Monday 11 September 2017

Culture Corner

Thursday, 7 September 2017

Maria Callas. What was she describing?

With the Edinburgh Festival ending soon the question arises at all decent dinner tables, “what was the greatest Edinburgh performance of all time?”

Contenders
 
In 1957 the glorious Maria gave us the complete Callas  – complete in the sense that the singing was preceded by hysterical tantrums and contract disputes and she was  “unwell” for two of the shows. Twenty years later the tenor-king  Placido Domingo famously broke female hearts while lilting in Carmen while Rudolph Nureyev,  always willing to please, did the same for  the boys in 1984.


Rudy, in characteristic pose
 
Richard Burton’s growling 1953 Hamlet became a legend, while in the weird sixties Marlene Dietrich was exhumed to perform cabaret songs, a significant  event since, the Bureau understands,  Dietrich returned to her dressing room to find many welcome bouquets missing, apparently stolen by one of Edinburgh’s numerous street-alkies. Turning to Bert Bacharach she asked icily, “Vair have all the flowers gone?” – and the rest, of course,  is history.

And, of course...

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.

Winner: Gerry McCann (with Liar's Rictus Syndrome) in Edinburgh 2007

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. 




Madeleine McCann eight-part Netflix documentary coming - what you need to know

More than £11 million has been spent on the probe to find the missing girl, who vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz

By James Rodger
10:41, 11 Sep 2017

A brand-new eight-part Madeleine McCann documentary is coming to Netflix.

Madeleine was three when she vanished from apartment 5A on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva in the Algarve village at about 9pm on May 3 2007.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, have vowed to do "whatever it takes for as long as it takes" to find her.

British detectives working on the case revealed recently that they were pursuing a "significant" line of inquiry, with information received on a daily basis.

More than £11 million has been spent on the probe to find the missing girl, who vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.




The case will now form the centre of a new as-yet-untitled, eight episode true crime series, featuring interviews with both investigators and key figures from the case.

This isn’t the first time Netflix has dabbled in controversial criminal cases, releasing last year a one-part documentary on Amanda Knox, the American student who served almost four years in an Italian prison for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, before being definitively acquitted. 

True crime’s surge in popularity was certainly aided by Netflix’s own Making a Murderer, based on Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey’s conviction of Teresa Halbach.

A release date for the Madeleine McCann documentary has yet to be announced.


Coventry Telegraph

MADDIE 'LIE' BATTLE Madeleine McCann’s parents Kate and Gerry make final appeal in battle against shameless ex-police chief

The McCanns have been fighting a lengthy legal battle against Goncarlo Amaral after he wrote a book suggesting they were responsible for the 2007 abduction and 'death' of their daughter

EXCLUSIVE  By Nick Pisa
9th September 2017, 2:57 am Updated: 9th September 2017, 3:24 am

MADDIE McCann’s parents have made a last ditch appeal to the European Court of Human Rights after a Portuguese judge ruled against them in their battle against a shameless ex police chief.

Kate and Gerry McCann, both 49, have been fighting a lengthy legal battle against Goncarlo Amaral after he wrote a book suggesting they were responsible for the abduction and ‘’death’’ of their daughter in 2007.


The case has been in and out of court in Portugal with Amaral initially being ordered to pay £360,000 damaged in 2015 for the outrageous slurs in ‘The Truth of the Lie’.

But his legal team overturned that order and Kate and Gerry took out their own appeal against him in Portugal’s Supreme Court and earlier this year they were left devastated after judges again ruled in his favour.

In their 76 page ruling judges said Kate and Gerry had not ‘’successfully proved their innocence’’ - which left the couple from Rothley, Leicestershire ‘shattered’, according to a source close to the couple.

Initially they had considered dropping the whole case against Amaral they are more determined than ever that he should not get away with his vile allegations against them.

So far no money has been paid by either party and now they will square up to each other at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The appeal was lodged in July by their Portuguese lawyer Isabel Duarte and they are now waiting for a date to be confirmed.

A source close to the couple said: "They discussed the situation with their legal team and they decided that ultimately it was worth fighting the decision of the Portuguese court.

"They are upset that the court made this ruling but are also desperately upset at Amaral’s claims which are ludicrous and hurtful.’’

