Madeleine McCann: Gerry On The Telly And It Could Be U
“MADELEINE: It’s not too late says mum.”
The front page of the Express contains a “Dramatic Plea”.
But it’s not dramatic so much as it is desperate. “It’s not too late, please give her back,” says Kate McCann.
As ever the Express tells readers that Mrs McCann is a GP. Gerry McCann, we learn is a “consultant cardiologist”.
Says she: “Every day is hard. Every day is very difficult… The important thing is getting Madeleine back and we hope that what we are doing increases the chance of that.”
What’s The Story?
Indeed, that is the important thing. It is the only thing. But the press want more.
Says Gerry McCann: “We have a mix of very positive days, when we have done big things and achieved things or big events with the campaign, but we are aware these things are secondary.”
He’s right. Of course he is. But the press have been pointing fingers at the police, gawping at “creepy” men, listening to anyone with a paedophile story, looking for bodies and signs. They have not been on the trail of Madeleine. They follow the McCanns around, first Spain, then Germany, then the UK, the Vatican and Morocco. They are watching the parents. The parents are the story. And we are invited to look on like voyeurs.
We can wear braclets. Find Madeleine is this year’s Make Poverty History campaign.
Infotainment
The Sun says Gerry McCann is to appear at the Edinburgh TV Festival. No, not because he’s given us hours of great telly. Although he is taking the slot once occupied by Simon Cowell and Michael Barrymore. Gerry will be “quizzed” by Newsnight presenter Kirsty Walk on the media campaign to find Madeleine McCann.
Peter Barron, organiser of the event, rated the Find Madeleine campaign a “new and moving phenomenon”. What was that about good telly?
But it’s scaring the children. The Star says an appeal to find Madeleine is being screened before cinema showings of U-rated Shrek The Third.
Children with faces full of popcorn and crisps hear that Madeleine was “snatched” from her bed. “Madeleine’s parents are devastated, but they haven’t given up hope.”
A mum says it’s “unfair” to show this to children. “It makes them fear that they too could be abducted.”
It spreads the fear. It creates anxiety. And it shows no sign whatsoever of finding Madeleine nor the person or persons who might have taken her…
July 4th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Ah, but fear and anxiety are what sells newspapers… If there is one thing that you can absolutely 100% guarantee in this life it is that any story which contains possible paedophile plots, kidnapped children and lots of photo opportunities is a best seller. It buys into and validates our secret fears - just like all those urban myths of children vanishing from their mother’s side and being recovered ‘just in the nick of time’ with their hair dyed and clothes changed by the gypsies. Plenty of these stories abound - except when it comes to actually validating them via news or police reports!
Perhaps this is why the McCanns have chosen to insist that Madeleine was abducted from their apartment right from the start … there is no actual proof or evidence to suggest that this is any more the case than some of the more lurid ‘McCanns have murdered her/hidden her/accidentally killed her’ scenarios, yet day after day after day the British media persist in informing us that Madeleine was ’snatched from her bed’ as if it were a cast iron, proven fact.
Fortunately I have every confidence that the Portuguese police, underfunded and understaffed though they are are not as stupid as to be blinded by the apartment abduction scenario, so ardently promoted by Gerry and Kate McCann, and that the truth (including the fate or whereabouts of Madeleine) will eventually be discovered by this same derided force.
Meanwhile the outrageous publicity continues … what possible, valid, reason can be given for showing the Madeleine advert before Shrek??? Is she likely to be in the audience??? Are the children in the audience likely to see her at school??? Are the parents of the children in need of informing about her disappearance (in other words have they been living in a sealed cave for the last two months)??? … No - surely the only POSSIBLE reason for this would be to attract more people to donate more money!!!
July 4th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Well said, Molly!
I think the showing of the Madeleine ad at the Shrek movie was meant to pull the heartstrings and mobilize the mums in the theater and to reinforce the idea of an abduction; except that the whole thing backfired when the children watching Shrek became upset and frightened. And a good thing too. If it weren’t for the backlash, there’d be Find Madeleine ads everywhere, like Muzak — inescapable. I hope this episode will silence all those concerned/sympathetic/hysterical mothers who have said that the McCanns are doing the right thing publicizing their abduction theory (that’s what the campaign boils down to).
And yes, I know I will be slayed here for saying such things, but hey, at least I’m not driving a burning car into an airport.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
it seems as if more and more bloggers are changing their tune, which I have no problem with, as for the advert well if the kids are old enough to watch that big scary ogre (which slightly resembles mr Mc when he is very cross) then they are old enough to be made aware of the importance of making sure their parents never leave them alone.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
“A mum says it’s “unfair” to show this to children. “It makes them fear that they too could be abducted.”….
