Saturday 1 March 2008

Madeleine McCann: You are all guilty

The public is to blame for the heartless abuse being heaped on Kate McCann. The internet has blurred the lines of news and hearsay and the result is trial by global gossip

India Knight

Do you find yourself strangely drawn to articles about the McCanns? I do. It’s not edifying: most of us are uncomfortably aware that the slender line where personal tragedy becomes popular entertainment was crossed some time ago. But, like every other person in the country, the story is permanently at the back of my mind.

I want to stop reading, listening, watching, Googling, amateur sleuthing; I nauseate myself with my own prurience. My appetite for commentary – which is all that’s left, in the absence of hard facts – has been sated many times over. But I can’t stop.

Did they do it? They couldn’t have. And yet . . . And if they did do it, do they have superhuman powers, such as invisibility and Oscar-worthy acting skills? And if they didn’t, and are innocent and probably bereaved, what in God’s name have we done to them?

By that “we”, I don’t for once mean the (British) press, which seems to me, despite its inevitable mawkish descents into sentimentality, to have acted pretty responsibly. The press has urged caution, expressed compassion and been reluctant to judge the McCanns, if not the apparently sham-bolic Portuguese police.

No, by “we”, I mean the public. Forget that old chestnut “I blame the media”: now that everyone has an opinion and an embarrassment of outlets in which to express it, “I blame the public” is going to become the refrain of the coming decades. There is no shortage of online places where people may freely and anonymously air their opinions, even if their opinions are vile or demented or both; and there are millions of these newly voluble people. They have made it all right to say unspeakable things, to air the most shameful thoughts, always to think the worst, and never to give anyone a chance.

With the McCann story, this has, for the first time, resulted in a complete blurring of the boundaries between news and gossip. Sky News lists Madeleine McCann as a “category” on its interactive content screen: news, business, sport, Madeleine.

We have been here before with appalling crimes that grip the nation – we may have discussed, say, the James Bulger case among ourselves, watched the news and read the headlines, but then the news was on twice a day, the headlines came only in the morning, and the internet barely existed.

Now we have streaming information, an unstoppable torrent of truth, fiction, theory and gossip that is accessible 24 hours a day. The result is that, incredible as it may sound, there is, online (and the real world is catching up quickly), little difference in the tone of the remarks about Britney Spears’s failed comeback, and the comments made about Kate McCann, despite the fact that one is a pop star and the other the mother of a missing girl who may be dead. But there is no thought for Kate McCann’s suffering in the deluge of abuse heaped upon her; the McCanns’ local newspaper’s support website in Leicester-shire had to be closed.

We seem to have lost track of why Kate McCann’s picture-editor-pleasing face – blonde, thin, wounded, Diana-like – is in the papers in the first place. By orchestrating the kind of media campaign more usually associated with a multi-million-pound film or music launch, the McCanns have catapulted themselves into the gossip fodder league. That means suffocating 24/7 media interest; it means your choice of earrings is going to be scrutinised and discussed by millions of strangers – it means you have declared open season on yourself when it comes to public consumption.

But the public doesn’t just consume: it devours. And once you’ve invited it in, it doesn’t sit down politely and make small talk: it makes itself at home and rifles through your underwear drawer. You can’t ask it to leave, to “respect your privacy”. It’s there for the duration. If the McCanns are innocent, and even if they aren’t, it may well cause them to lose their sanity.

Despite popular thinking about journalists “making things up”, the traditional media are regulated. Things have to stand up from every angle. Facts matter. We have lawyers; we try not to libel or slander; to keep objective. The public, through the internet, can – and does – say anything, no matter how degrading or toxic, and keeps on saying it until, by a sort of insane osmosis, it stops being an outright lie and becomes a half-truth.

The theory that Kate McCann, a doctor, accidentally oversedated her daughter, causing death, has existed on the internet for months. People write about it LIKE THIS, in indignant capitals, as if it were so obvious as to be a given, and as though they were explaining something simple and obvious to somebody mulishly stupid who refused to see the truth staring them in the face. Behind the capitals, you can almost feel their quickening breath and their peculiar excitement as they comprehensively trash the reputation of a grieving woman who is a stranger to them. Power to the people!

Things are ugly out there – there aren’t many things uglier than gossip about infanticide, which is what this story has become, and why it feels so extraordinary. But they have been ugly from the start.

The news of Madeleine’s disappearance broke on a Friday evening. I wrote about it the following morning, assuming – naively, in retrospect – that people’s default mode would be compassion or pity. By Sunday evening my e-mail inbox was full. A handful of the e-mails agonised on the McCanns’ behalf. The greater part more or less said, “If you leave small children alone to go and eat tapas, you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

I know from colleagues on other newspapers that they had the same angry reaction, which they also found themselves disconcerted by.

I’ll get back to the tapas point, because it’s central to the whole thing, with opinion dividing into people who see leaving a child as stupid, but not the world’s greatest crime – such people are broadly sympathetic to the McCanns – and people who find it inexcusable, criminal and indicative of all sorts of dark possibilities. This latter group is among the 17,000 who signed an online petition recommending that Leices-tershire social services take into care the McCanns’ remaining two children, Sean and Amelie.

The petition was not set up in the past week or so when things became murkier and question marks started mushrooming, but in May, when all we knew of Kate and Gerry McCann was that they seemed hollow-eyed with grief. The McCann story may end up being about the death of empathy.

So here we are, obsessed, in the throes of one of those weird national seizures; sitting in judgment, wallowing in what the novelist Philip Roth (apropos Bill Clinton’s infidelity) memorably called “the ecstasy of sanctimony”. The woman at the checkout at Tesco has a view, as does the dinner party guest. The hitherto unsayable – “Do you think they killed their own child?” – has become commonplace. You hear it everywhere. We’re gossiping about a four-year-old child who may be dead, or abducted and raped, or both, and there are no holds barred any more. What brutal thing does this say about us?

It’s always risky attempting to analyse the nation’s psyche based on one apparently seismic event: often, when everything settles down, you realise that underneath all the emoting, there wasn’t anything terribly unexpected happening. One thinks of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales: all that was going on was that everyone felt sad and shocked, and then got over it.

But the national fixation with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and the incendiary emotions it has provoked, is another thing altogether. It isn’t to do with empathy, because it seems to be thin on the ground. Prurience, yes; ghoulish curiosity, certainly – but there are, alas, dozens of hideous crime stories to pick from: why focus so obsessively on this one? Sentimentality, because of the involvement of a small, photogenic child? Perhaps at first – though much of the public commentary on this story is so condemnatory that sentiment doesn’t seem to come into it.

That says something peculiar about our monstrous appetite for this tragedy – because, no matter what happened or who did what, a much-loved child has vanished.

Much of our fixation has to do with fear, and with the public’s desire to “own” a story. Within 24 hours of her disappearance, Madeleine McCann had become “Maddie”, as though we all knew her. Aside from what she looked like, we knew nothing about her whatsoever – not what toys she liked, “Cuddle Cat” aside, or what her favourite book was, or what she liked eating, or wearing (I am sorry to use the past tense, and mean nothing by it; the present tense looks even odder).

But in those early days of the investigation, she became a version of all of our children, a blank to superimpose our own child’s face onto as we peered into the abyss. This was, of course, terrifying: the idea that an ordinary-seeming family could go on holiday and have a child vanish into thin air was more than most of us could cope with.

The natural human instinct, when faced with a terrible fear, is to list the things that make us different from the victims of the frightening situation, and in this particular case there were few. Much was made at the time of the McCanns’ social class (working class gone middle), and of the fact that if a single mother from a housing estate had gone out on the razz and left her child alone, sympathy would be in short supply. This is another way of saying that if a person is recognisably different from us, the bad thing that happened to them couldn’t possibly happen to us. The problem with the McCanns is that they were so terrifyingly normal-seeming, so middle-classly resonant, with their neat Boden-esque clothes and their responsible jobs and their three little children.

How to differentiate ourselves from them, and thereby reassure ourselves that their misfortune would never be ours? By focusing obsessively on the one questionable thing they did: leaving their children alone in a strange place. Phew – instant relief. “I’d never do that,” the thought process went. “I’m safe. My children will never be harmed.”

This is clutching at straws, frankly – as everyone surely knows by now, children who come to harm usually come to harm from a person known to them, more often than not in their own home. But we chose to clutch at this one particular straw, hence, I think, the disproportionate outpouring of vitriol against Kate McCann, who, regardless of her guilt or innocence, was, is and will continue to be punished because she had the temerity to seem so much like us.

