Some recent happenings have had me thinking (yes, I do that occasionally) about various things that have or are surfacing in McCann world, so I thought I would jot down some musings.
My first thought concerns the various punchups that erupt quite frequently and are always between the 'anti' factions or forums, and usually spill over into twitter and facebook - or the reverse. However, despite an indepth search I can find no such situations in the 'pro' camp. Could it be that the egos in the anti forums are greater than those in the pro forums? I also have noticed that the level of basic written English seems to be better on the 'pro' forums and the immediate lapsing into bad language, threats and sexual slurs do seem to emanate mainly from the 'antis'. Then we have the antis using the missing child as a step to stardom, you know, '5 seconds of fame' the ones who rather fancy themselves as armchair defectives, sorry that should be detectives, and keep quote Sherlock Holmes, Columbo and CIS as if they were real people and not figments of a writer's imagination. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of Holmes and enjoy mysteries on TV but that is all they are - realised a few days ago that none of these pundits mention Jessica Fletcher and her abilities to solve things while the cops are struggling to find a single clue.
Following close behind these are the ones who spend their time dissecting every word and gesture of the parents and others they consider to be IN IT, then concoct ridiculous scenarios. The daftest were of a fridge dumped with a body inside it, a body being hidden in a yew tree's trunk, a child's body being carried through a UK airport disguised as bushmeat, dumping a dead child in an acid bath in a local acid works, burying her in the sandy beach nearby - totally stupid as the sand would be wet as it is on the Atlantic, not the Pacific - even on that ocean the sand would not be permanently dry but damp below the surface! Then it was hidden in the corpse of a dead dog, taken to animal crematorium, now in penny jar above living room mantlepiece in Rothley! Then the Queen was accused of being IN IT as there were naval training exercises taking place off the Algarve, so some brain-dead moron decided the 'Royal Navy' meant the Royal Yacht so Ma'am and Co must be involved in hiding a body and on and on. Oh, nearly forgot the volcano! You know the one where it would be possible to get rid of a body in 'one of Portugal's volcanos' - difficult that as Portugal's volcanos are all a very long way from the Algarve, on the islands in the Atlantic to be exact. I have probably missed some examples, but I think these show exactly how many idiotic theories were dreamt up - and are still being rehashed or embellished to this day.
Now what about the creatures who try and jump on the bandwagon? Well, so far we have a pensioner who meddled in the case and ended up in court with hefty fines and a threat of imprisonment hanging over his head, an 'international journalist' (her words, not mine) who got kicked of an internet TV site and a weird, permanently off-her-head middle-aged bimbo with delusions of grandeur and appalling badly written English. (An example - she 'decimates' information, whereas the rest of us 'disseminate' it!) She's unable to get her stories straight and spends her time accusing people of murder, abusing their small children and everyone who prefers an internet name to their own as being 'trolls' - I assume she uses her own, which seems to be many-headed because she write a book about being abused and that helps sales. She is ignorant on so many levels one wonders about her state of mind - too much weed causes paranoia, I am told, and booze addles the brain. And then there is a senior policeman who preferred sitting in a bar consuming beer and shrimps with his mates to searching for the child, who never met the parents but wrote a book on how he 'solved' the crime, who used every possible excuse to avoid court when he was sued by the parents, who robbed his brother etc. and the Antipodean idiot who is demanding a drive is dug up as he is certain the body is buried under it. We have pretendy cops, pretendy TV personalities, actual gangsters and assorted other kooks all giving their five pennysworth. It is ridiculous but can, when one of them comes out with a particular howler, cause extreme merriment amongst those observing their antics. Oh,and I have just seen that a world famous (NOT) criminal profiler has resurfaced to give her opinion - which, as usual, is about relevant as the views of a tap-dancing kangaroo on ice.
All of the above brings me to an important question - why do these people want a child dead? Why do they want her parents dragged into court? Why do they stalk the missing child's siblings? Why do they threaten harm to anyone who disagrees with them? I have always understood that "jaw jaw" is better than "war war", but it seems this concept is way out-of-date and threats are now the in thing.
