Interesting new blog - Looking For Madeleine: A chapter by chapter review

A definitive account would have stated the correct version of the Payne visit which may or may not have happened. The authors are as muddled as the tapas 7 testimonies.

I've no time for S&S but I did like the dvds of R D Hall. A spreadsheet approach shows up all the anomalies.

Richard Philiips has replied to my post - and I've now put up another post on his blog:

+++++++++++++

  
Richard, you wrote:

"At the end I will deal with anything that has actually been omitted (or dealt with unsatisfactorily) once I have finished the book".

That's very good to hear.

May I just mention a short list of things that have been omitted from the Summers & Swan book and which I hope you'll comment on when you can:

1. How Metodo 3 was chosen

2. The activities of Francisco Marco (Head of Metodo 3)

3. The dodgy reputation of Metodo 3

4. The activities of Antonio Giminez Raso, Metodo 3 PI, and his subsequent lengthy imprisonment on serious corruption and theft charges

5. Clarence Mitchell's emphatic denial that he was working for the McCanns

6. The meeting between Giminez Raso and Marcos Aragao Correia at the Arade Dam, 10 December 2007

7. The activities of Julian Peribanez, another Metodo 3 McCann PI

8. The appointment and activities of Gary Hagland

9. Why Hagland was appointed when his main area of expertise was 'Financial Compliance'

10. Why the McCann Team falsely pumped up Oakley International as 'the big boys of international private detection when they were anything but

11. Why Dave Edgar said that Jane Tanner might have seen a woman, not a man, carrying a child at 9.15pm on 3 May 

12. Why the McCann Team gave a false impression to the media that Dave Edgar and Arthur Cowley were in charge of a long-established PI agency when they were not

13. When did Brian Kennedy and Henri Exton contact or visit Martin Smith in Ireland and for what purpose

14. The McCanns' various initial reactions to the news that cadaver odour and blood had been found in their apartment, and

15. The McCanns' misuse of material in the U.S. case of Eugene Zapata.

Many thanks

Just a couple of snippets giving the flavor:
 
C2.
‘Unfortunately many important things are omitted from the narrative while others are given as fact without any references, corroboration or validation. At times it reads more like a dramatization of events than a piece of investigative reporting.’
 
C3.
 
‘…..Once again the authors have been very selective in their presentation of facts surrounding important episodes in the case. The number of important episodes and facts that have been omitted from the story is very worrying. I still hope that the authors will return to deal with at least some of these, but I have decided that I will need to keep a list because the number of omissions is starting to grow at quite a rate.
Perhaps most disappointing of all is the complete absence of any new information or any attempt to interpret known facts in a novel, but fair & balanced way.’


.....................................................

As I was reading I started 'stickering' what I thought were errors &/or omissions, but I gave this up after Chapter 3 as there were just too many. I need to go back & work through the whole book again, cross-referencing, to satisfy myself that my memory/knowledge hasn't given up the ghost.

whatsupdoc wrote:A definitive account would have stated the correct version of the Payne visit which may or may not have happened. The authors are as muddled as the tapas 7 testimonies.

I've no time for S&S but I did like the dvds of R D Hall. A spreadsheet approach shows up all the anomalies.

Richard D Hall's vids are superb - really highlight some of the key contradictions in a stark manner, very clear, hitting lots of targets.

Only shame is that the McCanns will use the connection with a conspiracist website to dismiss them as nutjob conspiracy thinking, which clearly they are not since they are very evidence based.

I was in asda today and my inner child( who is very naughty escaped)

I was browsing the books section looking for the new Terry Pratchett book when i espied the Looking for Madeleine book.

I am ashamed to say i could not help myself and as a result spent a fun 20 minutes rearranging various books  to make my opinion known

As a result, surrounding the Looking for Madeleine book  both above and below and on either sidespines out i placed the following titles

An Evil Mind by Chris Carter, The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons, The secret Place by Tana French, The Good Psycopaths Guide to Success by Andy McNab and kevin Dutton, Adultery by Paul Coelho, Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs, Ripleys Believe it or Not, Disney's Frozen, Stick Man and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.

i found it satisfying to say the least :)

I think it was Kate's book on Amazon that had "Other books you might be interested in" and they were murder mysteries.

I'm not going to buy, nor read, the book in question, so I have to rely on sites like the one referred to by the OP for information on the work. From what I can tell by what has already been posted, the book looks either in need of a serious editing at a professional level, which is a disgrace, considering Hachette is the parent-owner of the publishing company Headline, or it has been deliberately written to confuse (or, if you'll allow me a little pun - obfusKate), which is a disgrace, considering Hachette is the parent-owner of the publishing company Headline. Now why on earth would they want to do that?

In my opinion.

Brian Griffin wrote:I'm not going to buy, nor read, the book in question, so I have to rely on sites like the one referred to by the OP for information on the work. From what I can tell by what has already been posted, the book looks either in need of a serious editing at a professional level, which is a disgrace, considering Hachette is the parent-owner of the publishing company Headline, or it has been deliberately written to confuse (or, if you'll allow me a little pun - obfusKate), which is a disgrace, considering Hachette is the parent-owner of the publishing company Headline. Now why on earth would they want to do that?

