heart consultant” Gerry McCann was “allegedly concerned about his wife Kate’s state of mind” on the night Madeleine vanished. Gerry is said to have spoken about “part-time GP” Kate with “fellow medic” David Payne as Gerry was having a tennis lesson
Page 7: A source says: “David Payne saw Madeleine at around 6:30pm. He popped in because Gerry wanted to make sure Kate was OK”. Says Mr Payne, who has known the McCanns for five years: “I have never witnessed anything untoward in all that time”
“Madeleine visits me at night says ‘hysterical’ Kate” – Susan Healy, Kate’s mother, says probably once or twice a day her daughter is “absolutely devastated, hysterical, bereft”. “I asked her, did the twins come and wake you up? Sometimes they get into bed with Kate. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Madeleine came’”
“Brown’s plea to Portugal” – Gordon Brown is in Lisbon and due to meet Portuguese Prime minister Jose Socrates. He says: “I will discuss the issue”. Gordon Brown PI
DAILY STAR front page: “MADDIE GHOST VISITS MUM”
Page 10: “Mum’s Maddie ghost anguish” – Kate McCann is an “anguished GP”. Readers are assured by a family “pal” that Kate is suffering
“SUSPECTS FOR REST OF LIVES” – The Star has seen the Channel 4 Dispatches programme on their daughter’s case. The five media-friendly sleuths failed to crack the case. Next week the Coronation Street writers have a go
THE SUN page 27: “CLEAR US, MADDIE PARENTS TELL COPS” – Kate and Gerry are “angry”. A “high-raking source” in the Portuguese police says: “Nothing which allows us to make a definite accusation against them has emerged.” Some news. Might this be why they have not been arrested?
DAILY MAIL page 32: “Brown quizzes Portuguese PM over Madeleine” – Is Mr Socrates a suspect? Gordon Brown is Columbo. Just one more thing, sir…
DAILY MIRROR page 11: “GERRY ASKED PAL TOP CHECK ON KATE – Police probe mental state”
Says Mr Payne: “Kate is a fantastic mum. She can cope. She is a very able person”. Such is the news
“COP: NO PROOF ON McCANNS” – The McCanns have not been arrested. Says Clarence Mitchell: “If this is true, Kate and Gerry should be eliminated from the inquiry”. But the police are still looking. All avenues of inquiry remain open. No evidence. Or no evidence yet?
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 9: “Madeleine’s mother ‘breaks down in hysterics every day’”
THE INDEPENDENT, THE GUARDIAN and THE TIMES: No Madeleine news today
Posted: 19th, October 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,296) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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October 21st, 2007 at 5:57 am
This thread ended yesterday> proving you aren’t really on the ball David?
Maybe you can hang out with stevo, tony and I, maybe pick up a few tips on free thinking. Whenever you catch up that is.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:37 am
I’M CELEBRATING for the Mccanns…
October 21st, 2007 at 2:36 am
WHAT did I tell everyone!!! THEY ARE innocent!!! HAHAHHAHAHA
There is no way they will be charged now!!! hmm..what are all you pathetic losers going to do with your time now?? STEVO, TONY BENETT, ANDREW, JUDGE DRUDGE????? lol Maybe you guys should write a book or something..”I KNOW they DiD it”
ALL of you who blamed them must feel like fools who wasted 5 months of your lives hooked on Anorak!! IT’s time to get off your FAR ARSES
October 20th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
He looks an awful lot like Winnie the Pooh.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Oops sorry double post. Slurp….
October 20th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Are people aware that Clarence Mitchell will be appearing on the James Whale radio phone in on behalf of the McCanns? TalkSport Monday 10pm-1am.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
I just thought people might like to know that Clarence Mitchell is to feature on the James Whale 10 - 1am radio phone in - TalkSport, Monday night. I wonder what sort of calls they will get and if anyone from here will phone in?
October 20th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Murder , agreed, that is why I apologized to Stevo.
October 20th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
post 1080
“Red Says:
October 19th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Childhood injection knows”
Red, Are you now suggesting this has something to do with the hospital accident which led to a child’s death? Why was this never mentioned before in your clues?
