ITS THE SIXTH YEAR, but who's counting

Not quite sure what to make of this year's abduction anniversary.  The McCanns were very jovial with beaming smiles throughout.  One might think they were home and dry.  They have also, I think, had a strategy meeting and decided to ditch the whiney voices and the hangdog expressions.  I can see why. Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone eh?  Nobody wants to see their sour faces popping up with regular monotony on our screens.  Enough already.  Their dreary pleas are a turn off.  So we now have the smiley successful, contented, middle class parents to tell us regularly whats good for us.  Thats good of them.  Assisted of course, by their nice spokesman, Mr. Mitchell, who will fill us in when they are too busy to deal with their public themselves. I felt today as if they were preparing us for something, but what?  Its all coming across a bit Norma Desmond.    

I can see why the two review teams haven't reached any conclusions.  It would be madness to alert an abductor, or indeed to tip off anyone else.  The McCann web is far reaching, any case they build must be rock solid.  There are high flying medical careers at stake, and the fall out to those on the periphery could be ruinous.  SY really don't have any room for eror.  I don't doubt the McCanns when they say SY are keeping are keeping them updated - they have the ear of the PM after all, but I suspect they are probably selective in what they pass on. as police always are.  Redwood was very clear, there are two lines of enquiry. One that she is alive, the other sadly, that she is dead.

It is apparent that the SY Review team are working convivially with the Oporto Review team. As well as their frequent trips to Portugal, we also saw SY coming away with boxes of documents from the fraudulent and now defunct Metodo3, supposedly containing 195 leads.  The McCann link to Metodo3 of course throws Spain into the diplomatic mix alongside Portugal and the UK.

Looking briefly at the Amanda Knox case, it struck me that Amanda has many high powered supporters in the US, possibly enough to keep her out of the Justice system in Italy.  The McCanns do not appear to have anywhere near that level of support.  Cameron is on a sticky wicket. I cannot see how he can risk a diplomatic incident  by pouring scorn on another country's entire police force.  There is a large British ex pat population in the Algarve who could suffer as a result of any backlash, ditto Spain who are due to put Metodo3 on trial.

Pieces of the puzzle are slotting into place.  We now know Leonor Cipriano was convicted of making false statements against Goncalo Amaral.  A crime she committed at the instigation of a lawyer hired for her by the dodgy private investigators, Metodo3.  She has had 7 months added onto her present sentence for murdering and butchering her daughter.  The smear campaign against Dr. Amaral has been vicious.  Murky stuff.

No matter which way, I think the McCanns will continue to get newspaper and tv interviews. The reality is their name and the mystery that surrounds them boosts circulation and viewing figures. The McCanns are well aware of this, particularly if it is a slow news week. Financially, everyone is a winner.  The McCanns get donations to their Fund and the news channels get a boost in their audiences.  

Going by their interviews today, I would say there has been a subtle change in focus from previous years.  They have stopped counting days and anniversaries.  Third May, is just another day now, not an anniversary.  They may have been advised that two appeals within a fortnight of each other each year simply isn't sustainable publicity wise.  In fairness, up until now, its only the Queen who has got away with that one.  One of the days had to go, so they dispensed with the 'nasty 3rd' and hung onto Madeleine's 10th birthday on the 12th (not that anyone's counting).  It seems as though we will have to forego the balloons and fire hazard lantern fest each Mayday (1st-3rd) possibly because that date has been taken since medeavil times, and the international workers unions are not too keen on renaming it Madeleine Day - the dirty rotten scoundrels.

From henceforth, they will celebrate Madeleine's birthday, and it is a celebration, Kate hastily reassured the embarrassed Adam Boulton, it is a celebration of her life.  She is very much alive in their home in Rothley.

And if that thought doesn't give regular people the screaming abdabs then I don't know what will.