Inconsistencies and peculiarities

One of the peculiarities is the similes used. Kate compares the GNR first responders to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and then Jane apparently came out with this;

From the car park Jane was driven round to a nearby street, where a PJ officer asked her to get into the back of a van disguised to resemble a refrigerated delivery vehicle (‘Like Sooty’s van,’ she told us).[madeleine]

They seem at a loss to describe anything which isn't children's story related. Sooty seems to have had a camper van.

Grom wrote:One of the peculiarities is the similes used. Kate compares the GNR first responders to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and then Jane apparently came out with this;

From the car park Jane was driven round to a nearby street, where a PJ officer asked her to get into the back of a van disguised to resemble a refrigerated delivery vehicle (‘Like Sooty’s van,’ she told us).[madeleine]

They seem at a loss to describe anything which isn't children's story related. Sooty seems to have had a camper van.

My perception was of a group of adolescents. It reminded me of the gang I hung around with when I was about 15.

Yes, the effin to**ers mantra; a teenager being told off by grown-ups comes to mind.

The Mark Warner recording system was either very unclear or it was edited.

People on the Mark Warner Arrivals list who don't seem to have arrived on the charter flight. Only 4 couples show a return flight;

Berry
Oldfield XLA5773 Excel Airways to Gatwick
O'Brien XLA5773
Payne
McCann
Balu
Totman
Reap
Hynd
Janczur
Thornhill XLA5773
Weinburger
Sperrey
Naylor
Mills
McCormick ZB215 Monarch Airline to Gatwick
Bullen ZB215

Grom wrote:The Mark Warner recording system was either very unclear or it was edited.

People on the Mark Warner Arrivals list who don't seem to have arrived on the charter flight. Only 4 couples show a return flight;

Berry
Oldfield XLA5773 Excel Airways to Gatwick
O'Brien  XLA5773
Payne
McCann
Balu
Totman
Reap
Hynd
Janczur
Thornhill  XLA5773
Weinburger
Sperrey
Naylor
Mills
McCormick ZB215 Monarch Airline to Gatwick
Bullen  ZB215

Were they selling packages or accommodation?

It seems to be pick and mix. You can choose to book accommodation, flights and transfers; just accommodation, or just accommodation and flights.

The McCann couple may not have had friends in Portugal, but someone did;

We arrived in Portugal on Saturday morning, where a friend lent us a car to use and we went to Praia da Luz.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/PATRICIA_CAMERON.htm

Grom wrote:The McCann couple may not have had friends in Portugal, but someone did;

We arrived in Portugal on Saturday morning, where a friend lent us a car to use and we went to Praia da Luz.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/PATRICIA_CAMERON.htm

And generous with it, being able to hand over their car at short notice like that, with appropriate insurance cover.

Linda McQueen was in Portugal from 12th-19th May;

During the first week that I was in Portugal Kate and Gerry were transported [driven] by representatives of Mark Warner. Sandy Cameron was also there and possessed a hire car, but it was not the Renault Scenic that Gerry and Kate rented during the third week that I stayed with them in Portugal.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/L-R-MCQUEEN.htm

Amaral refers to Glen Power in his book. He was the British International Liaison Officer in Portugal at the time of Madeleine's disappearance. He claims to have known him well, but he got his surname wrong. He was actually Glen Pounder, as referred to by Leicestershire Liaison Officer Markley in this statement;

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/BV/02volume_II_apenso_VIII_Page_331.jpg

Markley's statement is interesting in that it seems to be incomplete and undated.

Another page of this statement can be seen here, referring to 'George' from Liverpool. Still no date on this page either;

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ap/A1_5/apenso5_vol_1_Page3.jpg

According to Michael Wright he was told about this sighting on 6th May when buying pizza. He could, of course, have saved himself the trouble and read about it in the papers on 5th May (Sun, Mail, Sky) or 6th May (News of the World). It seems 'George' was busy speaking to the newspapers rather than the police.

http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/Nigel/id399.htm

What did Esther McVey mean?