October 20th, 2007 at 10:39 am
…the bit more including, of course, J K Rowling’s interest in crudely-plotted fiction, a gaggle of serial entrepreneurs with experience selling things in new ways (and the thrice-bankrupt Jehovah’s witness double-glazing saleman in particular)..
October 20th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Stevo wrote to Kris: “I will take whatever steps I have to with Anorak to have you removed from this site.NOBODY is going to refer to my daughter as having special needs in a public forum. ”
I agree with Stevo. The numerous posts by Kris are fundamentally aimed at posters, and are personal attacks. They are not posts intended to develop a perspective on the issue.
October 20th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Well, Carmen, English lawyer friends derided me (and someone else, a common journalist friend) for our ‘downmarket’ interest in this case. One of them even put me down rather abruptly for raising the matter of concurrent jurisdiction (territorial in Portugal, personal in England) the day before the McCanns returned hurriedly to England and engaged Caplan.
I still think we may yet get into questions even of judicial ’sovereignty’ in the tabloids. I understood Jacqui Smith’s plea for an end to media speculation as linked to possible English exercise of jurisdiction.
But on the suggestion of high-level conspiracies, I’d take a lot of convincing. An awful lot, given what I’ve heard from another legal source.
For now I prefer a BBC (World Service!) correspondent’s characterization of the whole affair as ‘a perfect journalistic storm’, generated by a number of converging factors which nobody in particular controlled.
Just as my best guess at the core mystery itself is still cover-up to avoid autopsy (cover-up, probably of a sedation-linked death, probably associated with failed emergency medical intervention), my best guess at the wider mystery is a sort of ‘fortuitous’ (or perhaps unfortunate) convergence of several different key factors: Gerry’s psychology, foreign location, primal fears of losing a young child, the present state of the British media, the familiar ‘middle-class Catholic doctors’ stuff and a bit more.
October 20th, 2007 at 10:24 am
this may be of interest
http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/friendsreunited.asp?WCI=OtherProfile&member_key=7964340&surname=McCann&ATC=Y&referer=4840.010.01
October 20th, 2007 at 10:03 am
SammyJ wrote: “That plate is totally creepy. any other colour but red fer gods sake!!!!”
Exactly what I thought. Goodness, how would that look next to photos of the bloody footprints the police found in the apartment and car?…. Stevo?….
ian~essex wote: ” It was rumoured early on that there was an 8th person with the McCanns and Tapas 7 that evening who was whisked away before police arrived. Who this high level person was has never been mentioned by name to my knowledge only that they are a British official with a holiday home in Malta.”
This is quite interesting indeed. Isn’t Malta the place where there were the most reported “sightings” of Madeleine? (14?) It’s also been said that Gerry is related to Gordon Brown, explaining the energetic cover-up — but just looking at Gerry , I cannot imagine even a relative risking anything to help out such a pathetic guy. So I’ve been perplexed…
October 20th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Carmen - as a footnote, and to bring things a bit closer to the British tabloids and Portugal, and matters ‘judicial’, I might have also referred to Carl Schmitt - for his place with Rosenberg as a key Nazi ideologist, his similar insistence on ‘making reality’ rather than passively observing or reacting to it, the now-fashionable relation of these themes to questions of sovereignty and constitutionality (Gordon in Lisbon - and on Anorak yesterday), and - last but very much not least - the relation of all this to ‘faith-based’ perceptions of the world, and the Catholic faith (of Schmitt, the McCanns, a great many of their ‘know-nothing’ supporters here and elsewhere, of the Barclay brothers, to some extent Blair and Murdoch) in particular.
But all these things, along with xenophobia and primal myths and fears, are just loosely connected elements in the McCann riddle.
Do you have some simple connected account of how this strange story has taken the mass-hysterical form it has in 2007 England?
That’s what I came here (via Google) hoping to explore a month ago, but, this virtual pub being what it is, I got mostly bogged down in the (itself fascinating) Murder Mystery, rather than its wider implications which are my main interest.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Stevo950 wrote: “Apparently the parents and locals were searching for Madeleine until 4:30am. Then yes, later that day (May 4th) they went jogging.”