In my opinion.

Well if you can have Gerrymandering, you can have ObfusKating. :) [And yes - you're right!]

 

This book has been a back-fire by the looks of things. Rather than remove suspicion, it has just fed the flames of disbelief.

In my opinion.

Chapters 4, 5 & 6 up now.
 
Chapter 6 concludes with the following:
 
‘Summary & Conclusion
What can I say? More dishonest reporting. Not even staying true to Kate McCann's own account of events. Omissions of important facts and events. Obvious attempts to appeal to the readers' emotions by inaccurate, distorted and selective reporting, rather than their intellects. These early chapters purport to be accurately relating the story of events in Praia da Luz in early summer 2007. This chapter along with the first 5 completely fails to achieve a reasonable level of accuracy. Hence if I was marking it as I would a students assignment I could only award it a D- (if I was feeling particularly generous).’
 
http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/chapter-4.html
 
http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/chapter-5-sorry-its-quite-long.html
 
http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/chapter-6-these-are-not-getting-any.html

Hobs wrote:I was in asda today and my inner child( who is very naughty escaped)

I was browsing the books section looking for the new Terry Pratchett book when i espied the Looking for Madeleine book.

I am ashamed to say i could not help myself and as a result spent a fun 20 minutes rearranging various books  to make my opinion known

As a result, surrounding the Looking for Madeleine book  both above and below and on either sidespines out i placed the following titles

An Evil Mind by Chris Carter, The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons, The secret Place by Tana French, The Good Psycopaths Guide to Success by Andy McNab and kevin Dutton, Adultery by Paul Coelho, Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs, Ripleys Believe it or Not, Disney's Frozen, Stick Man and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.

i found it satisfying to say the least :)

You really dunked them in it there!

7's up (Murat)

http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/chapter-7-short-one-for-change.html

They`ve got to tread carefully with RM - I`m surprised they haven`t done their usual trick of just cherry-picking the good bits from the files.  They can`t have RM sueing them for £1,000,000 for causing him distress now can they.

No new posts for a while. I think he got bored. Or maybe...???

Richard Philips has been "Persuaded" to close his blog on his reviews of the S&S book...just noticed it on missingmadeleine forum.

In answer to jeanmonroe I said I had saved all the reviews and DNA posts so if anyone wants me to post these, just ask.

Okeydokey wrote:

Hobs wrote:I was in asda today and my inner child( who is very naughty escaped)

I was browsing the books section looking for the new Terry Pratchett book when i espied the Looking for Madeleine book.

I am ashamed to say i could not help myself and as a result spent a fun 20 minutes rearranging various books  to make my opinion known

As a result, surrounding the Looking for Madeleine book  both above and below and on either sidespines out i placed the following titles

An Evil Mind by Chris Carter, The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons, The secret Place by Tana French, The Good Psycopaths Guide to Success by Andy McNab and kevin Dutton, Adultery by Paul Coelho, Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs, Ripleys Believe it or Not, Disney's Frozen, Stick Man and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.

i found it satisfying to say the least :)

You really dunked them in it there!

HA! Did you get a photo?

http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/

My McCann thoughts
Monday, September 29, 2014
Closed
I have been persuaded by men in suits that I should not publish another post about the McCann case.


Add this to the FACT that Winters and Goose have deleted every reference to their book (or their NOT- book - don't you just love Orwell !)

What the H*** is going on.

Scotland Yard, CR or the faceless suited ones from on high?

If I wasn't a believer in the whitewash camp, I would hope fervently that it is OG that have stepped in citing a potential compromise of possible evidence.

PeterMac wrote:http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/

My McCann thoughts
Monday, September 29, 2014
Closed
I have been persuaded by men in suits that I should not publish another post about the McCann case.


Add this to the FACT that Winters and Goose have deleted every reference to their book (or their NOT- book - don't you just love Orwell !)

What the H*** is going on.

Perhaps someone's suing Swan and Summers for something. Maybe it's Mr. Amaral suing them for being ridiculous?

Poor Asda.

Once again my inner child escaped and i had a teensy weensy play with the books.

I did manage to drag my inner child away and bribe her with a bulb horn to play with (it is now safely installed on my trolley so i can honk when i want people to shift out my way) 

Comments still on the 'closing' blog, including one from Joana Morais asking if he can be more specific about the 'men in suits', but no further response.

I doubt there will be one, but it would be nice to be wrong.

Men in suits ? Gerry ? and the " pig-color-guy-in-sloppy-suit" doing community service cleaning the park pretending to be promising political candidate?

PeterMac wrote:http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/

My McCann thoughts
Monday, September 29, 2014
Closed
I have been persuaded by men in suits that I should not publish another post about the McCann case.


Add this to the FACT that Winters and Goose have deleted every reference to their book (or their NOT- book - don't you just love Orwell !)

What the H*** is going on.

Winters and Goose is so spot on! Well done!!!

