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MADDIE WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

IRISH INDEPENDENT: “FAI eloquent on Madeleine”

KEVIN DOYLE seemed somewhat surprised the other day when he was informed that the Irish team’s Estrela da Luz base was just five minutes away from where Madeleine McCann went missing last year.

Kevin Doyle is a footballer with the Eire team. He’s at a press conference.

That Doyle had to take a question on the topic was somewhat bizarre, but then such is the demand of news desks — given that Maddie stories still sell — then it was perhaps inevitable. What was more bizarre, however, was an FAI press officer following up unprompted with quite an eloquent comment about the tragedy, before quickly stating that it was from Giovanni Trapattoni who seemingly was scheduled to be asked about the issue as well.

Eveyone should comment on Madeleine McCann. What they say determines how we perceive them. The boy done good.

Doyle said he was going to take a stroll to the church where the McCanns famously prayed in the days after their daughter disappeared, and some other players have been spotted strolling around the area.

A pilgrimage? A quick scout for women? A warm down after training?

THE TIMES: “The babysitter from cyberspace”

Chris Ayres’ LA Notebook: “imagine the terror at leaving my child in the care of an internet nanny”.

A couple of days ago I met a complete stranger on the internet, invited her over to my house, showed her the room where my son was sleeping, then went out to a party at my neighbour’s house - where I promptly began to hyperventilate.

Breathe. Brrrreeeee-aaaa-thhhh-e. (A dollar says he’s only got one child.)

Deep down, of course, I knew the reason for my paranoia: we had met our babysitter on SitterCity.com, a kind of Facebook for parents.

It’s referral service. That’s how child care works, isn’t it?

Part of the problem, I think, is the looming shadow of the Madeleine McCann case. Thanks to that tragic story I now approach all child-minding dilemmas by taking a kind of warped McCann test: if something went horribly wrong, how negligent/guilty would I look when interviewed on Larry King Live? Let’s face it, explaining that you met your babysitter online wouldn’t exactly get you nominated as Father of the Year.

It’s a worry. But no worries:

In the end, of course, the babysitter we hired was fine, although we continued our search. The most recent candidate we interviewed was another young women on a summer break after graduating. I asked her what she had studied. “Neuroscience at Harvard med,” came the swift reply. Yes, that’s right: we now have a trained brain surgeon as our babysitter, and all for the rate of $14 an hour. Next time I go out on a date with my wife, I think I’ll be able to relax.

She’s going to open your child’s head and rewire it….

Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Madeleine McCann. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0