That’s peculiar. Supposedly they have been frantically running around looking. But then they feel they need some exercise? A forlorn stroll I could see, but … jogging?!
Stevo975 wrote: “Right now, for the twins’ sake I’m hoping that if Madeleine is dead then the PJ find her sooner rather than later. They do the forensics and they can pinpoint how she died and by whom.If it happens to be the parents then I hope they throw away the key.”
Though I share your sentiments, I read the recent Team McCann manipulations as indicating that the forensics will only show that Madeleine was dead and that Kate knew this. The talk of “100% DNA” becomes irrelevant when the body fluids indicate definitely a corpse, because… well, 70% or 80% DNA from a corpse means that the body was a McCann. That’s the same as 100% DNA identification of Madeleine. This is without the body. That is why Gerry has been distancing himself from Kate for quite some time — it was a contingent plan from long ago.
I think the way to go will be to prosecute for
1) unforgiveable child neglect
2) lying and defrauding the public of millions in fund-raising
3) discussing what the police asked her, with a view to discrediting them and obstructing the investigation
4) illegal disposal of a body
These charges might around ten years, but I’m not sure.
Do you think they will find the body?
October 20th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Carmen - thanks for that post (actually the site Admin will happily send on email addresses if requested: Mods & Admin - please send Carmen my registered address if she/he wants it).
On the relation to 30s Germany: when I heard American neocons a few short years ago deriding ‘reality-based’ analysts and commentators as simply recording or reacting to someone else’s ‘reality’, as opposed to ‘making new realities’, I immediately thought of very similar positions taken by Nazi ideologists like Rosenberg (Der Mythus des zwangzigsten Jahrhunderts). And around the same time I surprised myself by telling various friends in England (which I left in the mid-nineties) that in the post-9/11 Blair and his Campbell-run ‘reality machine’ we/they/you had come closer to the basic dynamics of Fascism than any previous phase of British culture.
Most of them thought I was mad.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Wanderer:
It’s certainly been (perhaps a long-overdue) ‘tipping point’ for me, since it made me confront quite consciously for the first time (well, the propaganda leading to the Iraq invasion was a sort of preparation) the way the mainstream media work - or rather don’t - in Britain.
I suppose for far too long I somehow half-believed the naive idea that the mainstream print and broadcast media provided a (however badly) professionally edited version of something called ‘reality’ to which they had better access (with all their wonderful training and resources) than I did.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but it took this crazy charade, the ‘McCann circus’, to finally and fully lift the scales from my eyes and - as with the concurrent scandals in the British broadcast nedia - help me realize that the ‘reality’ presented to dumb consumers by these ‘channels’ of information was just a scam with a corrupt agenda unrelated to ‘truth’.
As I say, I’m really embarrassed to admit that, despite all my scepticism about so many specific cases of large-scale media misrepresentation of ‘the world’ I on some level actually knew I was living in since my distant adolescence, I really did, for so long, on a deeper level, still lug around with me the idea that mainstream media really aspired to be ‘channels of information’, however systematically distorted (by economic and political vested interests in particular).
I now fully see that these discredited hacks have just been making it all up all along.
For me, the really interesting question now, is just how and why ‘they’ do this - and whether there’s anything resembling what I used to believe in as ‘reality’ left over, once one factors out ’spin’ and distortion.
And, in relation to the new McCann religion, what precisely motivates the mass ranks of British media priests - and whether Rupert really is God.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I found a translation site that is much, much better than bablefish, but only blocks of text can be translated at a time.
http://www.emailaddresses.com/online_translation.htm
October 20th, 2007 at 6:56 am
1280
“Perhaps one model is something like a bar (English: ‘pub’ or ‘public house’) where one gets to know regulars, and notices occasional interesting visitors, and learns to filter all the cacophony of voices after a while, in order to abstract some personally meaningful interaction from an otherwise unmanageable babble.
The ‘learning experience’ on that level alone is a fascinating spin-off from an initially ill-defined engagement with the phenomenon.”