She has also (more straws) been accused of seeming “unfeeling”, of looking “too groomed” (“I’d look a mess, therefore we’re not the same, therefore it could never happen to me”), of seeming strangely “calm” (or tranquillised, surely?), of, basi-cally, not falling to her knees screaming like an animal in pain – it’s “Show us you care, Ma’am” all over again.

In some internet chatrooms and message boards, women bitch about Kate McCann for not reacting exactly like them – not that they’d know how they’d react in her situation, since they have never been in it. No matter: weird, isn’t it, how she seems so composed – and let’s not call it composure, let’s call it “arrogance” (this from the country that invented the stiff upper lip). Must make her a child killer, and not have anything to do with being told that visible distress might give pleasure to a hypothetical abductor.

And why are her clothes nice? Who thinks about clothes at a time like this? Why does she wash her hair? Couldn’t she wear rags, or sackcloth and ashes? Or – any day now – tar and feathers? And what was that nonsense with the Pope? (Who’d have thought the devout Catholic/Pope combination would be so perplexing and aggravating to so many people?)

Our fascination also exists because this story is centrally concerned with what many people perceive as a failure of parenting, a topic we are obsessed by as a nation. We are, collectively, eaten up with anxiety about raising our children. It’s a relatively new thing – people just used to have children and get on with it – and is reflected by the deluge of television programmes, books and publications devoted to how to be a parent.

Women, especially, have become almost pathologically insecure on the subject: am I a bad person if I bottle-feed; have I failed if I have a caesarean; do I harm my children by going out to work; have they got enough friends; do they sleep too much or too little; do they eat enough super-foods and fish oils; do they need to learn Mandarin; do they play outside enough; and so on and on.

With that insecurity comes the strongest desire to judge, as a means of self-reassurance: you see it every day in the ongoing working mothers versus stay-at-home ones debate. “Well, she barely sees her children because she’s in the office all day, so I’m better than her and my children will be happier” versus “She’s going out of her mind with boredom because she’s stopped working, so I’m better than her” – nobody can win, and the crazy thing is that nobody needs to: it’s hardly a competition.

Into this comes Kate McCann, who admits to a failure of parenting, to doing a stupid thing, and we fall on her like a pack of hyenas, weirdly pleased to leave behind our own failings and insecurities for a minute and concentrate on hers.

The fact is that while I would never leave small children alone, I know dozens of people who routinely do, and I do not find them irresponsible, just tired.

There are so many of them that a whole service industry has built up around them: “family” hotels with a baby-listening service where someone cocks an ear at the bedroom door every now and then while harassed parents try to grab the semblance of a date together in the dining room; holidays, like the McCanns’, with kids’ clubs attached, where children are parked with what amounts to a stranger while parents try to sunbathe in peace for a couple of hours; skiing trips where the chalet comes complete with a random nanny; gyms with crèches; restaurants with some weird bloke in a clown suit “entertaining” the children in another room; and so on.

A certain section of society routinely leaves their children in the care of somebody else whom they don’t know terribly well, no matter what the nanny agency has murmured soothingly about police checks. You can think what you like about this, but it is a fact of middle-class life, trying to reconcile loving your children with still having a life of your own, and an omnipresent source of anxiety for many people – if it weren’t, you couldn’t buy teddies with cameras hidden in them to check up on your child carer, and many women wouldn’t have the unpleasant niggling feeling that they don’t entirely trust their nanny to bring up their child.

The McCanns were foolish and wrong to leave three small children – babies, really – alone in a strange apartment. But doesn’t the subsequent calamity override the initial human error? Apparently not: only a fifth of Britons think they are completely innocent, according to a poll for this paper today. And 76% think they were wrong to leave them alone. And yet we all take risks: you take a risk every time you let a child out of your sight, every time they board a bus or a train, every time they’re a bit evasive about their whereabouts. If your house is burgled and you stupidly didn’t switch on the burglar alarm, does that mean you deserved it? Does it make your distress, your sense of violation and the loss of your goods any less significant?

Meanwhile, with hideous inevitability, the focus has shifted to Kate McCann’s being “volatile”. She “visi-bly lost control” while being questioned for 11 hours, we are told. It’s such a depressingly familiar scenario: a woman in an untenable situation is pushed to breaking point, and then when she does lose it – as lose it she will, because she’s not a robot or a monster – her sane response to an insane, unbearable set of circumstances becomes evidence with which to condemn her.

Impound her diary, call in all lap-tops: she must have done it if she shows any feelings. And she must have done it if she doesn’t. QED: she’s had it either way.

We are now told, by Portuguese newspapers who claim to have published extracts, that her diary, which the police want to see, shows she “struggled to control Madeleine”, that her children were “hyperac-tive”, and that looking after them exhausted her.

She also allegedly wrote that her husband left her to look after them too much on her own. Show me a woman with three children under four who doesn’t express the same frustrations, and I’ll show you an improbability. But even this utterly normal maternal response to child-care – it’s knackering, I wish he’d help out more – is being used as an indication of Mrs McCann’s “instability”.

And the people who’ve been there and ought to be able to sympa-thise – other women – are the ones sharpening their knives. As Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, once said: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” If that is so, hell must have got pretty crowded over the past four months.

The McCanns did themselves no favours when they embarked, deliberately, on a gigantic, modern publicity campaign. And that has contributed in no small part to making this case seem so compelling now. It is hard to criticise their original motive for hyping up the publicity, but in the process the McCanns unwittingly turned themselves into a soap opera: available to view on a screen near you 24 hours a day.

As I write, there are reports that they’re looking for a new, bigger “campaign manager” to try to stem the tide of negative comment. (In what world did Gerry McCann think it was a good idea to put in an “appearance” at the Edinburgh television festival?) But it’s too late. The tide won’t be stemmed and the appointment of a Max Clifford figure will make things worse, not better. Every soap needs a baddie and since we seem to have forgotten that we’re not, in fact, watching a brilliantly scripted and plotted episode of Portuguese Holiday, it was only a matter of time before the goodie turned bad.

What a twist! How compelling! More, more. Give me the inside story. One of these mornings, we’re going to wake up and see just how ghastly a part our own voyeurism has played in all of this. At least, I hope we are.

Vitriolic rants of the online rabble

IF you haven’t read what is on the internet about the McCanns you wouldn’t believe it. Here are a few examples of the kind of vitriol out there. Trawling through the sites to find these quotes is like a trip through the darkest recesses of people’s most ungenerous minds.

- ‘I never believed in your pain – the Find Madeleine McCann website

- Kate McCann is an ineffectual, weak and total washout of a mother and probably mentally unbalanced. Pathetic woman should never have had kids if she couldn’t cope – Mulderx, Mirror forum

- Gerry McCann does come across as a thug to me. I have no idea if wifey is involved but either way she is still as guilty as sin for leaving her children alone – Halibutswift, Mirror forum

- The McGrubs are terrible examples of parenting and should be prosecuted. At the very least, they should have to attend parenting classes. The day you put tapas and alcohol before the health and wellbeing of your offspring is a very bad day!!!! – Dr Kildare, HaloScan

- The people who must shoulder the burden of responsibility for the Maddie disappearance are Gerry and Kate McCann. If they did it, they are sick and evil and deserve to rot for ever. If they didn’t, they let her down by being selfish and indulging in their own pleasures leaving her alone and vulnerable – Val, Skynews

- The parents are a disgrace. They were on the razz every night after leaving their children in the crèche all day every day. Much wanted children? More like little fashion statements that they couldn’t be bothered to look after properly. The children unfortunately got in the way of their “me time” – Proud Parent UK, Alpha Mummy

- These people are doctors and in their professional lives would not hesitate to point the “abuse” finger at any other parent who left their children alone like they did. They should hang by their own noose – Arthur, Alpha Mummy

- I do think the McCanns have acted somewhat oddly throughout this investigation – particularly the mother. I can’t quite see it as natural for a mother in her position to make one of her immediate priorities in the days immediately following the disappearance of her daughter a visit to the Pope – without her remaining children – Krazykoolkazza, Mumsnet

- Even female doctors are subject to domestic abuse whether it be mental, physical or psychological bullying. Kate looks to me to be very submissive to Gerry. Her eyes dart towards him when the couple are questioned by the media. It’s as though she can’t speak up for herself. The running is another strange one. I’m a keep fit nut but the last thing on my mind would be to run if one of my kids were abducted. I would be spewing venom and ranting. – Ragna, Mirror forum’

www.timesonline.com

437 comments:

1 – 200 of 437   Newer›   Newest»
Mandz said...

