IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE/Dr Roberts

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It's A Jungle Out There

Gerry McCann, GMTV, 28 aPRIL 2010
EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com

By Dr Martin Roberts
23 October 2010

IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE

Hindsight, they say, is 20 -20. On that basis I can place no interpretation upon McCann vs. Amaral that isn't more generally achievable. However, being products of our own uniqueness, we are each of us likely to have a view of events peculiar to ourselves; a view coloured by our own backgrounds and experiences. Personally, I am of an age that I remember schooldays pre-SATs, pre-GCSEs even, when unless or until you took the 11 plus exam you were little more than an anonymous junior. None of this 'year 1 through 6' nonsense to define time spent in the holding pen. No-one was chronologically categorised until they became 'first years' in the 'big school.'

I'm sure Glaswegian Gerry McCann knows all about life among the seniors; that age of uncertainty and trepidation, when youngsters are (or were) defined, not by their parents' homes or whether they owned a car (note: I am considering a period in British social history when car ownership was a matter of 'yes' or 'no', not which badge graced the bonnet), but the sports field and the playground. The natural athletes were admired and respected. Others who could not command respect through accomplishment demanded it through tyranny.

Lateral pecking orders are all very well, but in a seriously vertical hierarchy it pays to have friends in high places. Thus the more artful of the younger 'tough guys' would curry favour with older, more mature personnel. That way they could spread their own sphere of influence above as well as beneath their station, to the extent that, like a hermit crab secure in a new shell, they could intimidate juveniles a touch older than themselves even and rest safe in the knowledge that they were protected species themselves (this is indeed a 'primate thing' as adolescent chimpanzees behave in much the same way).

But hermit crabs outgrow their shells - and allies leave the field, or the school, as the case may be. So mortgaging one's influence against promises of support from those of a transient disposition is perhaps not the smartest of strategies in the long run. The term 'grudge' is a short word describing a long memory.

So we come to the McCanns.

In hindsight, having engineered Goncalo Amaral's isolation from his professional power base, the ex-arguidos' subsequent actions against this man would most likely be perceived, by all and sundry, as personal. With the cushion of their 'fighting fund' they could afford to pursue their adversary through the courts and bring him to his knees if necessary, demanding fealty almost. But, like El Cid before him, this Iberian would not kneel. Like his medieval forbear, he too has been obliged to serve two masters; one his political superiors, the other the truth.

The pattern of events appeared clear. But then someone twisted the kaleidoscope. Brown the bully was expelled from school. His mate, big Jim, decided to leave without sitting his exam. And that has left the naughty children defenceless in the playground, the extent of their earlier bombast exposed for all to see.

What neither the McCanns, their cheerleaders, nor many others of us can have realised at the time, was the seriousness of the affront done by their earlier actions - not to an individual, in the form of Goncalo Amaral, but to a nation. The collective indignation can be sensed from the explanatory observations of the appeal judges responsible for recently lifting the ban on Amaral's published work.

The McCanns have so far revelled in throwing other people's weight around. Two middling medics from middle England have succeeded in riding roughshod over the constitution of a sovereign power, encouraged libellous criticism of its executive, and brought the same state's judicial system into disrepute. Did they honestly believe this could go on forever? If they did then, like as not, they are in for further surprises. This is the playground. It's payback time.

annabel wrote:Did they honestly believe this could go on forever? If they did then, like as not, they are in for further surprises. This is the playground. It's payback time.

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annabel wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com By Dr Martin Roberts 23 October 2010

The McCanns have so far revelled in throwing other people's weight around.

An observation akin to and as damning as Prof Moriarty's "using other people's money to attempt to polish a turd".

This man is another of my hero's.