Murder, I think that is a very good description of what we almost have here (except rather than filtering, something like a football slagging match ensues). I too, look at forums (I’ve only been part of 2 in my life, this one included and no the other has nothing to do with the McCanns), and it is interesting just based on a group mentality (if there is an leader- head moderator, which on the other forum, there is, along with people trying to ‘win’ them over and suck up to them to no end), and really interesting how cliquey everything can become. At least, in real time, this does allow people to come in and be heard (although it doesn’t always work). Another thing I haven’t really seen here is the snobbery based on length of being a contributor. Sorry, I know that is slightly off topic, but while you look at the news aspect, I look at forums and contributors (including die hards, suck ups, and flame mongers) in a more psychological way, as these things do become a society/community with written and unwritten customs and rules. It’s very interesting, this ‘internet’!
I do have a question for you, as I understand it (which is sketchy as I’m doing some work and it’s late), you see the overall reaction of the case as being a tipping point in the new frontier. I wonder which way you think it’ll go? It seems like the papers (well tabloids), while sometimes acknowledging their part in the trouble that this case has developed into, seem to just pass the buck towards the information age and the public.
October 20th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Hi Wanderer - Yes… the ‘format’ question is itself one of the many interesting things thrown up (whoops) by this very strange case/phenomenon.
Maybe that question itself is very ‘educational’ in our New Media age (or maybe that should be ‘transition’ rather than ‘age’).
I guess, on an ‘intuitive’ level, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to engage with the news / non-news feed and discussions.
Perhaps one model is something like a bar (English: ‘pub’ or ‘public house’) where one gets to know regulars, and notices occasional interesting visitors, and learns to filter all the cacophony of voices after a while, in order to abstract some personally meaningful interaction from an otherwise unmanageable babble.
The ‘learning experience’ on that level alone is a fascinating spinoff from an initially ill-defined engagement with the phenomenon.
October 20th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Tilt - sorry (I’m on a sort of ‘night-shift’ and the last post got rather scrambled):
I really do believe - unlike most of my ‘highbrow’ friends and colleagues who simply dismiss all questions relating to this phenomenon as meaningless downmarket gossip (one is even involved at a high level in the case) - that this bizarre circus is a landmark in a new cultural pathology. But I wonder what form a better alternative forum might take.
October 20th, 2007 at 6:15 am
1254
Stevo: “I also think this Madeleine case has taken on a kind of “reality show” character with these forums and the volume of material and amateur sleuthing. In fact, it’s sort of taken on a life of its own and is like nothing else seen before. In some ways it’s disturbing and in others I think it has a lot of good points.
For instance, in the past, if a book was published it represented the views of the author and the publisher. The only way to rebut the content of published material was to publish your own book refuting the competitors. Nowadays the Internet allows us to instantly refute something which we don’t agree with. It gives the debate a kind of political quality - something that is happening with the McCann case.”
I tend to agree with this, I think it is good to be able to refute things in real time with one another.
1276
Murder: “if it might help in any way to generate some better framework to discuss some of the basic issues raised by this strange event in a more structured form than the fluid and often repetitive chat represented by over 1000 posts on each daily ‘thread’ at Anorak.
The obvious alternative/parallel format would be a multi-threaded forum… but having occasionally visited the Daily Mirror ‘Maddy’ forum and threads - which in the end are even less manageable and useful than Anorak’s ‘Maddy Channel’, I wonder what the better options might be?”
I wish it could be tidier, but as you say, I doubt there is a better system. The Mirror forums do seem to take on a life of their own as well. I think the repetition happens for a few reasons:
-The amount of traffic and different time zones (causing people to repeat something earlier).
-The need to rehash your view or have a new idea, so people know where you are coming from when you present something new (not always the case), but I think that is why some things are repeated from day to day on different pages.
-Laziness sometimes (of not reading everything or trying to scan), which may not be a bad thing, as it does encourage people to come in and share their views (I know when I was new here, I repeated a lot of things and discussed older topics, but that was because it was new to me and it is more revealing and helpful having discussions in real time).
-Sometimes not laziness, but being nice and answering a new users question can bring up again.