Excellent article in the front on the website thank you.
It makes me sad and sick that the general public are throwing stones for pleasure at these people on a daily basis. The person to BLAME is the EVIL SICK PERSON THAT TOOK HER FROM HER LOVING PARENTS.

***********************************

Madeleine McCann

This morning, like most other mornings this week, the first thing I do after switching on the computer is to check Sky News to see if Madeleine has been found.
I can’t say for sure why this case has affected me so much, I suspect (like so many parents who are constantly refreshing the news page) it’s due to a strong feeling of “there, but for the grace of God, go I”. What’s stunned me though, is how so many parents appear to blame the parents for Maddie’s disappearance.

Most, I’m sure, are reacting out of a primaeval defence mechanism. “I would never do something like that” is an immediate comfort - a way of proving to yourself it would never happen to you.
And yet, what the McCann’s did was not in any way unreasonable. Mark Warner actively discourage (and in some cases ban) young children from attending the restaurants in the evening. Their baby listening service involves nannies patrolling corridors and only listening at the doors at certain intervals - not much different from a parent checking at regular points in the evening - and a parent would go right inside to check, not just rely on hearing something at the door in those few seconds.

At that particular resort, due to its unusual layout, the nanny patrols weren’t even available - the choices were to take your child to a crèche where they would sleep on mattresses on the floor or to have a babysitter inside the room. Neither option is ideal with young children set in their sleep patterns.
I can’t say I would have made the choices they did (mainly because we’ve never been able to afford that type of holiday, so it’s never even been a risk assessment we’ve made - and obviously hindsight is now coloured by the events on the 3rd) but neither can I fault their reasoning.
One eye-witness report I’ve read (admittedly on a message board and not widely reported in the news, so not a certainty) suggests the McCann’s were also using a baby monitor that night - a system which would have made it superior to many hotels’ baby listening services. Either way, it’s a risk that thousands of parents take every year without incident.
You see, every second of every day as a parent you are making a risk assessment. There is no such thing as risk free, just a balance between benefits and risk.
Sometimes, we cock it up (at least in hindsight). Can any parent lay their hand on their heart and say that they never let go of their toddler’s hand while paying in the supermarket, never looked up while chatting in toddler group to realise you haven’t actually seen your little one for a good ten minutes, never let your older children play out the front with their friends unsupervised, never lost them for a moment in Soft Play because you were talking or reading a book, never stepped outside to remove a spider from your house only to have your toddler lock you out for the next 45 minutes until a locksmith could be found (the last should be a dead give-away that I’m guilty as charged for all of those).
Most times there are no repercussions for our misjudgements. Except when there is. If something had gone wrong on any of those occasions, I would not have been a bad parent, but I would have taken all the blame upon myself. Forever. That’s what parents do, that’s our job.
I’m sure Kate McCann would give everything she owns to turn back the clock and not leave Madeleine that night. That does not make her a bad parent. It makes her a human one. She does not deserve our blame.

The blame belongs solely to Maddie’s abductor.

Anonymous said...

I don't like articles of that ilk at all and the wailing wall ones.

They are the flip side, and as voyeuristic as the sick gratification coming from the anti mccanns.

They are not productive because if Madeleine was in the hands of a paedophile[s] all these articles do, and the commentaries, comments with grief, sadness, and fear do too is allow the perpetrators to continue to get off on what they have done.

Equally, it allows the sexual gratification to carry on with other paedophiles and where it is evident in anti mccann camps too.

It is feeding the monster, im afraid:-)

Tinkerbell43 said...

Hi Assasin,

You obviously through your work have a better insight into the kind of people we are dealing with than I do. I know nothing about how their minds work and if I'm honest I dont think I want to, but thats me putting my head in the sand. I do respect people like your goodself that are obviously involved in this line of work.

I just see this article as having put into words a lot of how I have felt over the past 10 months but have not been able to express as well.

I'm off for a while now, enjoy your day, hope to speak later :-)

Bye for now.

Anonymous said...

Hi Tinks,
Everything i do is voluntary, been on the end of a lot of it when young a lot too so know the minds well.

That is the Global problem tinks, no-one wants to know the minds. I laugh my socks of, yet find it so sad that we have massive things going into working out how their minds work now cos experts say they simply do not know. It is because, they neither do not want to know.

Even when you speak to people who have worked in prisons with these people as psychologists or people from CP working on cases they will tell you the same, they make me sick, i cant understand xyz. You have to explain it for them. How sad is that when this is the system we have to deal with such people - dont want to know:-(

I understand the emotions that people in the support of the mccanns go through and i do see that the article expresses those and it is valid to express them.

I guess i just see where the lines are crossed within the article too:-)

anyway, i must go too for now.

Take care:-)

Mandz said...

Hi Tinks & Assasin!

Tinks I agree with you I feel the article puts across how people feel.

As for these sick evil people how can one change their sexual preference? No community/prison rehab IMO appears to be working? Something needs to be done about these evil people because our children are not safe. Perhaps the problem is that it’s the people in “power” who are into this kind of thing and are protecting these people. A few months ago I read a window cleaner raped a 6year old girl and got 15months in prison because it was his “first offence”???? What is wrong with this society and our judicial system? Someone who robs a bank gets a longer sentence that the above mentioned?? Because in my opinion they are taking “money” from the “government” however our children don’t matter a hoot to them. Why are people not marching up and down this Country for our children? I honestly don’t get it. I don’t know what the answer is.

Anonymous said...

Just don't believe that someone is comparing little kate to DIANA.
Not even physically. Diana was tender and sensitive, a good mother and her smile was sincere and human. Her sons are alive and very proud of her.

Rubbish...

EDDIe

calcite51 said...

Anony - I certainly never compared Kate to Diana or vice-versa. I don't know Kate and I certainly didn't know Diana personally. If people want to compare Diana to Kate, it's their choice - I think of them as both individuals.

Yes, Diana's two sons grew up but don't forget she didn't raise her children alone - there were nannies, body guards, etc.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

calcite,

Seems like we have a visit from 2345, how much thicker can she get ?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
calcite51 said...

Are those the Anonymous that were deleted? What did she have to say?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

And I'm not 2345.

I'm a Portuguese that knows this is a circus.And you and the parents are the silly clowns.

Would challenge not to delete this...

calcite51 said...

2345 and I have been having discussions on Alsabella's blog for lack of a better word. She/he asked me to provide a link when I made a comment about the former chief inspector being thrown off Madeleine's case for lamblasting the British police force - she wanted a link. I told her/him go find it yourself on the internet. Alsabella and Ironside both jumped in and said Calcite is right. It was pretty good.

calcite51 said...

Anony - this is a blog - we welcome debate but if you have nothing to debate and only want to attack us - go to it but your comments will probably be deleted. And no, I'm not the administrator so I'm NOT the person deleting your comments.

Anonymous said...

So, let's discuss it here. Alsabella's blog is a respectable one.
Why did you send that comment in French? HN?

Anonymous said...

The chief inspector meant teh private detectives. Not the British police. it was also the media that twisted his words.

Tinkerbell43 said...

Anon, if you want to debate you are welcome to do so, but if you are here to cause trouble you are not doing yourself or your Portuguese counterparts any favours.

If you do not treat this blog with respect your comments will be deleted.

calcite51 said...

Good for you, you recognized it was in French. I didn't want to hurt 2345's feelings

If you go back and read 2345's comments - she/he were starting to bicker with some of the other anti-McCanns supporters. I just thought Alsabella should be aware that if they start bickering amongst themselves it will take away from the blog.

2345 does question everyone and everything and this is her/his right but there are some things we know for sure and they should NOT be questionned. If Alsabella has a problem with my comment in French - she will discuss it with me, I'm sure. We're not children, we're adults.

calcite51 said...

Anony - I think you and I need to return to Alsabella's blog and continue the discussion there. I had not told this blog about my discussion with 2345 and it is unfair to involve them in this discussion.

So shall we go back to Alsabella's blog?

Anonymous said...

TINK:


But I was really giving my opinion on the article.
You have to respect other opinions.And they were deleted. Why?

EDDie

calcite51 said...

Anony - I waiting for your response with baited breath....

calcite51 said...