She said she was scared by our
current situation and uncomfortable with what she felt
was a ‘political shift’. For our own safety, and ‘to
protect Madeleine’s good name’ (I wasn’t quite sure
what she meant by that), she thought we ought to
come home. [madeleine]

The conversation took place just after Gerry's attendance at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

Strong words from blacksmith here about Gerry at the Edinburgh festival.

The Winner

But none of these can touch, in acting power or anything else, the stomach-churning performance put on at the festival in 2007 by the celebrity story-teller  Gerry McCann.  You can search for a transcript of the programme, which we watched, but you won't find it. You can search for a video but, like the transcript, it's gone. Under whose instructions? Who knows. None of the participants want to be associated with it, even the main interviewer Kirsty Wark, who'd given GM his first publicity leg-up on May 4 of that year. Ah, show business.

Facts Corner

The facts of that dramatic performance are simple: Gerry McCann lied from beginning to end on a colossal scale to an audience of many millions, and lied so prodigiously  that we haven’t got space to list all the deceptions.  

His central lie is a self-portrait of Gerry McCann and a history of the Madeleine McCann Affair, all in a few hundred words. He claimed in Edinburgh that he was utterly mystified by the rumours that he and his wife might be under possible suspicion, just as he claimed in May to be mystified by the loss of his child.  He couldn’t explain why people might be writing such things since there was, literally, not a single fact or event he could think of that might justify such weird slurs. Nothing? Nope.

Richard Burton could never remotely  approach McCann in his acting. That is one reason why the videos are gone. He went through the whole  range of his expressions and tones of voice  - bewilderment, pain, surprise, reproach - as he confessed that he just couldn't understand what it was all about.

He knew how good he was by then, knew that nobody without inside knowledge could possibly believe that he wasn't telling the truth - for only a monster could be able to lie so convincingly about something so close and intimate and raw, and nobody believed Gerry McCann was a monster. That was his greatest strength. To millions of people world-wide, he lied, without a blush or a stammer or breaking sweat: to the people who'd sent money to help find the child and were emotionally transfixed by her possible fate, he lied; to his own relatives he lied; to those who had trusted him he lied; to the police in Portugal  who knew, first hand and directly, that every single sentence he uttered  was untrue, he lied.  

“What I would like to direct all of your viewers to are the official statements from the Portuguese police, which bear no resemblance to the wild speculation and, you know, the police yesterday made it very clear. First of all, we are not suspects; two, that there is no evidence to suggest that we are involved in Madeleine's disappearance and, if there was, they are obliged by Portuguese law to make us official suspects. So, you know, they just... they do not bear resemblance and Kate and I learned, very early on, only to listen to information that's coming through official channels.”

Further selected examples from the surviving, fragmentary reports to be found on Gerry McCann’s Blogs: “Mr McCann said that this wealth of speculation is being reported as fact in total disregard of the ongoing police investigation in Portugal…Clearly, he says, they [the media] are feeding each other…it's absolutely wild speculation with no foundation…pointing out that very early on in the process he and his wife were excluded as suspects…the pressure on journalists to find a story was leading to absolutely wild speculation about what had happened, he said, even early on, there was saturation coverage with nothing to report, and there are commercial decisions being made with filling column inches and time on TV. In the last six weeks particularly there has been been nothing…things have gone back to a degree of normality and some calmness has, errr... settled in.”

"Wild speculation. Things have gone back to a degree of normality. Calmness has settled in. Nothing has happened in the case for the last six weeks." The date of this performance was August 25 2007.

During those prior weeks of "calmness":
- The police had told the pair to prepare for investigative changes.
- On  July 30 all regular meetings with the police ended.
- On August 2 the police raided their apartment with a search warrant and threw them out while the search was executed. On August 5 Apartment 5A was forensically examined. On August 6 their hire car was seized and held for forensic testing.  
- On August 8 they were interrogated, not merely interviewed, about the night of May 3. The police stated that they did not believe KM’s version of events.  She threw a fit of hysterics as they accused her outright of lying about when she had last seen the child.
- On August 20, just five days before Edinburgh,  the McCanns appointed a criminal lawyer to defend them, having learned that they were due to be formally questioned by the police in the coming weeks.