Plus, with forums, one can easily “hijack” a topic. Here, all the topics kinda flow and you get to see all the different issues and topics being discussed without lot of windows. But yes, the size can be bad, and yes, people do chat, but I think that is better than the pure insult posts, and generally people get back to the topic.
Btw, I’m not sure the Mods and Admins are up yet (6am) although I do know someone (Admin I believe) starts posting new stories this early at times. Good luck.
October 20th, 2007 at 6:04 am
Mods and Admins
I just discovered that most of the posts made by me yesterday are gone and there was nothing offensive, finger-pointing or anything in them. Would you please tell me why they were removed?
—————————-
Mods and Admin
Edna, we did not remove any of your posts.
Its possible that some were regarded as SPAM by the automatic mechanism, but sorry its been emptied overnight.
October 20th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Tilt:
I’m very happy for Anorak to send the email address I’m using here to you too, if it might help in any way to generate some better framework to discuss some of the basic issues raised by this strange event in a more structured form than the fluid and often repetitive chat represented by over 1000 posts on each daily ‘thread’ at Anorak.
The obvious alternative/parallel format would be a multi-threaded forum… but having occasionally visited the Daily Mirror ‘Maddy’ forum and threads - which in the end are even less manageable and useful than Anorak’s ‘Maddy Channel’, I wonder what the better options might be?
I really do believe - unlike most of my ‘highbrow’ friends and colleagues who simply dismiss all questions relating to this phenomenon as meaningless downmarket gossip (one is even involved at a high level in the case) - what form a better alternative forum might take.
I look forward to any creative suggestions.
October 20th, 2007 at 5:46 am
(I rarely post on this site; just reading is enough) Scheech, is this pertinent to the McCann thread? “Stevo Says: 1261 Kris My daughter has Turner’s Syndrome. I have never said at any time that she has special needs and girls with Turner’s Syndrome are not “special needs” children. That is typical of your ignorance. It makes no difference. Your apology is not acceptable. You crossed the line and I will do whatever it takes with the co-operation of Anorak to track you down and file charges. I am sick of it and addressing a derogatory comment to my daughter is unacceptable.” I have seen some of the threads involving your ID (stevo) and they hardly can be addressed as ’soporific’ (as Kris suggests). You may ‘track (them) down and file charges” if you care - I don’t know why we are interested in this - but this and your earlier ‘threats’ about “removing (you) from this site” is NOT yours to conjure with; it’s not run by you, controlled by you, and - since *I* WAS at the genesis, and involved, in the development of web technology - not the force majeure that will be allowed: even to you blowhard. It’s not YOUR web; it’s OUR web. In fact your commentary seems very akin to the unseemliness of the Team McCann site and PR technology spin (we are in control). I empathize to your personal situation, but as Kris suggests it has (had) no place here and if promoted can only be ascribed to your own personal Karma. I’m in the farthest western part of US; I’m sure you can track me down and sue me too.
October 20th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Stevo & Kris:
From what I’ve read here (far too much) you guys shouldn’t really be falling out with each other.
As an ‘outside’ observer who still thinks that Kate & Gerry MAY just be covering up an initial panicky cover-up of blatantly bad parenting (but thinks that their part in the unlawful death of their daughter on 2 or 3 May is about 30 times more likely, on the now VAST evidence in the public domain), it seems to me that both of you are fully paid-up members of the human race, unlike some other posters here (why does ‘Maura’ come first to mind?) whose position I can only put down to way-more-serious psychological disorders than any of us - or most of the posters here, whatever their perspectives and prejudices - routinely exhibit.
So please be a bit nicer to each other… this bizarre phenomenon tests one’s faith in human nature far enough in many ways, without that challenge having to spill over into the discussion of the case.
October 20th, 2007 at 5:35 am
And, as a closing note, Stevo, I find it very typical of you, that you’re so convinced of your own Rightness that you cannot even accept an apology from someone making one!!
October 20th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Please Mods & Admins, send my e-mail address to Murder
October 20th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Found the pamalam site.
http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/
It has pictures of all the Tapas 9. I wish there were better photos, but a bad photo is better than no photo.
October 20th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Yes,
Please Mods & Admins, send my e-mail address to Stevo!
Thanks.