It IS unfair to scare other children with the possibility that they too may be abducted. They should not watch the McCanns campaigning for help to find Madeleine right now. The McCanns should not stop their campaign either. Now that the McCanns have experienced having their child “snatched” from them and they’ve had a chance to think about all the things they could have or would have or should have done differently, perhaps they could share their thoughts and experiences with other parents. I think they’d get more sympathy from other parents if they approched their campagin not only as a plea for help to find Madeleine but also to openly and honestly talk to parents about what they should do to protect their children from being abducted.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Gossip. gossip, gossip, and more gossip. When will it ever end.? If you cannot say anything good why say something bad? I am just glad you are not in the Mc Cann shoes—those people have suffered enough. May they soon be rewarded by the safe return of little Madeleine.
July 4th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Jan (USA) from what most of us can gather neither the McCanns nor their supporters seem to think they have done anything that paved the way for a possible abduction. They seemed only too willing to leave the 3 children alone evening after evening.
Also in their keenness for a campaign they have gone against police advice too.
Meta , rather would it not be fairer to say that Madeleine has suffered more than enough, she may be a child BUT she is still a feeling being, and that seems to be something the McCanns camp can’t quite get their head round when the sympathy is to be directed to the parents. IF she has been abducted by paedophiles , her suffering won’t be over for many a long year, if ever.
July 4th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
The mccanns advert should have been directed at the adults, the ones that didnt send their kids to the movies on their own, and it should have driven home the importance of not leaving kids unattended. It is not madeleines fault, any of this, she is out there somewhere wandering where her mum and dad are. where ever she may be, hidden, kidnapped, snatched, lost, ……………. she is not where she should be because of the negligence of team mccann (mcscam, scam mccann, very rich mccann)
July 4th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Queen b, you said it better than I did. The Find Madeleine advert should’ve chosen their audience better, i.e. adults. (But if I knew that the theater would be showing such a thing, I’ll go buy some more popcorn, go to the loo, anything, anything to avoid it, heehee)
July 4th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Um , perhaps a child psychologist on team McCann might be a brilliant idea? they mislay one of their own and terrify other peoples…..
July 4th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
LOL Anon, hey I saw you on the Mike blog, that guy has also hit it right on the head, and your reply was priceless,
anyway back to this one, taffy, the face of the mccanns is giving me nightmares and I aint no kid, this whole sorry story is quite scary,
July 4th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I think the people who constantly knock and insult the McCanns are disgusting, their child is missing and yes they did leave them alone and are suffering the horrific consequences for it, if my child were missing (god forbid) I would scoure the earth for her.
And just for one minute before you all spout your self righteous “it would never happen to me because i’m such a wonderful parent” vitriol against these people just think what could be happening to that poor child at this time, crying for her mom, scared, and only god knows what else, they must be hanging by a thread not to give in to the hysterics these thoughts would cause, why don’t you smug, pompous, self righteous, spiteful mouthed idiots give them a break.
July 4th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Astoundingly arrogant “Anonymous”!
you say: “…would it not be fairer to say that Madeleine has suffered more than enough, she may be a child BUT she is still a feeling being, and that seems to be something the McCanns camp can’t quite get their head round”
- you think you “know’ Madeleine better than her family do. Goodness, you are thicker than the people you slag off in all these columns, or you have a screw loose and a God complex.
As for the bad karma the whole lot of you nasty,small minded, black hearted individuals are racking up, let me tell you in advance- whatever befalls you, it serves you right.
July 4th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Oh the 4.00 pm arrival of the chimps….
July 4th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Oh, it becomes clear you are thick and unoriginal Anonymous, can’t even think up your own retort, just borrow Hal’s. Get a life!
July 4th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
How feral of you Sherry. Why did Mrs McCann call out “they’ve taken her” allegedly. What did she know?
If your child (God forbid) were to go missing after you’ve left the door unlocked, what would you cry out? And wouldn’t you call the police immediately?
Just asking and please don’t insult me.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
There you go again anon, incapable of debate and resorting to personal insults.
And I believe in Karma too, and I pity all of you who cannot have an compassion.
Marian how do you know what you would do until (god forbid) you were in that situation. She could be have been wandering around the pool while you were on the telephone to the police. I think if you found your child wasn’t where you thought they were the first thing you would do would be to physically look around for her.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Me, Feral! Wow, coming from you that is quite something.
Marian, why shouldn’t I insult you- you guys are up to your elbows in insults, directed at the McCanns. Why are they fair game and you not? What goes around comes around. You are a clown if you think otherwise.
You all think your little in jokes about ‘tapas’, and ‘chimps’ are sooooo funny, but none of you who have posted so far today actually came up with them, Anonymous was just repeating someone else verbatim: Not so clever after all. Maybe even more of a Chimp than me!
