Madeleine McCann: Saving Heather Mills, Journalists’ Kidzzz And Sick Jokes
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, Kate McCann and Gerry McCann
THE TIMES: “Sorry, no more babies. Eco-doctor’s orders…”
Says Judith O’Reilly: “On holiday you become a Hydra-headed ‘problem to be dealt with’”
Judith is talking about her kidzzz
Our recent holiday highlights included a stiff-jawed Cumbrian hotel restaurant manager informing us the children’s menu finished at seven sharp and warning us not to allow our children to “run round the dining room” if we came down at 7.01pm.
They also included a smug Eastern European receptionist [a ruddy foreigner] shrugging off the confirmed booking of interconnecting rooms and forbidding us to put the seven-year-old, five-year-old and two-year-old in a bedroom on their own across the corridor, which obviously, in these post-Madeleine McCann days, is just what we were planning.
That sarcasm? Hard to tell when the entire piece reads like a parody…
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Edinburgh Festival 2008: sick jokes galore, but no killer punchline”
Sick jokes. Let’s ‘ave ‘em…
Making particularly impressive waves are the Welsh miserabilist Rhod Gilbert and the English bitterness merchant Andrew Lawrence. (Lawrence on David Beckham: “Most of us have a skeleton in their cupboard. He takes his out in public.” Gilbert on shopping for duvets: “I asked the shop-assistant what filling I should have. She said, ‘Get down’ – so I hit the deck.”)
Sick?
And yet, if one joke most deftly reflects both this year’s bleak undercurrents and the – in all senses – tragic preoccupations of the moment, it’s this, by her: “The only way Heather Mills can redeem herself now is to find Madeleine McCann.”
More of an observation than a joke…
BELFAST TELEGRAPH: “Maddie’s dad issues fresh appeal for information”
Gerry McCann has launched a fresh plea for information about missing Madeleine — and still “strongly believes” his daughter will be found alive.
Alive.
Almost a month after the official investigation closed, determined dad Gerry does not accept the verdict of the Portuguese police files that claim she is “most probably” dead.
Dead. What a lovely spot of speculation to begin the week with…
SUNDERLAND ECHO: “A campaign to set up a European-wide missing child alert system has won the backing of a North East MEP.”
Fiona Hall has signed to the scheme, which now has the support of more than half of all MEPs.
The alert system would activate as soon as a child is reported missing, with photos and details of lost kids passed to the media, and alerting police and border officials.
Calls for the system to be introduced came after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Although what good it would have done is speculation…
Posted: 18th, August 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (527) | TrackBack | Permalink