Sorry guys. I guess the discussion is ended because Anonymous is not getting back to me.

Mandz said...

And I'm not 2345.

I'm a Portuguese that knows this is a circus.And you and the parents are the silly clowns.

Would challenge not to delete this...

**********************************
Why don’t you get your “act” together and join the circus?

Anonymous said...

I've been reading some blogs on this case. And today when I came across this article felt it is not fair to say we all are guilty. I didn't contribute to this to happen and the parents made their choice when wanted all the media coverage. they were the first to want this.
Best regards.

Mandz said...

Now that's what I call a fairy with attitude! No messing Tink!

Anonymous said...

Why don’t you get your “act” together and join the circus?

01 March 2008 16:44

____________________


Thanks but you and your pals can do it better without me. I can't fake..

EDDie

Tinkerbell43 said...

Hey Mandz, how you doing, I'm popping in and out at the moment, trying to catch up on some jobs. No peace for the wicked, lol.

Mandz said...

Anon
No matter what they did not deserve the “finger pointers” regardless of leaving their child or calling on the world media for HELP to find their daughter.

Mandz said...

Anon

Thanks but you and your pals can do it better without me. I can't fake..
*********************************
At least we can get our “act” together unlike you and the PJ.

calcite51 said...

I got an apology from Anony on the other blog.

Mandz said...

Hey Tinks your one crazy lady!!!

Like you I'm in/out very qt today?

Mandz said...

Calcite

Who is she/he?

calcite51 said...

I don't know - my guess would be 2345 or may be Dr_Val.

calcite51 said...

I have to go now - will be back later on. Take care everyone.

Anonymous said...

Calcite,

only because there, on the other blog, you are a different person..

Have a nice day!

Anonymous said...

MANdado/ Mandz
At least we can get our “act” together unlike you and the PJ.

01 March 2008 16:55

________________

Don't be so sure..surprise , surprise..

Anonymous said...

Mandz,
Think we have to remember that we are originally [and many parts of it remain tha way in thinking] that children are born FOR the parents. I dont agree with that but it is how it is for many.

Not that long ago it was the children that earned a living for the family....

And we are a culture where women and children are objects and possessions etc.

Isnt ironic that the sun puts up a reward for Shannon and in actual fact it condones objectification and mysoginy on almost every other page of it prints?

Until the entire attitude changes from teh top down, children will always be abused.

Unfortunately, society goes further in the other direction every single day. So far has the objectification and dehumanisation gone, my kids come in from school complaining that there peers [9 -12] want to be porn models!

I could go on, but...sexuality is a core of everyone, give people bad attitudes and...

to the anti that compares diana and kate. I'm amazed - if you can object to kate mccann having a child abducted and you going ot suggest that diana had a dysfunctional split family and deserved all she got cos she was irresponsible and couldnt put a seat bealt on? Most mothers know to protect theri childrens lives they know to protect their own dont they? Utterly stunned. And just to add one other little thing - we have NO evidence the mccanns have lied anywhere at all. However, Diana's inquest shows she was a compulsive liar and had a different story for every person she knew? It seems some antis see differenvces where they want to - rolls eyes!

If Kate McCann is guilty of her childs abduction [or worse] in your eyes than surely it follows suit that in your eyes Dianas children are half orphaned cos she was irresponsible.

Note, they are not my views:-)

Anonymous said...

re dont be so sure...

...................

i hope that means you've found madeleine

Anonymous said...

Assasin,

better move from the place you live in.Or you should
as a responsible parent organise at your children's school a conference on values and attitudes...

i have no adjective to classify your kids' classmates' values.


Thanks God that we don't have such dreams among kids at our Portuguese schools..

And i'm not comparing anything...


P.S. LADY Diana was gorgeous and we also don't know her version of teh events...

melbel said...

Hi Mandz, Tinks,Assasin and Calcite.
The article puts into words what I feel and have been unable to express about the complexity of people's reactions.
Good post,mandz.It touches the primaeval fears we all have.
I understand where Assasin is coming from too and I have been so sickened at the cruel words of sadistic, punitive people.
I do not, for one minute, think that the people signing the petition about the twins being taken into care, was as many as 17000.
We all know about multiple posts from DE and people boasting about how many times they had signed.
I have been aware too, that many posters have probably been abused and some are abusers, if we but knew.Many must have had personal suffering, as we all get, in life, but they have turned their suffering to use it as a tool against other people.The Mccanns are a useful whipping boy.
I would question the parenting skills of many antis and would not want some of them to be on charge of any children, with their rigid punitive attitudes, their black and white thinking and the values they are showing, their total lack of empathy and readiness to leap in to condemn, all without any evidence.
They just bleat on about leaks from corrupt Policemen to Portugese tabloids, repeated here.
anyways, I agree with Rosie that we are not going to accept it and though from all corners of the UK [auld enemies and all], we are not going to let this family be sold down the river.
It would be a mistake to under estimate the peoples of our island.
In my view, the PJ are now into damage limitation. The new guy was sold a pup and is having to do the best he can with a flawed investigation.
They will come and ask their questions and I predict the Mccs will be cleared.
The Portugese will not want to risk the fall out to their tourist industry and face the European Court.
What has been done to this family is monstrous and I have seen nothing like it, in my lifetime.
What sort of people do they think we are ?
They have made a very big mistake.
Viv on A site, earlier was asking re British police being in Portugal. Did I get that right ?

Assasin, thanks for legal information.
This is all new ground, is'nt it ?
I am all for freedom of speech, but there must be guidelines and laws, in my view.
I am sorry that my fingers do not work as fast as the brain, so I am often Sammy Snail and Mrs Catch up.Well done Tinks.I am well impressed.

Anonymous said...

no, i know what you have in portugal. the same cos its global.
fyi i do work, campaign, speak out to the school and many other places on this issue - so no need for your advice.

I'd also be happy to advice anyone on the damage of manipulating their kids to eat food by calling it princess food - should anyone fit the bill.

however, you wouldn't know that cos you dont have abusers or abductors or even the right or gumption to think at all since in words of one of the hissing, spitting matriarchs - id the pj tells me it - i believe it:-)

ps. i did remove them from one school - an rc one - the abuse was a bit much.

Mandz said...

Good point Assasin.

Yes my mother was of that generation. Things have change very much in society even from when I was being brought up. It really is sad. Something needs to be done but that is a mammoth task.
As for the anti re: Kate v Diana…. doubles standards with the antis.

Anonymous said...

Melbel,
Rushing again. Great post. I agree with every word.

Mandz said...

Mellbel!

Excellent post!

Anonymous said...

and Kate McCann is gorgeous, but you dont like that.

Please remember, we don't know the McCanns version of events either cos Diana may have been silenced by death but the McCanns on the other hand are silenced [victimised] by archaic and barbaric laws.

So, your point is?

Tinkerbell43 said...

Hi Melbel - Thanks.

Its always nice to see you post, I know how difficult you found it on the DE, I identified with you totally.

It was an eye opening experience to me, I had never been on a forum before and I found it extremely difficult at first with people insulting each other. I used to think how can you call them that, you dont know them, lol.

My turning point came when Assasin aka Muse attacked me, I thought, quite ferociously one night and it was then I thought you either stand and fight your corner or take leave. I so feel for the McCs that to give in I felt would be letting them down so I decided to stay and fight my corner. I couldnt let Rosie et al down either.

So in a funny way, its thanks to Assasin I am still here :-) Funny how things turn out.

Assasin, no hard feelings, but then again I think you know that :-)

Anonymous said...

As for the anti re: Kate v Diana…. doubles standards with the antis.

01 March 2008 17:44

__________________

There is no possible comparison.

Assasin,
~
do you mean that at the other school there was again the kids were also dreaming about being those stars?

?????

Mandz said...

Mellbel!
That post was not from me however I found it interesting because I was not aware of the “nanny” situation at that complex and it gives an insight the reasons perhaps people were leaving their children and not using the nanny service etc!

Anonymous said...

The McCanns asked for the media attention, they got it and are now complaining about it.
Now to the people that condemn others for questioning the Mccanns innocence, you call the paedophiles sick vile evil people, but I dont see anyone standing up and saying 'hang on guys these paedophiles cannot help what they do,It is a brain disfunction, unlike the leaving children alone like the Mccanns did. I am neither for or against the Mccanns, just putting things into perspective (you cant back one and deny the other 'benefit of doubt.

Anonymous said...

Anon.