Was there ever a bigger bastard of a liar? A more disgusting one? Anywhere? Anytime? The public thought that only a monster would lie on such a scale about a horrible, terrible family tragedy. They were right all along. He is a monster.

http://blacksmithbureau.blogspot.com/2017/

Please note, that Blacksmith's opinion of Gerry McCann is precisely that.

AN OPINION, and not Libel.

Kate says it like it was in her book;

Maybe the interview on 8 August, when they’d clearly tried to get me to confess, [madeleine]

So they knew exactly what the PJ were thinking.

I hadn't seem these pics before. Were they 'promotional' for the book, I wonder?

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/event/kate-gerry-mccann-self-assignment-september-7-2011-139299150#gerry-and-kate-mccann-the-parents-of-madeleine-mccann-who-was-in-in-picture-id139139774

Kate McCann claims to have taken two photographs that week. The tennis balls photo taken on 1st and the poolside photo taken on 3rd. It seems the group's photos were put onto two CD's, which were handed to the PJ by Gerry McCann and Michael Wright. Neither of Kate's photos were included. Gerry denied on 10th May that he had any photos which he hadn't given to the investigators;

he clarifies that, with regard to the personal photos already delivered by him to the authorities after the disappearance of his daughter MADELEINE, he has no others in his power [possession].
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GERRY-MCCANN-10MAY.htm

On 25th May, however, the pool photo was released;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-457414/The-picture-Madeleine-Just-hours-later-gone.html

Why were those two photographs not given to the police?

Simple answer would be that they were never on the camera when it was in Portugal.

Grom wrote:Kate McCann claims to have taken two photographs that week. The tennis balls photo taken on 1st and the poolside photo taken on 3rd. It seems the group's photos were put onto two CD's, which were handed to the PJ by Gerry McCann and Michael Wright. Neither of Kate's photos were included. Gerry denied on 10th May that he had any photos which he hadn't given to the investigators;

he clarifies that, with regard to the personal photos already delivered by him to the authorities after the disappearance of his daughter MADELEINE, he has no others in his power [possession].
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GERRY-MCCANN-10MAY.htm

On 25th May, however, the pool photo was released;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-457414/The-picture-Madeleine-Just-hours-later-gone.html

Why were those two photographs not given to the police?

I can think of one distinct possibility there.

Travers wrote:Simple answer would be that they were never on the camera when it was in Portugal.

You beat me to it Travers.

It has long been said that these 2 photos were photoshopped.
The fact that they appear never to have been given to the PJ would seem to reinforce this view.

Surprisingly, this never seems to have been questioned by the PJ

I suppose that passing these fakes off as the real thing is not a criminal offence, but demonstrates their willingness to tell porkies.
No doubt Gerry would just pass it off as 'a good marketing ploy'
Makes them untrustworthy and puts in doubt anything and everything they claim, though.

It should not be forgotten that most news publishers will dick about with photos to suit their own ends not necessarily with malice aforethought more a matter of layout and deleting what they consideder to be unwanted/distracting detail.

Thought:
Consider that human hair grows at the rate of 12mm per month.....?

Grom wrote:What did Esther McVey mean?

She said she was scared by our
current situation and uncomfortable with what she felt
was a ‘political shift’. For our own safety, and ‘to
protect Madeleine’s good name’ (I wasn’t quite sure
what she meant by that), she thought we ought to
come home. [madeleine]

The conversation took place just after Gerry's attendance at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

Yes really strange that. Madeleine was 3 what kind of good name would she be talking about her losing exactly?

Admin wrote:Please note, that Blacksmith's opinion of Gerry McCann is precisely that.

AN OPINION, and not Libel.

Yes, and an opinion shared by many tens of thousands I wonder what happned to him. I loved his take on things.