Okeydokey wrote:

PeterMac wrote:http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/

My McCann thoughts
Monday, September 29, 2014
Closed
I have been persuaded by men in suits that I should not publish another post about the McCann case.


Add this to the FACT that Winters and Goose have deleted every reference to their book (or their NOT- book - don't you just love Orwell !)

What the H*** is going on.

Winters and Goose is so spot on! Well done!!!

It seems the author of the blog has some thoughts now about the dossier, its timing, the timing of the book, etc:

http://my-mccann-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/

Friday, October 10, 2014
Coincidences? You decide.
I really should get back to the McCann case evidence. Still much to say about DNA, Dogs, slamming doors & whooshing curtains etc Yet I feel compelled to comment on recent events once again.

The Dossier
Many people who have an interest in the McCann case knew that tweets, posts & personal information about anonymous posters on facebook & twitter was being collected in a systematic an organised way. The people doing the collecting & collating made no secret of what they were doing. There was also little doubt that at some point at least some of the information gathered, along with tweets & FB posts deemed to be "hateful" or "threatening" would end up in the hands of the police. Though many seemed to think it would only be used to name and shame on FB or Twitter as had been done by both sides many times before.

The Book by Summers and Swan
This book came as much more of a surprise at least to me. Books of this sort often do come as something of a surprise so there is nothing very unusual about that. The authors did make some effort earlier in the year to contact a few so called "anti" McCann who post on forums, FB & twitter for comment. I have little idea what was said to these people, but it is clear that they did not widely publicise the fact that they had been contacted or that there was a book being written. Thus the book came to most peoples attention towards that end of August only when the pre-publication promotion began. There were notable exceptions to this surprised reaction to the books publication. Some, perhaps most, of the pro McCann lobby seemed to be expecting the announcement and showed little or no surprise. They also seemed to have a good idea that the book would be supportive of the McCann's abduction story.

It seems obvious to me now that the books main aims were twofold:

1. To promote the idea that there was real evidence that an abductor, or at least several people who could have been abductors, were at large in Praia da Luz in spring 2007. While at the same time dismissing, out of hand & with hardly any valid argument or discussion, all evidence that might incriminate the McCanns.

2. To make the readers aware of the online activity by people who question the abduction theory and think that the McCanns were involved in some way in their daughters disappearance. Such people were labelled as "haters"and many details given, often about the worst among them, in an effort to discredit all who post or tweet.

Of these it is possible that the main objective was the second. All the other information about the case was already in the public domain. There was very little if anything new in terms of facts, and certainly no new ideas or leads. However the so called "hate campaign", which is not a campaign at all, has not been widely reported. Only a few isolated incidents such as the silly London marathon "anyone got a gun?" post on facebook have been reported. It seems quite possible that the book was written, at least in part, with the intention of spreading the message that the McCanns were the subject of a "hate campaign" to as wide an audience as possible. Of course the seemingly very low book sales mean this objective wasn't achieved.

We now know, through a freedom of information request, that the authors tried to coordinate the publication of the book with the end of the Operation Grange investigation. The police refused a request for information about the end of Operation Grange

The Times lawsuit.
This was announced at the beginning of August 2014. The offending article had appeared in October 2013 soon after the CrimeWatch program. The Times had published an apology/correction soon after the original article was published. I don't know exactly when the lawsuit was filed, but it appears to have been in July or August with the resulting out of court settlement being made soon after the Summers and Swan book was published.

The Damages Trial
The trial in Portugal in which the McCanns are seeking damages from Goncalo Amaral and others had been hearing evidence in June and was due to conclude with the Judges verdict in September.

Coincidences?
Are these coincidences?

The book publication, lawsuit settlement and dossier all occur within a few weeks of each other.

The book publication, lawsuit and dossier all occur soon after Operation Grange completes digs and interviews in Portugal.

The book, lawsuit and dossier all occur at the same time as the judge in the damages trial was due to give a verdict.



Which of the explanations below seems more likely?

1. It is possible that the book publisher thought Sept 11th was a good time to release the book entirely independently & without knowledge of the dossier or the lawsuit. Perhaps thinking that the trial verdict would be at that time and chose not to postpone when it became known the trial verdict would be delayed.

2. It is possible that the McCanns & their lawyers decided to sue The Times entirely independently & without having any influence over the book publication date or the dossier release. The long delay between the offending article and the lawsuit being due to?......I'm sure there must be a reason,but I can't think of one.

3. It is possible that those who compiled the dossier handed it to..... well we aren't sure who they handed it to, but never mind.....without having any influence over the book publication date or the timing of the lawsuit settlement. Presumably the dossier just happened to be completed at the beginning of September.

4. It is possible that the McCanns or people acting on their behalf could have exercised control over the timing of all three of these events in an effort to get maximum impact at the same time that a verdict was due in the damages trial in Portugal.


Footnote:

While I was writing the above Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe spoke in an interview and said that the the dossier was handed to the police by the McCanns. He may have made a mistake about this, but if he is correct it supports the suggestion that the McCanns might have coordinated these events.

Has Mr. Hogan Howe corrected any mistakes he may have made in that interview?