There is no possible comparison to you because you are victim to a madonna/whore complex hence one blonde mother is a saint, the other is garbage etc.

No, the other school is actually where all the children came from who HAVE these wishes now. They all went to same school initially, i took mines out and placed them in another school. Now they are all in the same middle school and it is the children from the original rc school who are voicing such dreams. I hope that helps:)

Mandz said...

Yes Kate McCann is an attractive looking woman. Why would that upset anyone..??

Anonymous said...

Work, work and more work Mandz to stem the tide i think but its all uphill, increasingly so:-(

Tinkerbell43 said...

She who knows, Hi.

I personally do not condemn the posters that question the McCs innocence. I questioned it myself at first. What I condemn is the vicious nasty attacks on a mother that has lost her daughter in tragic circumstances and the spiteful accusations levied at the McCs and their wider family.

Anonymous said...

Tink. No problem at all mate:-)

Off again, i think.

Just one thing for the record - paedophilia is not a brain dysfunction

Mandz said...

They asked the Media for help in finding their child who is missing and asked for the lies to stop who can blame them. They do not deserve the “finger pointers”. You most certainly seem more against them and if you are so angry and annoyed at the McCann’s and appear to be saying they got what they deserved are you annoyed at all parents who have left children? Unsupervised which has ended in abductions deaths? They should not have left there children however are you annoyed at the person that took her because there is a chance this person exists? Paedophiles are “bad” not “mad” therefore you cannot help the bad in society and I have no sympathy for them.

Anonymous said...

hi assassin
can you elaborate?

Anonymous said...

Mandz, just your opinion.

Diana was wonderful, attractive and emotive. Someone we really wanted to be with and to talk to.
Inner beauty, if you know what I mean...

Bye

Anonymous said...

Assasin,

not a brain disfunction...

Let me say it is monstruous.. but what do you really mean with this statement?

Anonymous said...

she who says.

yes i can, but im typing with one finger at the minute. holding a baby. will you be around again if i type some out for you when i have 'two hands'?

take me ages to type a longer post with one finger lol

Tinkerbell43 said...

Anon,

I would like to believe Diana was all those things, but the truth is none us knew the real Diana like none of us know the real Kate.

Anonymous said...

i mean precisely what i said, it is not a brain dysfunction.

how much clearer can i be?

i agree it is monstrous behaviour.

Mandz said...

ANON:

Paedophiles are BAD not MAD...is this clear for YOU..?

Mandz said...

Tinks going off for a glass of wine!

Anonymous said...

assassin
I will pop back later and look for you reply thanks

Anonymous said...

no prob shk

Tinkerbell43 said...

Mandz, Ok, I'll be off in a mo too have to get ready to go out. May catch you later, enjoy your glass or three!

Mandz said...

Cheers Tinks

Who are they trying to kidd? At least a few anonymous posters debating different things at the same time in an attempt to provoke confuse us however not going to happen!

Tinkerbell43 said...

See you all later, have a good evening all. xx

Anonymous said...

Good evening everyone,
Fantastic post,
I read it on the times a while ago and thought it was very good.

Hope you are all well.

melbel said...

Tee hee Mandz. I said I was sammy Snail !
Tinks, I agree that even if you are gentle and hate confrontation,the risk of not speaking up, is that there is no moderate and fair balance to the argument.
I always wanted to just put my opinion in, as I did not want anyone wandering in to the forum, as I did, to think that British people thought like the Mccann haters.
I looked in to the Mirror forum once and cried at people's inhumanity to their fellow men.
I had heard that the average iq for Sun and Mirror readers is not great, but I could not tolerate the spite and venom.It is nothing to do with iq though. It is just badness, plain and simple.
I did visit Portugal once and thought it a lovely place and people and of course, they are not all tabloid readers.
There is something very wrong there though, if we are to believe that they have been pretty much brainwashed by their Police and tabloids.
They were a dictatorship until fairly recently and Athena put into words that this is the one institution that they have to trust.
It is going to be a big shock to them when they know how the rest of the world are thinking.
I have heard no serious newspaper or documentary accusing the Mccanns and they surely would, if there was any evidence.
What happened to the Portugese Policeman who changed sides and now thinks the Mccs are innocent? Does anyone know who Robert Castillon is, the Spanish Journalist,who also changed sides and thinks the Mccs are innocent now ?
I think that people like Branson, who are backing the Mccs are not fools.
Clarence has given up a better job to help them, cos he believes in them.
Tinks, I think I am just going to respond to posters I want to , who I think are acting in good faith.
This will avoid the problems I had before,but your superb moderation is a great help too and we are all friends.

Anonymous said...

Assasin, Tinkerbell

Agree with you about Diana/Kate and paedophiles.

Have a good night!

Assasin: nice to "know" you're taking care of a baby... not going to disturb you... bye!

melbel said...

Hi Supertroll
Glad to have "caught "you and I admire your fight for decency and your bravery for taking these cowards on.
I am not great at computer skills, but cannot get onto your site.
I did the first time, but after that I had no luck.
Regards

Rosiepops said...

Hi

How is everyone?

Anon I would like you to tell us why you think we are the silly clowns?
I have been reading your comments they do not really make any sense, however, we are willing to help you decipher them into something credible if you would like to actually tell us what they are.

Anonymous said...

Hi Melbel,
Thtank you very much,
here is the link. I took it off my profile because I was getting weird threats.

http://www.supertroll.blogspot.com

There is a new poster in the vile blog called muldoon. Extremely nasty. Even Viv has asked her to tone down her posts. Any thoughts on this one.

Other than that, most posters seem to have deserted her.

Good result all round. ;)

ST

Rosiepops said...

Melbel I'll send you the link to Supertroll's site.

Hi Supertroll, Mandz, Assasin et al

melbel said...

Thanks Supertroll and Rosie.
Mandz and Assasin may have just gone offline.
There are varying anonymous people about, so it gets confusing.
Good result, Supertroll.
That docmoc should be reported to Medical Council or whatever it is.
My husband says he is probably a medical student, but it is weird.

Anonymous said...

I think he is a medical reject.

Anonymous said...

supertroll, still one fingered here, but if you need a hand with a clown, feel free to mail me anytime it happens

Anonymous said...

Thank you assassin

Anonymous said...

GMC only deal with doctors i think?;-);-)

The odd institution might be interested though;-)

Anonymous said...

no prob & evening rosie

Rosiepops said...

Supertroll

I tend to agree with you there, a reject, which explains the vehemence towards real doctors!

Anonymous said...

Rosiepops,

That is what I have always thought. Another explanation is someone struck off, maybe due to a whistleblower who was a fellow doctor?

Lazarus said...

Hello everybody...

Looks like I've been away too long and missed all the gossip...
You lot reckon there is something flakey about Docmac?

Like... you really need a degree in psychology to figure that one out.

Good to see some familiar faces.

I've missed ya.

Rosiepops said...

Supertroll,

Never thought of that one, the whistle blower could have been a doctor or maybe a nurse?

I feel there is so much to come out about this case, something that perhaps maybe so serious it could possibly the Portuguese government down.


HEY LAZ

At Last, where have you been? You took your time! I hope you are not workig as a fireman! SeaWitch was posting last week and we saw a completely new side to her, very funny.

Anonymous said...

Someone called muldoon has arrived in vile's blog and had been exceptionally nasty and libellous towards the McCanns.

The problem is that they think she is too good to be true and they think she is me!

Its definitely not me, but it is quite funny ;)What a paranoid bunch!

Rosiepops said...

Laz Meet Supertroll

Supertroll meet Laz

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hiya

How is everyone doing? Great to see you Lazarus (especially with a name I can actually spell!!!).

Just popping in for a couple of minutes, but will be back seriously in about half an hour!

See you soon

melbel said...

Welcome,Laz.It is good to hear from you.We just need Mark,Alroy and Miss marples now.
I am just popping off, but had wondered if the doc had been knocked back by Kate.
There is too much "emotion " in it, if you know what I mean.
All the best, everyone.
Will catch you up later. X

Anonymous said...

Nice to meet you Laz.

Completely agree with your last post. You don't need a degree in psychology to figure out something is not right with the doc.

I find amazing the fact that no one in the vile blog has worked that one out.

After all,they are so obssessed with personality disorders...

Rosiepops said...

Supertroll

I haven't been on Vile's blog for a while, will go later and have a look.

Laz I know you had notdoc down as flaky ages ago.

Mark55 who has medical training also fingered him over DNA had a running battle with him and Mark won and proved notdoc wrong do you remember?

