Madeline McCann Case Gets Even Sillier

Madeline McCann was a three year old British girl who went missing on a family holiday to Portugal in May 2007. The Portuguese authorities believe she was murdered by her parents who dumped her body in a deep water lake making a prosecution impossible. The parents claim that Madeline was abducted by an organised crime gang who sold on to people in Africa as part of a elaborate white slavery ring. The British authorities sided with the parents and helped set up an international search fund to help "Find Maddie". This caused a bit of a diplomatic incident between the two countries. While the search focused on North Africa the human interest element of the story gripped Europe and the USA for about a year until it went cold and the McCanns were left to indulge in the psychologically questionable practice of sending their other two children birthday and Christmas while pretending they were sent by the missing Madeline.

Now, in the middle of an Ashes series which is probably one of the most deep rooted and important sporting rivalries in the world, detectives working for the McCann family have announced that they are looking for an Australian woman who apparently resembles Victoria Beckham and was reported to be heard discussing the case in a bar in Barcelona, Spain. I think it's pretty safe to assume that this announcement has little to do with the search for Madeline so it appears to be an attempt to provide a local link with and therefore boost interest in a story in a part of the world where it hasn't received that much attention. It could simply be that Britain have done this is response some well founded Australian accusations that the first three ashes tests haven't exactly been played within the spirit of the game of cricket. It's as if that because the Australians have accused the English of match fixing the English have accused the Australian's of kidnapping little girls, a form of institutional sledging if you like.

Personally I think that analysis along with a terrorism connection are probably being used as a bit of a confuser to draw attention away from the real reason. The Madeline McCann story has previously been used as a metaphor or allegory to discuss one of my Bristol based associates in the sense that they both feature the fundamental question; "Was she sold into slavery by strangers or was she simply murdered by her parents?" Therefore I think that Australia is being brought into the McCann story because Britain is trying to gauge public opinion in it's colonial outpost before deciding it's next move against me. I suppose I should give Britain the benefit of the doubt and hope they are planning something nice however experience tells me that's unlikely and because it's Britain they're planning something violent. Of course, in the short term, that unpleasantness would involve using the McCann story, the Ronnie Biggs release, the fourth ashes test and this post as way of turning up the tension on that Bristol based associate over the weekend in the hope that Britain will be able to salvage something from their current disaster.