Lets make a start then....

Madeleine McCann Forum World

As far as Forums go my interest in society and technology make these creatures irresistible because in many ways they have a structure that pretty much mirrors what we might find in the real world. What I sense with Madeleine McCann (MM) Forums though are societies a little in the mould of totalitarian states. No Knitting Circle/Model Making Forum democracies here!! For sure their structures are identical to any other Forum, but with one exception; the Forum owners are akin to fundamentalist despots.  How so? It's because, in my view, their Forum only came into existence as a result of their preconceptions and to make sure the Forum stays on message the owner employs his own Stasi of members, promoting them to officers with the power to silence and evict those foolish enough to go 'off message'

There are two ways of expressing yourself on here,
My way and the wrong way

It would be impossible for me, as an individual with a life of my own to live, to look at all the MM Forums on the internet.  Indeed there are a lot of crackpot discussion sites with very entertaining theories on the disappearance of this little girl, but edifying and educational they ain't.  So how to go about selecting just one to start with, an important one.  Because I have done previous research on this mystery I have already visited Forums, and Google knows my preferences so I have asked my brother, who has no interest in the subject at all to Google MM Forums on his computer.  The results show a high profile for 'The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann' so this is the site I have chosen to take a look at.  It is an anti McCann site, which is no surprise as such Forums have a preponderance on the net. It also has a VIP member, Tony Bennett, a retired solicitor who has made national news having been sued by the McCanns over public statements he has made and written. Will my own preconceptions be proven right?  Who knows, but we'll see.

The Mystery Itself

So let's leave Forums for a mo' and take a look at the mystery itself.  Sadly there are no literary works available in the UK that will provide a balanced view on what happened to Madeleine; no wealth of literature from scholarly ivory towers of considered opinion is universally available to you to seek your own truth when it comes to what you are allowed to read regarding this mystery; the objectivity of literature available here in the UK is a double headed coin forged by the McCanns; their truth alone, circulated through the medium of litigation making all of us the poorer for it.

No-one though ever seems to learn the lesson that suppression never quenches flames, just ignites them.  Suppression of facts is different to the suppression of truth, or lies for that matter; another lesson the McCanns never turned up for in the University of Life and Hard Knocks.  Truth and its antithesis, lies eh?; you pays your money and takes your choice. What really pisses people off though is the suppression of facts. Where can we turn then, in our search for these facts? As rare as hen's teeth I'm afraid and only available on the internet once you have read, and put to one side, Kate McCann's book 'Madeleine'

Also on the internet is the book by Goncalo Amaral 'The Truth of the Lie' which may be read as an antidote to Kate's book.  Does Amaral have an agenda? Of course he does, he was taken off the investigation and subsequently sacked.  Is his version of the facts the real one?  It probably benefits from a lot more factual information than Kate's effort, but not provably so, otherwise the McCanns would be languishing on a different kind of holiday at the Queen's expense.

The wellspring of all factual information may be found on the mccannpjfiles.co.uk/ website.  It is ironic that though the translation of the Policia Judicaire files to be found here are the facts of the case, the truth of what is contained therein during interviews with witnesses is THEIR truth and not necessarily THE truth.  It might well be, probably is, that the real truth may not be found even here.

But we have to start somewhere.  It is my distillation of the facts that you may draw upon to form an opinion which may then allow you to explore the mystery independently or in Forums, of what happened to Madeleine McCann.  If you are looking for something new to be written or said by me about this case, the internet Forum veteran perhaps, please go no further as you will be wasting your time.