Lazarus said...

Hi Rosie... thank you for shepherding me back to the fold.

Supertroll pleased to meet you.

Hey Sassy me old mucker... hope you are well...

Still getting my head around this... trying to figure it out still. so sorry about late replies.

Rosiepops said...

Hi Sassy

have you still got wind?

Anonymous said...

hi laz,
nice to see your alive.

he's never been a doctor or reject surely? he gets too much wrong

Lazarus said...

Hi Melbel good to see you again.

hey is that right that there was someone so obnoxious on Val's blog that even she asked her to tone it down???

Did Rose West make parole or something?

Lazarus said...

Assassin good to see you again.

Hey... how do you get an avatar?
I'm feeling very under-dressed especially when I see Nefertiti looking out the screen at me.

Rosiepops said...

Supertroll I just popped over to see what this Muldoon was about, good gracious, how on earth can they take this person for you?

I only skimmed so I will go back later and have a proper read

But the last post posted there today was this and I honestly do not know whether to laugh or cry or get angry!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2345 said...
anonymous,

Discussions in this Forum are based on written, filmed or photographic evidence. Psychiatric reports are based on watching the McCanns behaviour etc. etc.

They chose the limelight; they can throw but they cannot catch.
It's their problem and does not infringe on our rights. 8.43 p.m.

Saturday, March 1, 2008 11:42:00 AM PST

Anonymous said...

Think Rose West has a blog! ;-)

Rosiepops said...

Can anyone take this poster seriously? Or has she been brainwashed?

I suppose we can be grateful she hasn't mentioned "forensic evidence and Jane Hill" in the same sentence for one!

Lazarus said...

hey 2345... is that you?

Hows it going mate... what did you get thrown off the express for?

I got kicked off for being too free with my errrm... character assessments of other posts.

Not that my assessments were inaccurate... but i kept telling the moderators that i'd keep them to myself but then I kept forgetting my promise.

what you get the boot for?

Anonymous said...

Rosiepops

They are all mad, and now that they feel under siege they are trying to justify themselves.

It would be even funny if it didn't involve a real tragedy.

Rosiepops said...

laz are you going to put the Old Boot oops sorry strike that gloevd hand up again?

Just click on your prophile and it should take you to it, it is very much the same as the DX.

Please don't be too long and take weeks to get back again lol

Rosiepops said...

Laz

That wasn't posted here from 2345, I took it from Vile's blog.

2345 is still at it, fooorensiiiccs from the newspapers being presented as facts!

You cant get booted off here, but I can moderate comments (he he he mad cackle)

Anonymous said...

I'm off to eat something.
Nice to talk to you all, may be back later.
Nice to meet you Lazarus.
ST

Rosiepops said...

Supertroll

This is something I have never understood.

To be honest, it all got to seem like so much of a game once that i thought seriously of not posting, but then I thought if I did this then the McCann's would have far less representation on the DX than they had and I thought they needed all the help they could get so I hung around.

Thanks to posters like Laz who kept me sane and came to my aid when I was being heavily attacked, I was able to do it.

But I do firmly believe that to most (not all) of the so called antis, this has become a game, one that they are desperate to win at all costs and this is why we are seeing these ridiculus farcical comments, downright lies and innuendo.

So we set up this blog determined not to let that support for the McCann's slip, I know it isn't much, but it is something.

I do admire your blog and what it is and I think it is having an effect.

Lazarus said...

Rosie spot the newbie making a fool of himself...

I have a pretty good idea why 2345 got kicked off the express anyway...

they were always warning her about libelous stuff...

she used to brag about threatening them with her solicitors if they tried to interfere with he "free speech".

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hiya Rosie

Nicely phrased! It is certainly windy and I am glad I pulled everything off my balconies, but it has certainly calmed down a lot now. Just rain - bleugh!

How are you doing?

Rosiepops said...

See you later ST take care.

Rosiepops said...

Hi sassy, glad your wind has settled now!

See who has joined us? I can shut up now I have finally managed to drag him here, now I have to get Mark55 and languedoc.

Laz,
Oh where is the boot?

2345 certainly doesn't have that threat of libel where she is now posting!

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hiya Laz

You have turned up on a quiet evening. It used to be the same on the DX - you could pretty much forget Saturday evening.

Glad you made it here!

Was hoping that JohnCar would also get here - he wrote, but I don't think he writes much on forums/blogs anymore. Who can blame him after the way he got attacked?

Rosiepops said...

Laz guess what?

Sassy joined the DX elite and got herself suspended LOL

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Tomorrow will be another milestone for the McCanns - first Mother's Day without Madeleine.

Rosiepops said...

It is very quiet in here tonight, but I think some of the others will be back later.

Also as it is Mothers day tomorrow some of the mums have been taken out tonight I think.

I am just out to take my little dog around the block and will be back soon and I hope I do not come back to an empty blog.

I feel sure Jane will be on soon anyway and Christabel.

Lazarus said...

Sassy I couldn't agree more. It was disgusting the way John Car was shouted down every time he made some reasonable and well thought out comment by some posters.

There was one poster, (a retired police dog handler) who acted like the character out of Little Britain who wanted to be the "only gay in the village". Not suggesting he was gay... but it clearly drove him mad that there was another more senior policeman on the forum giving his opinions.

I remember I once asked him to put the dog on so we could speak to the brains of the partnership.

One of my better moments and indicative of the kind of thing that got Lazarus banned.

Anonymous said...

Off to do some other Madeleine work but might get back later.

Take care everyone

Rosiepops said...

I'm the only dog handler in the village

Rosiepops said...

Hope so Assasin see you later x

Lazarus said...

Rosie Sassy suspended???

Oh no... she was what I always aspired to be... erudite yet with a controlled rage.

Maybe if she searches hard enough she will find a Mexican cousin.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Rosie, Don't take your dog out for a 15 hour walk like you did before, will you!

Lazarus said...

Hey gang...
was great catching up with you but an old friend has just knocked on the door in need of wine and food.

I'll possibaly be back later if I'm sober... Definitely if I'm drunk.

Rosie thanks again for getting me into the fold...

I was lost and now I am found... was blind and now... you get it.

adios muchachos.

Rosiepops said...

Sassy pmsl

I promiose I wont take that long tonight! lol

back in 15 mins

I am working on a way to get Tinks banned from the DX so she can join the club!

Rosiepops said...

Sassy pmsl

I promiose I wont take that long tonight! lol

back in 15 mins

I am working on a way to get Tinks banned from the DX so she can join the club!

Lazarus said...

Rosie re the avatar...
I came bearing a rose in a lace gloved hand and you scorned it...

So now you have the weird gothic horror guy... its no less than you deserve for your cruel rejection.

See you later hopefully.
I'm gone now.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Laz

Clever me, eh! Just checked to see if I'm still suspended and I am! Don't care now though, because I wouldn't want to go back to that psycho hellhole of an HYS again anyway. All I wanted to do was get rid of the e-mail addy in my profile, but I can't.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

See ya Laz! Catch up again soon!

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Laz

Thanks for the compliment! Should I ever want to go back to the DX I will start looking for my Mexican relatives!

Doppelganger said...

Just been reading back

And if John Carr was a policeman then I'm a brain surgeon.

He continually kept saying that because he could open his shutters in Spain from outside that the ones in Luz could have been opened in this way.

People kept telling him that the shutters in Portugal were different from those in Spain but he just couldn't get his head around the concept.

He also kept making remarks about the hire car based on his car, which was a different model.

Personally I would expect an ex police officer to understand basic concepts of proof and evidence.

But hey, what do I know.

melbel said...

Hi
If anybody there, I have been looking for supertroll's site, but just get the website of vile.
Sorry to be a pest.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Doppelganger
________________________
But hey, what do I know.

01 March 2008 20:34
________________________

Exactly! :-)

There were always disagreements between the policemen on HYS. I thought JohnCar was great - not just because of his opinion of the case, but because he could explain things so well.

I thought JohnCar was really patient answering questions and never getting riled. He was, if I remember correctly, the only copper who never got nasty.

So when are you next operating?

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Melbel

You're not a pest. Have you tried clicking on Supertroll's name here. You can then click on the link to her site.

Will try and see if I can get in.

Doppelganger said...