(Although, you do realise that Chimps are actually highly intelligent creatures, probably more so than most of you automatons).
July 4th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Instead of knocking those who are asking questions, why don’t you try answering those questions?
If, God forbid, this were my child who was missing I would welcome ANY questions from all comers, even if those questions made me feel uncomfortable … after all it proves that Madeleine is still on people’s minds and that people CARE about what happened to her and are trying to follow her trail - isn’t that supposed to be the point here???
If the McCanns have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear from people exploring other possibiliities that the abduction theory … and I find it odd in the least that this scenario is the only one that they will entertain. Unless the children were drugged into unconciousness then the McCanns cannot be CERTAIN that Madeleine was abducted and yet they have followed this avenue obsessively and, in doing so, may have long since lost her trail (and a chance of finding her) should she have disappeared in another way entirely.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
good god! there are some heartless and cruel people in the world. leave the mccanns alone, and im not a chimp!, just a parent.
it makes me cringe that you could make fun and jokes about a poor child being abducted.
well done mccanns for not sitting back and doing all you can to get your little girl back!!!!!
July 4th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Answer what questions Molly?
If Madeleine wasn’t abducted then where is she?
As far as I can see the other options are that the McCanns themselves murdered her? which i find highly unlikely and very hard to believe.
Or that she woke and wandered off somewhere. In which case surely the local search would have yielded some results? I mean how far can a 3 year old child get in bare feet and nightclothes alone?
July 4th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
We are none of us perfect parents, but some are more diligent than others.
You regular people then who come on here every afternoon defending those less than diligent,to the point of foolish, parents, insulting and being rude and offensive to the rest of us , and then some smarmy yuck about ‘poor maddy /ie’ being restored to her mummy and daddy. For crying out loud get a life or opinion of your own.
The McCanns are not some deity, we am fully aware they are doctors, and doctors can confuse deity with themselves, but we are not slagging off their career chioice, but we are slagging their parental foolhardiness and stupidity in leaving the children alone.
We might respect them more if they were out ophysically searching for her, but they are not , why not? only they say she was abducted , the PJ do NOT say that, they say she is ‘Missing’, there is a world of difference.
So, the parents are not looking/hunting for her, why not?
July 4th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Anorak says, “We can wear bracelets. Find Madeleine is this year’s Make Poverty History campaign..”
Alas and alack, Anorak, we have to enrich the antipoverty fund first before we can wrap one of those tawdry yellow bangles around our wrists and show the regulars that we, too, are hot on a “Look for Madeleine™” mission as we down our usual predinner dozen at the local.
However, on the actual poverty side, in the Algarve, Ullapool, or wherever else the far-flung Clann McCann puts down its roots or fills its balloons with its hot air, neediness is now history—for this year and in the foreseeable future.
Meta says, “I am just glad you are not in the Mc Cann shoes”. Meta, my dear, I’m sure that the whole flipping Clann McCann is ecstatic that we’re not in their shoes, as their shoes are presently filled with 867,138.04 GBP in donations and untold tens of millions of pounds in corporate and site-traffic revenues. If you’re in their shoes, you’re in their hearts–and you’re likely on the payroll.
And, Meta, they’ve already been amply rewarded by Mammon. Isn’t it a bit much to expect God to be solely responsible for returning the missing bairn to them? Why aren’t they doing something constructive? I doubt that Madeleine (see, Gerry, I can spell it, too! Why can’t you?) will be in the audience in Edinburgh.
Maureen moans the MMI mantra, “they did leave them alone and are suffering the horrific consequences for it, if my child were missing (god forbid) I would scoure the earth for her.”
“Horrific consequences” do not, in most peoples’ books, consist of a new villa in the Argarve; sun-drenched days in exotic Portugal; and unused high-end second homes in Scotland surrounded by idle motor cars.
Good God, Maureen, what will be next? An estate agent to take care of the real estate? These two have a missing child and they aren’t missing a single bit of the good life. The only scouring they’re seemingly doing is with their tongues as they empty the Horn of Plenty.
Sherry (and she’s likely sucking on her third G & T in the Algarve. Fook sherry–that was tipple of the day before the ‘missing’ ship came in) says, “you think you “know’ Madeleine better than her family do”.
Well, Ginny (there you go. I’ve high-ended your name for you), anonymous has batted 100 per cent when it comes to spelling Madeleine. Even you will have to agree that he’s far ahead of publicist Gerry on that score, right?