Last night the European Court of Human Rights confirmed an appeal had been lodged and officials were investigating its "admissibility’’ before deciding what to do next.

Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell told The Sun: "I can confirm that Kate and Gerry have lodged an appeal application at the European Court of Human Rights and the application is being considered.


"As such they will not be making any comment until a decision has been made. The case is being handled by their legal team in Portugal.

Insiders said it could take almost four years before a decision on whether to proceed in the case is made.

Maddie, three, disappeared in May 2007 from her parents holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s popular

Algarve coast while her younger twin siblings Amelie and Sean, now aged 12, were in the same room.

Earlier this week British detectives investigating her disappearance asked the Home Office for more cash so they could "pursue one final lead’’.

The Sun





Mixed messages as McCanns bid to take three-time court defeat to new appeal

Posted by PORTUGALPRESS on September 10, 2017



There are multiple mixed messages as the parents of missing Madeleine McCann are reported to be taking their three-time court defeat in Portugal to the very last point of appeal: the European Court of Human Rights.

British tabloids are already presenting the new situation as ‘a given’ - the Mail, for example, claims “it is understood that the result of the appeal will not be known for at least four years”.

But the truth is that it may not even get accepted.

The ECHR website carries no details of the action (believed to have been lodged in July) for the simple reason that it must first be considered to merit this final avenue of legal recourse - an outcome many believe is unlikely.

The reasons for this is that the 75-page judgement the McCann parents are challenging - handed down by Portugal’s highest court - cited tenets set out by the ECHR, not to mention rights enshrined in the Portuguese Constitution.

As a source explained, “the parents have been told three times that the theory published by former PJ police coordinator Gonçalo Amaral did not overstep the bounds of freedom of expression”.

“Furthermore, the UK press fails to understand that Maddie’s parents can only make a case against the Portuguese state, and not against an individual person.

“For Gonçalo Amaral, the case is over. Done and dusted. He won, and the McCanns can’t ignore the decision simply because they are going to the ECHR”.

“Maddie: A Verdade da Mentira” (Maddie: The Truth of the Lie) is back on sale and has purportedly been published and translated in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Belgium.

An English translation has been available online for years, and “read by millions” (click here).

But according to the UK Sun - which led with an ‘exclusive’ yesterday on what it is calling “a last ditch appeal” against a “shameless ex-police chief” - the reasons for the McCann’s new legal bid lie not simply in the fact that they “are desperately upset at Amaral’s claims”, but also that they are “shattered” that Portugal’s top judges did not accept that they had “successfully proved their innocence”.

This was perhaps the most devastating outcome of the Supreme Court ruling and one which saw UK tabloids go into overdrive (click here).

In other words, this is no longer a fight against what the Sun terms “the outrageous slurs of the Truth of the Lie”, but a battle now against Portuguese Justice.

As a legal source has commented: "The McCanns have effectively to prove that the Supreme Court made a massive mistake".

The appeal bid could also be seen as another way of stalling the hugely expensive outcome of all these years of painful litigation.

The Sun explains: “So far no money has been paid by either party”.

In January, the Mail suggested that the McCanns “could now face financial ruin as they face paying Gonçalo Amaral huge court costs and could be sued themselves by the former policeman”.

Amaral, for the time being, is keeping his counsel.

Marking the 10-years since Madeleine’s disappearance during a family holiday in Praia da Luz, he gave a series of interviews with the Cofina media group in which he repeated his theory, as set out in the ‘Truth of the Lie’, explaining all the reasons for it (click here).

Since then he has kept a low profile.

Meantime, the Metropolitan Police are seeking renewed funding for Operation Grange - the probe that has already cost over £11 million looking for answers in this unparalleled case (click here), while streaming service Netflix is said to be making a new eight-part documentary on Madeleine’s disappearance, interviewing “key figures and investigators”.

Parents Kate and Gerry have “refused to be involved”, writes the Sun - highlighting the word refused in capitals.

The McCann’s reasoning, says the tabloid, is that Grange “is still active” - though a decision on whether or not to extend funding, and therefore keep Grange alive, has yet to be made public.

Ten years and four months on, and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann shows absolutely no sign of disappearing.


Portugal Resident