Melbel,

Why you would want to go there I have no idea, you have never struck me as a sad or vindictive person, but if you must - try the link below

http://supertroll.blogspot.com/2008/02/wonderful-post-by-anon.html

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Melbel

I got in! Don't know how you are getting to Vile's - that must have been a shock :-o

Rosiepops said...

Well Laz

I suppose I'll have to put up with your weird gothic hi fi horror guy avatar as a penance for insulting your gloved rose bearing hand.

See later if your drunk and possibly if you are sober ;-)

Mum21 said...

Doppelganger. You said
"Personally I would expect an ex police officer to understand basic concepts of proof and evidence.

But hey, what do I know."

What basic concepts and evidence? There is none in the public domain.

In reply to you saying "But hey, what do I know"....no comment

Other than that I say Hi to you.

Rosiepops said...

Hi Mum

You just mnissed Laz

Mum21 said...

Oh and Doppelganger...I find Supertrolls site very refreshing. It is great to see somebody taking the pi-s out of the evil that is posted on Vile's blog.
I hope you do not lower yourself to go gather with that gang.

Mum21 said...

Hi Rosie..I noticed that. Will he be back? I sure hope so.

Rosiepops said...

Melbel

Supertroll's site is unique, it is not about debating, it is all about exposing Vile's site and it does that amicably.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Rosie! You're back! You really didn't do a David Copperfield and disappear!

Hiya Mum21! Good to see ya!

Rosiepops said...

Mum

yes he will because he knows I will nag him like only a woman can nag lol

jak said...

Hi all, hope all's well, I see dopple is back, Hi to you!

Doppleganger, If John Carr, was not a real poster why would he put up an avatar of himself, then one of him and his wife? So many paranoid theories only suggest you yourself have been more than lax with the truth.

Laz, good to "see" you here but what the hell is that on your avatar. Have to say, I preferred the old rugby boot with a flower up it's a**. I know it was supposed to be a glove but didn't see it myself.

Mum21 said...

Hi SassyP...how's your day been?

Mum21 said...

Jak..when I first saw Laz's avatar I thought Spiderman had come to visit. te he he

Doppelganger said...

Sassy

He was a very calm person, but the gaping holes in his logic and arguments made it hard for me to believe that he really was an ex-copper.

At the time John Carr was posting, Duncan an 'anti' who was an ex policeman was receiving the same 'treatment' that Docmac is getting now.

So John Carr got off pretty light under the circumstances.

Oh and by the way, I am NOT a brain surgeon, but I beleive that Docmac IS a doctor and so did Mark when they were best mates.

Mark used to have long 'medical' chats with Docmac before they fell out, however, having said that I find it very, very hard to beleive that Mark isn't a student or the son of a dentist.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was just honest and didn't feel the need to pretend to be something or someone they are not.

I for instance am a nobel prize winner and ex astronaut but do I go on about it?

Rosiepops said...

Sassy

It is too windy to take the little dog for a 15 hour walk tonight!

I was getting blown about yet she was just walking normally how come?

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hiya Mum21 - been busy. I work some Saturdays. How you doing?

Jak - Hi there! How are you doing?

Mum21 said...

Rosie..nagging is what we excell at.
Or so my husband says.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Because you are taller and therefore there is more wind resistance! Your little dog has 4 legs which means he is better balanced than you.

Our dog's face turns into a little concorde when it's windy, so he's more aerodynamic.

Mum21 said...

Sassy...I have had a nice lazy day sitting in front of a warm log fire. Plus I was treated to a great Chinese Take-away this evening.
So I have no complaints about today.

Christabel said...

Hi all, not long back from my Mothers day meal.
Son in law at work tomorrow and he was paying so daughter insisted we went tonight lol !

Anonymous said...

happy st david's -wet, extremely windy,- day.....

My shed door is off. Ho hum.

Hi lax. glad Pedro has exited the country if you read this when you get back sober or even drunk. We wouldn't know the difference anyway. ha ha joke ;o)))!!!!

I liked John Carr and it would be nice if he came here. The other 2 police 'experts' pounced on him every post. Sad.

ROSIEPOPS you mentioned poster numbers,,,,+ffffffrnsc = being brainwashed...no, you need in first instance to have brain in order to do that.

MUM21 hello how are you this evening? You were pounced on yesterday - so hope you are full of vim and vigour today...what a silly phrase....what's vim????

Anyone interested have look at this link to today's Portugal News re children under 14 abuse, and the taxi driver statement.....

www.the-news.net/ just to open your eyes

SASSYP Hope weather settled a bit for you too.....

Anonymous said...

oops forgot to add

sassy p

I thought the DX had to email you to tell you why you were banned..........and warnings came first?????

Rosiepops said...

Johncar was an ex policeman he gave his rank and number which could be checked.

Duncan did and said things that led people to believe he was not in the police, rather like notdoc now.

Personally I hope JohnCar finds his way to this blog where he will be very welcome and respected for his genuine experience and opinions born of that experience.

Initially notdoc did not get attacked for his credentails, he got attacked because he was deeply unpleasant, aggressive and nasty towards other posters and where Johncar took it in his stride when he was questioned about his credentials, notdoc fle into an amazing hissy fit. I would also question that a doctor would name his patients on the internet.

Doppelganger said...

Jakirla

Hi, perhaps you could tell me exactly what claims I have made about myself that you suspect are untrue.

As far as I can recall, all I have really told anyone is that I am married with three children.

I could have made that up I suppose, but it seems a pretty mundane fake persona to create for myself don't you think.

Mum21 said...

Doppelganger...You cannot even mention Duncan in the same breath as John Carr.
Duncan was no more a policeman than I am. Plus his language was disgusting. He reminds me a lot of 2345...believing allegedly=facts.

Rosiepops said...

he he he

There are a few ex DX posters that would say I had four legs lol

Rosiepops said...

Hi Christabel and Jane

great to see you x

jak said...

Hi Sassy, good thanks, you?

Great article, have never read it before.

Been reading the posts from yesterday and today, the site has really taken off. Well done to all of you!

Feeling abit the way Seawitch described, nothing really philosophical to add. I just wanted to show my support.

Rosiepops said...

Hi Jak

You just missed Laz.

Anonymous said...

sorry to interrupt, quick message as im clearing inbox before getting on...

Rosie, you have mail, but i sent it out through the wrong mail box so it might have gone into your junk folder - hotmail addie this time lol.

Jak, you have one too;-)

Doppelganger said...

Rosiepops

Once again you are being 'exremely economical with the actualite' as Alan Clark once said.

Duncan even gave his whole service history - which checked out, but he was still driven off the DE forum.

I think John Carr may have been an ex-copper, but the fact that he kept getting his 'story' mixed up all the time didn't help his case.

Perhaps he just had a bad memory.

jak said...

Hi Doppleganger,

I didn't actually say you had lied about anything re this subject. Only that your paranoia relating to others' lies, would suggest, you yourself have been lax with honesty in the past. It is quite common, you should read about it.

Rosiepops said...

Jane

I am not knocking Portugal re those child abuse figures because unfortunately we know that they occur in all countries including this one, what I do find though is more and more that Portugal is not the haven it has been made out to be and threse child abuse figures prove this.

Christabel said...

Rosie,
do you remember me catching DCI Dunc out, when he thought the ripper was the bloke who beat him up.
He also got the date of the arrest wrong by 2 years.
Good cop bad cop lol.
John Carr was a lovely guy,very polite perhaps thats why he had to go ?

jak said...

Thanks Assasin, will see you over at yours soon.x

Hi Rosie, hows you? If Laz pops up tell him I was asking for him!

Waiting for Dopples post then off.

Anonymous said...

HI JAK

GLAD YOU HAVEN'T FF NOW.

you don't catch it here much at all.

Mum21 said...

Christabel.. I caught Duncan out too...several times.
He was a liar... and an abusive one at that.

Christabel said...

Hiya mum,
hope your feeling better ?
Dunc was tied in knots by a few of us.

Anonymous said...

ROSIEPOPS

think dogs don't get blown about in wind coz their central point of gravity is lot lower. >>??

perhaps explains your obsession with 'bot' ha ha ha ha ha

;o) ;o) ;o)

ps you will need to tell Laz he can't break into song like that that's my job.......??

Anonymous said...

ROSIEPOPS

think dogs don't get blown about in wind coz their central point of gravity is lot lower. >>??

perhaps explains your obsession with 'bot' ha ha ha ha ha

;o) ;o) ;o)

ps you will need to tell Laz he can't break into song like that that's my job.......??

