Madeleine v NDAs

In the middle of 2021, I agreed to meet up with Jutta Rabe at a secret location near to where I live, in order to go through a mobile telephone analysis that I had posted on my blog. I did a quick check on Jutta. She has a Wiki entry for her work on the sinking of the ferry Estonia.

Shortly thereafter, she she requested a slightly earlier meeting time, and that suited me. My temperature gadget is saying that I am now cooking at 28C. So the earlier in the morning the better.

I thought early in, early out, possible camera shoot indoors in a hotel, in the morning, so I ‘poshed up’. Jeans and a long sleeve shirt, not a t-shirt and shorts. It did not happen anything like that.

We sat outdoors in the sun and discussed the case for well over an hour. More and more people turned up and joined us. It quickly became nine of them and one of me. Portuguese, Germans and English.

It was decided by Mark Wliiams-Thomas that we would go to the street outside the front of Luz church, and do an interview there. I had already suggested this location to Jutta. You can check it out on Google streetview for yourself. Simply go to street in front of the church, and look up the incline of the road. Then look up to the top of the building.

You will see 4 antennae. They simply look like 4 shiny metal rods. Two of those were Vodafone, the other two were TMN back in 2007.

Created with GIMP

This is not the optimal location in Luz to see them. However, everyone recognises the front of Luz church, so it anchors the location in viewers minds.

At roughly 11am, we all heaved off to Luz church, to do my interview with Mark, and by then the sun was high in a cloudless sky, and I was in jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. I was cooking.

It took the team perhaps 15 minutes to set up before we were ready to go. I was to emerge from the cemetery side of the church, walk across the plaza to the road in front of the church, while the cameraman captured everything via a drone.

Take 1 failed due to the drone. Take 2 failed due to the drone. Take 3 failed due to me. I started my interview with Mark but quickly started to rock forward and backward because I was over-cooking. Fortunately Mark recognised I was in trouble and the 2 teams basically grabbed me, dragged me across the church plaza, plonked me on my arse, propped me up against the church, and I got a sliver of shade in which to cool down. Bliss!

We then returned to our hush-hush base. Its location is secret, because the proprietor permittted filming, but only on the condition that we did not reveal it. It makes a very decent location for filming, and only a fool pees into the oasis. Under the shade I cooled down quickly, and was ready to go with interview 1.

That was with Mark Williams-Thomas. I have no idea whether material from that filming was used. I do know that a graphic based on my blog appeared in the introduction, but don’t blink or you will miss it.

On to interview 2, with the German team and Jutta Rabe. It was on the same subject, namely the size of the Luz mobile phone cell. Jutta spoke to me in high-quality English. My answers were carefully chosen to use simple, clear English, spoken slowly, and with pauses to allow her audience to absorb it. I must have done reasonably well, because when this was aired, my segment appeared in English, without overdubbing or even sub-titles.

Thus I earned the nickname of the ‘ping man’.

For each interview I signed an NDA. That stands for non-disclosure agreement. A bit silly considering I had worked for 5 hours and I received not a penny piece for my efforts. Consequently the NDAs were not binding in law. It is a year on, and fragments of my labours have appeared in both their documentaries. Thus I consider both NDAs have now expired.

Madeleine v illness

I have been ill since before Christmas. Recently I got better. I have an article I was working on and I was 2/3 of the way through. Then I fell ill again, around a week or so ago.

I don’t know what it was I got or how I got it. There are several symptoms, such as sleeping 24 hours per day, feeling so feeble I could not stand up or walk

The worst one was continous vomiting. Since I was not eating solids, at least the vomit was fluid, which is much easier to get up than solids.

I may be several days before I get my article completed and published, because just as I seem to be improving, my wife appears to be succumbing to some variation of whatever it was that laid me low, fortunately without the vomiting.

She looked after me through my illness, and I fully intend to look after her while she is ill.

There are actually a lot of Madeleine stories stacked up in my backlog.

I do hope you will be patient while my wife and I deal with more pressing priorities in real life.

Madeleine v statutes of limitation

The statute of limitation for murder in Portugal is 15 years. That has now passed, unless there is reason to believe Madeleine was kept alive for some time after she disappeared.

While there is an ongoing active police investigation in Portugal, it is illegal for a private citizen to go digging, lest it interferes with what the police are doing.

We are now beyond that point, so there is no such restriction in place.

My challenge is this. There is a lady called Mary who worked in Kellys. She is Irish, so she goes by the name of Irish Mary. I believe she became ill, and so she returned to Ireland. So there is the challenge, can you find Irish Mary, who worked in Kelly’s, and who has returned to Ireland?

I have perhaps 1001 such challenges.

My apologies that it has been such a long time time since I last posted. Before Christmas I fell ill, and I am still ill now.

It does not stop me working. Constructing lists of people to chat with, contructing the questions to ask them, prioritising who to find first.

In the period that I have been absent, there have been many, many reports about Madeleine, most of them utter garbage.

Anyway, I shall work away, and I hope to keep you updated with progress more frequently than I have done.

Regards from the Algarve.

Gonçalo’s 4th birthday

We celebrated Gonçalo’s 4th birthday on New Year’s Eve. Accordingly, he had all sorts of treats.

He normally gets fed 2 meals a day, but on this special occasion, he was presented with 3, thus making him a very happy dog indeed.

Bright and early he came into my room. That’s a signal that he would like a little something. So much earlier than usual he had a canapé. Just a little taster we use to disguise his medicine. As per usual, that disappeared in a few seconds.

The weather here has been warm but dull, grey and foggy here, but on his birthday morning there was a perfect, cloudless sunny sky. So we popped out so that Lally (aka Gonçalo) could have a half-hour snuffle in our garden.

