Anorak Bingo: With Shannon Matthews, Madeleine McCann And Scarlett Keeling
McCANN, MATTHEWS. McKEOWN. It’s all part of Anorak Bingo - the game that’s taking the press by storm. The aim is to get the names ‘McCann’, ‘Matthews’ and ‘MacKeown’ into your article. Get all three and score double points. Pens at the ready…
THE INDEPENDENT: “Sarah Sands: Scarlett Keeling died at the roll of a dice. It’s a perilous game”
Each human tragedy has its socio-economic dimension. The terrifying abduction of Shannon Matthews is coolly discussed as a portrait of a debased white working class, with its multiplicity of fathers and attendant social workers. When Madeleine McCann went missing we rapidly absorbed the context. The parents were doctors, ambitious, gym conscious, dressed in high street chic. The holiday destination, Mark Warner in Portugal, was family minded and middle class. The McCanns felt safe to leave their children in the room, because they were among their own people.
Tick. Tick.
Fiona MacKeown was as trusting of her own way of life. Goa was the geographical affirmation of her identity. Gentle, free, non materialist, non judgmental. True to her beliefs, she has rejected the conventions of work, family structure and social aspiration. She has nine children by five fathers.
One person’s small holding is another person’s squalor. The shack that she calls home looks wretched to me, but I was not very shocked by the interior shots of Scarlett’s bedroom. My daughter’s room is just as untidy.
But let’s look anew at Diona MacKeown. Nice hair… blonde hair…
Similarly, I do not share the distaste of many journalists for Fiona MacKeown’s hippy appearance. She has a calm beauty and resembles Charlotte Rampling in some photographs. Scrubbed up a bit, the whole family could appear in a Calvin Klein advertisement. The children with their tousled hair and burnished bodies laughing on a beach with their carefree mother. It would be an alpha ideal if they had a few million in the bank and a Bryanston education.
Fiona MacKeown’s daughter has bene raped and murdered in India.
Perhaps it was negligent to pull children out of school for six months to go travelling, but Fiona MacKeown was only following the advice of Times columnist Mary Ann Sieghart.
The Times employee took her children on a overseas adventure. She wrote about it. Fiona MacKeown hung on her every word. Let no-one doubt the importance of a newspaper columnist.
Tick.
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: “Behind celebration and blame, anxieties lurk”
Writes Jenny McCartney
“Complicated” -
Therein lay all the elements of a fairy tale satisfactorily resolved. But one little word in the police statement hinted at a different story: the circumstances of her disappearance, it said, were “complicated”.
That is, perhaps, the word that has defined Shannon’s life so far. She is one of Karen Matthews’s seven children, by five different fathers. The shifting male presences in her life must have taken a bit of adjusting to. The current stepfather is Craig Meehan, a 22-year-old fishmonger, whom relatives alleged had been violent towards Shannon and her siblings - a charge Mr Meehan has vigorously denied.
We have become accustomed to treating the disappearance, death or recovery of children as a sort of cathartic public theatre. The long hunt for four-year-old Madeleine McCann has been followed by Shannon’s disappearance and the rape and murder of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling in Goa. Such cases arouse strong public sympathies, certainly, but frequently also the fiercest censure of the families involved at the very moment when they are at their most vulnerable.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
In the case of the McCanns, a degree of public anger focused on their decision to leave their three children alone while they went for dinner with friends nearby. In that of Scarlett Keeling, her mother, Fiona MacKeown - who has eight other children and a complicated personal life - has been harshly castigated for permitting her daughter to remain with a 25-year-old male tour guide and his aunt while the rest of the family travelled elsewhere.
A front page in the Daily Mail last week advertised an opinion piece with the tastelessly emphatic headline: “Sorry, but I blame Scarlett Keeling’s mother”. There was little mention of the culpability of the men who allegedly gave Scarlett drugs, raped her and left her on the beach to die.
Now, read on…
Posted: 16th, March 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (66) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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March 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
hmmmm….
March 16th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
64…Eringena
Most posters are on the two latest threads, Eringena.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Attention: Devon and Cornwall Police.
UPDATE: The BBC has been flaunting their interview with Michael Mannion on the 1pm news. This man is at best a fugitive witness to the murder of Scarlett MacKeown, and at worst an accessory, before or during the fact. We expect the immediate issuance of an INTERPOL arrest warrant.
One note of caution: do not under any circumstances discuss this matter with heavy-breathing politicians, or ‘pretty-please’ Social Services.
[with thanks to ade.]
March 16th, 2008 at 11:31 am
61
Sniff n Snort
Typical men post
March 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Is this what a predator looks like, agw? She can ‘predate’ me, anytime.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
20
Carmen Says:
March 16th, 2008 at 10:04 am
“Which leads us to a secondary position, IF anything has taken place that later proves to be illegal, we would not want the perpetrator to escape justice because they were able to show that speculation had taken place on this forum that made a fair trial impossible.”
—————————————————————————–
Exactly.
I presume it doesn’t matter what’s said about the McCanns on Anorak because, if charged with murder, or whatever, their trial would take place on Portugal? I know they would argue similarly for Portugal, in view of the media speculation there, although the system is different anyway (no jury), but am I right in assuming that Anorak doesn’t need to care how much speculation there is about them on this site? Apart from possible libel charges, which are unlikely given that there are more obvious targets….such as the Express group?