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Doppelganger

Just wrote an extremely long and exceedingly profound post to you and then I lost my connection and with it the post! Had to restart the computer which is why it took so long to reply.

Anyhow it is very modest of you not to go on about your nobel prize winning astronaut activities! I am also in the nobel prize winning astronaut activity branch and am Miss World! Perhaps we know each other! We were probably at the same school. Let's speak Afrikaans (whoops, slap my wrist for that one!).

It is a shame that people make up whole new identities for themselves. However, I genuinely don't believe JohnCar was one of those doing that.

Doppelganger said...

While I am here, I would also like to point out that when we all used to post on the DE forum many posters used to believe that certain people there were working as a team .

Of course this suggestion was always ridiculed by those people.

However, now you have your own site you have dropped the pretence and quite openly discuss e-mailing each other and your multiple ID's and bannings on the DE forum.

It is also obvious that having comlained about being bullied on the DE forums, you are now actively pursuing people and posting on their blogs as anonymous or with more fake ID's.

Could any of you who are doing this explain how any of this behaviour helps the McCann's, because IMHO all it is doing is making them more enimies.

Christabel said...

Hi Jane, are you singing tonight,
if so let me know and I can take the battery out of my hearing aid lol !
I know cheeky b****

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Rosie

JohnCar did get in touch. Will check the e-mail again to see exactly what it is he said - it didn't sound like he was chomping at the bit to go on any more forums though.

Anonymous said...

rosiepops

The country is small, so that amount of abused children under 14 is high. Didn't Alsabella infer this just did not happen? Why are the Portuguese have this fear to speak out so much? How lovely to name a country without being called a Xenophobe. ~Even Mrs Murat had a stall asking anyone to report to her if they were too afraid to go to PJ. Speaks volumes.

jak said...

Hi Jane, It is a great description you came up with, FF, I think everyone goes through it in waves. There is only so much you can read and add to, without the down side.

Anyway, glad you saw my post the other night! didn't want another repeat of my apologies ( there have already been too many).LOL.

Mum21 said...

Doppelganger.Please get your facts right. In the beginning the only way you could join this blog was to email an address Sasyp put up on the DX forum. That explains the emails.
Have you forgotten that Alsabella and her chums were emailing each other on the DX. Not sure about now because I no longer lower myself to visit her smug little blog

Anonymous said...

dad23

I have one id always have. I speak as I find always have. I was not a part of any 'team' as you put it. I now find a blog I like and intend to stay with because it is not a site that abuses other posters or deliberately antagonises them. I had no email at all re anyone else. I found the blog. Pure and Simple

I find your post offensive as I am sure I cannot be the only one in this situation.

Look to yourself on this one.

Anonymous said...

Hi everyone,

Have not posted much recently, as have had family visiting.

Sassy, I missed this particular article and am grateful to you for drawing it to my and others attention. The content of same, is an observant slant, from a normal, well balanced individual, aimed at an audience with likewise views/understandings.

Thanks again Sassyp

Rosiepops said...

Christabel

I do remember that, he got really abusive.

Speaking of good cops bad cops, I was surprised that you got a reply from Mr Ribeiro! Very interesting too!

Rosiepops said...

Assasin

Thanks for that I have replied now :-)

Doppelganger said...

Jakirla

Not being rude but I found your post to me very amusing.

If you think that you can try and 'wind me up' with amateur psycho babble then you have rather misjudged me I feel.

Have a chat with Chinadoll and ask her how far she got.

Generally I am a truthful person and because I can usually spot a liar I don't believe that this makes me one, or does it?

;-)

Anonymous said...

I wont be here for the response doppleganger cos im busy. Not being disrespectul, i will read it later tonight or tomorrow and reply too when im available.

However, hows about you reveal your VERY real identity? :-):-)

Btw. Apart from your real identity...do you know the meaning of people who call them selfelf monika's relating to their children on the internet? Ie dad23 etc? Or should i say lack of self identity?

Sorry to post without not being available to reply straight away.

regards

Rosiepops said...

I too thought the India Knight article well balanced, the same as Bridget O'Donnel's was.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Doppelganger

Since the closing of HYS people passed on e-mail addresses to find each other elsewhere. As you know I posted a throwaway e-mail addy on the DX to let people know where we are.

Clawdia and Alsabelia used to used to DX the whole time to tell each other they had post. Clawdia seemed to be in touch with Docmac, too and of course Vile. What you are talking about certainly isn't a "pro" phenomenon.

Many people had multiple IDs on the DX forum because they were getting kicked off for whatever reason. That is why Viv came back as Felicity, Lazarus as M_Pedro, for example. However, some, such as Laz, were completely honest about it, others, like Vile, weren't.

As far as posting on the other blogs, I realise it is tempting. Sometimes when I read what is happening on Alsabella's blog, I read such junk about this blog that I could write a book and a half on that blog telling them all what a bunch of liars they are!

We too get our fair share of anonymous here and they can be quite aggressive and insulting. Frankly, I wouldn't bother posting on Casa Crud - I know I'm going to get Rotweiler woman (Clawdia) jumping down my throat.

It doesn't help the McCanns posting on other blogs, but I can understand the temptation when you read some of the sick rubbish that is printed about us on them. It also doesn't help the PJ to have Vile and Casa Crud followers on here spitting venom.

I think we are all getting pretty good at ignoring the nasties that come on here.

Anonymous said...

DAD23

I TOO JUST LOST MY POST TO YOU IN CYBERWINDHURLING SPACE...DARNIT

HAVE YOU A COMMENT ON THE RTICLE WE ARE DEBATING OR A POINT YOU WANT TO RAISE FOR US TO DISCUSS?

IF HERE TO INSULT, WE DON'T NEED IT.


JAK

yes forum fatigue is common with us all. Not so much here though not so stressful. More fun. Lot more fun. No apologies necessary by the way. Not at all. I too liked FF phrase I coined, and also 'cybernag' when trying to get Big L stopping smoking and keeping it up. Hope he is. He was funny too. Liked him despite being an Anti.

CHINADOLL!!!!! GOOD TO SEE YOU HERE. ;o) wysiwyg ;o)

Rosiepops said...

Well doppeldadderto3

You have called me a liar and I know I am not, so it makes you a very poor judge (IMO)

jak said...

Doppelganger, When on the DE, we were accused of being paid PR defenders, McCann family members, forum monkeys by all, including yourself.

This forum was set up by a few well meaning posters and everyone else had to give their E-mail add, to get access. Therefor there are some of us who now have others' adds. Nothing unusual, nothing sinister.

It is just people who trust one another, who now correspond, hope this puts to bed some of your theories.

Rosiepops said...

Sassy, exactly well said.

Christabel said...

Rosie you go the email then.Good or what ?
I think he wants to see mandz and me really, for our uniform fitting lol !

Anonymous said...

Janegt,

Thank you for the link - I bet it is not advertised on the other blog, but, hopefully, people will read it here and take a look. Am not knocking Portugal, but it does confirm that that country is not immune to such behaviour, as some would like us to believe.

wysiwyg lol

jak said...

Doppel, what I find most amusing, is your "psycho babble" phase, as I myself used it on many occasions on the DE. Maybe your use of it should have been applied there, with your friends.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Hiya Christabel and Chinadoll

Glad you liked the article China. The Times has got some good stuff!

Doppelganger said...

Assassin

More psycho babble.

And if you are referring to DadTo3 he explained the reason for his moniker to Mum21 many months ago.

He chose his name when Mum21 was a very active poster on the DE forum. Mum21's name always used to amuse him because he imagined her running around trying to cope with 21 children so he named himself DadTo3.

He also felt it was appropriate because the case was about a missing child and he wanted to comment on caring for children.

So sorry to disappoint you, unless of course you can find anything sinister in those explanations.

Now perhaps you can explain what your name, 'Assasin' tells us about you?

Perhaps DadTo3 should have called himself something less sinister, say MassMurderer for instance?

I wonder what happened to DadTo3 - perhaps he never really existed at all.

:0)

Christabel said...

Hi Sass and China.
hope your well.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

Ta our Rose!

jak said...

Am off, see y'all later, hopefully will have something to add but don't count on it!LOL.

The Candy Floss blog really sucks said...

One more thing about the e-mail addresses that were sent to find out where we were, I have never passed any on to anyone else unless I was specifically asked to (which I think happened twice).

«Oldest ‹Older   1 – 200 of 437   Newer› Newest»

Minute For Madeleine McCann

Locate IP Address on Map