My first thought concerns the various punchups that erupt quite frequently and are always between the 'anti' factions or forums, and usually spill over into twitter and facebook - or the reverse. However, despite an indepth search I can find no such situations in the 'pro' camp. Could it be that the egos in the anti forums are greater than those in the pro forums? I also have noticed that the level of basic written English seems to be better on the 'pro' forums and the immediate lapsing into bad language, threats and sexual slurs do seem to emanate mainly from the 'antis'. Then we have the antis using the missing child as a step to stardom, you know, '5 seconds of fame' the ones who rather fancy themselves as armchair defectives, sorry that should be detectives, and keep quote Sherlock Holmes, Columbo and CIS as if they were real people and not figments of a writer's imagination. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of Holmes and enjoy mysteries on TV but that is all they are - realised a few days ago that none of these pundits mention Jessica Fletcher and her abilities to solve things while the cops are struggling to find a single clue.
Following close behind these are the ones who spend their time dissecting every word and gesture of the parents and others they consider to be IN IT, then concoct ridiculous scenarios. The daftest were of a fridge dumped with a body inside it, a body being hidden in a yew tree's trunk, a child's body being carried through a UK airport disguised as bushmeat, dumping a dead child in an acid bath in a local acid works, burying her in the sandy beach nearby - totally stupid as the sand would be wet as it is on the Atlantic, not the Pacific - even on that ocean the sand would not be permanently dry but damp below the surface! Then it was hidden in the corpse of a dead dog, taken to animal crematorium, now in penny jar above living room mantlepiece in Rothley! Then the Queen was accused of being IN IT as there were naval training exercises taking place off the Algarve, so some brain-dead moron decided the 'Royal Navy' meant the Royal Yacht so Ma'am and Co must be involved in hiding a body and on and on. Oh, nearly forgot the volcano! You know the one where it would be possible to get rid of a body in 'one of Portugal's volcanos' - difficult that as Portugal's volcanos are all a very long way from the Algarve, on the islands in the Atlantic to be exact. I have probably missed some examples, but I think these show exactly how many idiotic theories were dreamt up - and are still being rehashed or embellished to this day.
Now what about the creatures who try and jump on the bandwagon? Well, so far we have a pensioner who meddled in the case and ended up in court with hefty fines and a threat of imprisonment hanging over his head, an 'international journalist' (her words, not mine) who got kicked of an internet TV site and a weird, permanently off-her-head middle-aged bimbo with delusions of grandeur and appalling badly written English. (An example - she 'decimates' information, whereas the rest of us 'disseminate' it!) She's unable to get her stories straight and spends her time accusing people of murder, abusing their small children and everyone who prefers an internet name to their own as being 'trolls' - I assume she uses her own, which seems to be many-headed because she write a book about being abused and that helps sales. She is ignorant on so many levels one wonders about her state of mind - too much weed causes paranoia, I am told, and booze addles the brain. And then there is a senior policeman who preferred sitting in a bar consuming beer and shrimps with his mates to searching for the child, who never met the parents but wrote a book on how he 'solved' the crime, who used every possible excuse to avoid court when he was sued by the parents, who robbed his brother etc. and the Antipodean idiot who is demanding a drive is dug up as he is certain the body is buried under it. We have pretendy cops, pretendy TV personalities, actual gangsters and assorted other kooks all giving their five pennysworth. It is ridiculous but can, when one of them comes out with a particular howler, cause extreme merriment amongst those observing their antics. Oh,and I have just seen that a world famous (NOT) criminal profiler has resurfaced to give her opinion - which, as usual, is about relevant as the views of a tap-dancing kangaroo on ice.
All of the above brings me to an important question - why do these people want a child dead? Why do they want her parents dragged into court? Why do they stalk the missing child's siblings? Why do they threaten harm to anyone who disagrees with them? I have always understood that "jaw jaw" is better than "war war", but it seems this concept is way out-of-date and threats are now the in thing.