And yes, the 4:00 p.m. arrival of the chimps. Isn’t that the shift-change time at the Ullapool kipper factory? Ladies (an unearned and undeserved courtesy, let me tell you), you are now neglecting your own wee bairns. You should be at the stove, starting a wholesome supper for them, instead of again relying on the KFC number locked into the speed-dial function of your cell phones.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Riddle-me-this Keyboard Chimps:
How come their friend claims she saw someone who was almost definitely Murat, definitely carrying a child at 21:15 when their other friend claims to have done a room check at 21:20 and found them all safe in their bed?
Who’s the mystery witness that saw Gerry McCann lurking near the supermarket bins that night with something wrapped in black plastic?
Why was Kate so SURE that an almost 4 year old could not have walked out of the room?
What is the likelihood of getting three very young, excitable children to sleep at exactly the same time every night? Remember, these are children on holiday, who’ve spent all day away from their parents at a Club with other children, playing and having fun.
Functional alcoholics who drug their kids to sleep (so they can go out on the lash), fuck up on the dosage, and accidentally knock one off, deserve NO SYMPATHY.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
nichola Says:
July 4th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
well done mccanns for not sitting back and doing all you can to get your little girl back!!!!!
Nice to see you, Nichola. A tad tardy, though.
Well, some notorious nine seems to have done a wee bit of sitting around as the PJ went over the timelines and other vagaries.
.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=242109&idCanal=9
in Correio da Manha, on May 12:
The Policia Judiciaria believes they can recover little Maddie alive in the next few hours. The key to the crime is among nine of the witnesses that were inquired over the last 2 days, CM heard, and the inspectors just don’t advance with detentions so they do not put the child’s life in danger. They are almost all staying at the Ocean Club, and the kidnapping was planned in England.
The nine english nationals have been subject to intense interrogation and CM knows that the police admits to finally having solved the crime, after having ‘navigated’ in various directions for days, a source close to the investigation said.
The core issue was always the suspected trio that even got filmed at a petrol station, and whose image was shown to various people among the over 100 inquiries. This last group, that may explain the disappearance of Maddie, includes the two suspects, who were inquired yesterday during the whole afternoon.
In their first statements, contradictions were found among some of the witnesses, including the child’s father, and over the last 2 days, they were kept in separate rooms. The nine persons were taken into PJ’s building in Portimao, the headquarters of this investigation, six of them on Thursday and three yesterday – two women and one man who were staying at the Ocean Club, from where Maddie was kidnapped.
PJ insists that the nine english nationals were only heard as witnesses, but they have rented among them the 2 apartments that the sniffer dogs return to whenever they start looking for clues to the 4-year old girl.
The sniffer dogs were back at the resort yesterday evening, and again traced the smell of the child in those 2 apartments. The animals had followed the same track in another search that was launched by authorities, but the total absence of clues led the investigators to check the location again. The searches were made during the night, so the dogs were unaffected by visual stimulation, but the animals followed the same track again. Without success
July 4th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Hal-arious! you are so very slap stick. Benny Hill would be proud.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
“n Correio da Manha, on May 12:
The Policia Judiciaria believes they can recover little Maddie alive in the next few hours.”
Are your dates right? If so I would suggest that this is hardly current, nor was she recovered.
(FYI- She also doesn’t seem to be in Malta, or buried up on the hill under some rocks- just in case you believe everything you read).
July 4th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Are chimps so intelligent, Sherry?? I didn’t know that they let people strap them into rockets and fly them to the moon. They’re also fucking ugly.
Why “They’ve taken them” who were the “they”?
Why not call the police for TWO HOURS???
Answer those questions if you’re as clever as a chimp?
July 4th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Now now Marian, lets not pick on actual chimps. I think they’re cute, they’re just no fun to debate with!
I’d love one as a pet, they’re so adorable, but I like to spend my free time drinking and eating tapas, and it’s so hard to find a good sitter these days, what if he wandered off or got hurt? I’d hate to have to resort to the McCann Method (coming soon to Amazon.com, hardback only, free wristband with every purchase) of slipping my precious baby primate half a bottle of Piriton so I could go out and get pissed.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
This shows how we are all interconnected, how we are all affected by every act that goes on around us. Everyone is arguing because we are all stressed out about what took place & nobody got caught for the crime that gets repeated. My question is ‘why’ wait for the next victim……..let’s make sure that our society has had enough. Instead of………I am so stressed so let this campaign go away. The campaign offers the awareness of…….don’t snatch anymore kids. The sentencing may be too low that it is not a deterrent to child traffickers. Maybe it is a little strong for children to watch this but maybe they will think again if they were to get involved in the trafficking of children when they are older. These criminals maybe get maybe 7 or 8 years in jail.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
And while you are pondering the questions already posed perhaps you would like to answer as to why it is that (despite Gerry’s vehement statement to the contrary) the PJ consider the McCanns suspects?