March 16th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Such idle speculation, that the idle press is chasing it down bigtime, far from nuddying the waters, it may very well clear them.
Administrator: You are deliberately missing the point. There remains a Protection Order in place. The press are chasing shadows. There is NO breaking News. They are lamely and, I hope ashamedly, covering the ground they should have started covering 24 days ago and you very well know it. Not only that, if we’re talking of chasing it down, who was first to call for more attention to the case? You do not need to look too far to find who the Nationals followed. I will NOT debate this. If you continue along this road, nor will you. -agw.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Well after our lunch last week
March 16th, 2008 at 10:53 am
55…brandon flours
And on me knees.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Matt wears patches on his elbows
March 16th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I’ll be back soon, my ‘grunger’ 15 year old son has emerged from his pit,
and i promised him a full english breakfast this morning.
Bye.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:51 am
46…Matt.
Would I ever.
PS….When did John Stalker “visit” Dewsbury in order to gather up his
spectulative unfacts about the SM case ?
March 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am
50…Dee
But I’m not a “wild animal”…I only debate valid, balanced and unspeculative
issues…..and only then tear them apart.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am
That goes without saying a national pastime!
March 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am
We can still pull the McCann’s to pieces
March 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Matt
They love it really! Just not on unprecidented breaking news days
March 16th, 2008 at 10:42 am
AGW, post was short and to the point.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
If you would rather I did not post here, just say the word, that is your decision.
No mention of anything else just breaking news. I am in London, but that ls no reflection on Scunthorpe.
Administrator: What breaking news? There is none. I have deleted the repetition of what concerned us originally. It is idle speculation. Do you have a tap into an interview room somewhere ? Don’t muddy the water. -agw
March 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
42…brandon flours
Yippee….but wasn’t….flirting and betting talk frowned upon too. ?
So that leaves YouTube.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:37 am
it’s funny but there are hundreds of Fiona MacKeowns in totnes
quite normal
so we have a proper middle class hippie
wannabe middle class whiney-voiced weirdos
working class and proud of it
excellent fun to try to compare them
March 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
39…Matt.
Calm down on the aggressive overdosing agw.
Why is Anorak reprinting “speculation” regarding the SM case ?
Administrator: I have never been calmer. The child remains the subject of a Protection Order, The National newspapers are reporting rumour and speculation already out and about in the Dewsbury area community and very carefully avoiding speculation on major fact. So must you. I have already said you may discuss and talk over the items already published. What YOU may not do is give us your learned opinion of what your judgement or take on it all is. If you are one of the investigating officers by all means tell us what you know. If not: you know sod all and we are not interested.-agw
March 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Matt asks:
So what is the issue ?
Newspapers can print “stories” about Shannon and family etc.
Anorak can reprint parts of what the Newspapers have printed and comment
upon what was printed.
What about us Anorakians ?
Administrator: You can comment on the news. You may not speculate…nor may the newspapers, Anorak nor anyone else…and before you become Pontifical and develop a trembling bottom lip, you had perhaps better remember there is an Emergency Protection Order involving a nine-year-old who has a right to a future unblighted by such speculation. We deal in facts. The Emergency Protection Order is one such fact. -agw
March 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Wow another new thread, this is starting to give me a headache
March 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
39
Matt. Says:
___
Matt read
20
Carmen Says
___
I think Carmen has covered what we can talk about
March 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Matt
We will just have to flirt, talk about betting, & youtube.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
38 Matt
“move more to the left”
wot four letters?
such fun
March 16th, 2008 at 10:30 am
33 Eringena
good point
and what about a 45 minute phone call or two from gordie mcbroon?
where’s mi5 and consular representatives to be flown out?
actually it’s devon and cornwall police
well we are supposed to be anoraks
http://www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/v3/homepage/index.htm
March 16th, 2008 at 10:29 am
So what is the issue ?
Newspapers can print “stories” about Shannon and family etc.
Anorak can reprint parts of what the Newspapers have printed and comment
upon what was printed.
What about us Anorakians ?
Administrator: You can comment on the news. You may not speculate…nor may the newspapers, Anorak nor anyone else…and before you become Pontifical and develop a trembling bottom lip, you had perhaps better remember there is an Emergency Protection Order involving a nine-year-old who has a right to a future unblighted by such speculation. We deal in facts. The Emergency Protection Order is one such fact. -agw
March 16th, 2008 at 10:26 am
36…âde
Move more to the left…
March 16th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Maybe I was wrong, still bollox anyway!
March 16th, 2008 at 10:24 am
34 agw
“I do however agree Scunthorpe is long over due an apology and a name change to relieve all those poor Northern people of having that burden for any longer than absolutely necessary. I mean, all those bad jokes….”
wot?
bad jokes?
like “who put the ‘thor’ in scunthorpe”?
or something like that
-agw that was a very bad joke, I was referring to it’s chemical industries being wrongly accused of being responsible for the Humber Estuary curlew thin shell furore
March 16th, 2008 at 10:21 am
29 brandon flours
‘Look’ was on Friday night declaring allsorts !!!
i’m happy to say i missed that
look - the all-seeing eye of the elite
such fun