Then it was back to base, where I cooked him a breakfast of sausage and ‘chips’ (aka kibble, aka dog biscuits).

Lally goes into high energy mode when he fills up, so we played his favourite games together.

Then mummy woke up, and we sang Happy Birthday to Lally together.

Time moved on, and Lally made his second canapé also disappear like magic.

After that, I cooked him beef slices with gravy, plus of course more chips.

As his birthday drew to a close and New Year approached, it was time to give him his 3rd canapé, and then to cook him his supper. That was chicken and chips.

My wife is normally asleep long before midnight, but she stayed up to see in 2022, bolstered by a couple of gin and tonics, while I treated myself to some port that was gifted to me for Xmas 2020.

From Lally and myself here on the Algarve- Happy New Year to all.

Coffee – Merry Xmas 2021

This festive article is what I call a brain-grate. Once you have read it, the details become impossible to forget. So if you don’t want this piece stuck inside your head for the rest of your life, this is the time to stop reading, and find something better to do.

However, if you choose to become infected, grab yourself a cup of coffee, because there’s no t in Bri’ain. OK?

Here we go!

Merry Chris’mas everybody.

There are 2 or 3 things in English that are so common in 2021 that they are becoming the new English. The guardian of proper English, the BBC, is succumbing to this trend, meaning there is no avoiding it.

The letter t is being dropped, in cer’ain circums’ances.

Take 2021 for example. It is no longer twenty-twentyone, but rather twen’y-twen’y-one. Leading t’s pronounced, others dropped.

This means you’ll never poo’ a be”er bi’ of bu”er on your knife.

While i’ is now Chris’mas Day.

There is no t in Bri’ain, Sco’land, or I’aly..

Wha’ else has bi”en the dus’?

Bo”le, bacon bu”y, ci’y, Pe’er, communi’y, bu’, tha’, shor’bread, mo’ors from Cinch.

Another change is -er at the end of a word is being changed to -uh, so i’ is now bu”uh.

Enjoy your Xmas.

Madeleine v Kelly’s kitchen

Madeleine v Kelly’s kitchen

I am reliably informed that Kelly’s bar in Luz has been sold yet again.

I have no information about what the new owners intend to do with the establishment. However, the current staff are worried that they will soon become ex-staff, which in the case of one particular person may develop into a personal tragedy of mine.

During the course of my news update, I was informed that Kelly’s has a kitchen. That was definitely an eye-opener, because on the multiple times I have visited Kelly’s, the most advanced food offering available was salty crisps and salty peanuts.

But my interest did lead to a recent photo (Nov 2021) of Kelly’s kitchen. Please evaluate it and see what you think.

What did you come up with? I am seeing a beer and soft drinks storage area, rather than a kitchen. However, turning it into a kitchen would not require a great deal of effort.

And yet, in 2007, the best thing on the ‘menu’ was salty snacks.

Hunting season opens in May 2022.

Coffee – Sudoku and CMTV

Have a quick swig of coffee, then tuck into your first Sudoku. It is so simple that your caffeine is doing more to stimulate your brain.

Now that your brain is engaged. let’s move on to CMTV. These were last spotted doing some quite extended filming outside apartment 5A and the Tapas Zone a few days back. The crew was in situ when my sources went into the Japanese restaurant for lunch, and that same CMTV team was still working away when my crew came out of the Tapas Zone after their meal.

That’s perhaps not surprising, given that the CMTV team seemed to consist of just two people – a female presenter and a man who was covering both sound and video..

As I was not there to watch these activities, I can only speculate as to what CMTV was up to. The effort appears to coincide with the launch of Gonçalo Amaral’s most recent book, Basta de Mentiras, but I could be quite wrong about this.

While you ponder on this, have another slurp of coffee and set about a second Sudoku. This is just a little more difficult than the first one.

My thanks to the Daily Mail. I was having a clearout when I happened upon a puzzle page from 2013. Yes, some 8 years ago. The third Sudoku was the one used for a prize draw, and you got all of the answers to all of the puzzles if you purchased the Mail the following day. It’s still not difficult, so you should get the answer without too much trouble.

And to round off, I’ve just got time for a small snippet of Luz news. Three choirs have been formed there and my beloved has enrolled in the easiest level. Her choir meets on Tuesday evenings, and she goes along partly for the singing and partly for the socialising. The location is near the top end of Beach Road (Rua da Praia).

It is 4 years since we moved out of Luz, and strangely enough, the family now appreciates the town much more than we ever did when we lived there.

Madeleine v MWT #2

The following is from Mark Williams-Thomas on Twitter, dated 21 Sep 2021.

“Had my phone stolen today – tracked it to a block of about 60 flats just outside Praia da Luz. So close but just not close enough . Can’t get a replacement until back in UK at the end of the week . Oh and one of the cars I was in today was reversed into ! What a day”

The tale of the stolen phone has direct relevance to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

In Mark’s tale, he was able to narrow the location to “a block of about 60 flats”. That analysis cannot be replicated in Madeleine’s case. The data simply does not exist in the PJ Files.

That means Mark’s phone is fitted with GPS tracking, a feature which simply did not exist on most phones made before May 2007. Despite this modern technology, Mark was unable to narrow it down sufficiently to recover his phone.

Personally, I have no idea where “a block of 60 flats just outside Praia da Luz” refers to, so without further information, I’m stumped on that angle.

Moving on to another tweet by Mark the same day, we have the following.

“Been hot today – very picturesque location for a PTC (Piece to camera) our second camera is also a drone flyer so allows from some beautiful shots .”

Respondents have correctly identified this as Carvoeiro, a small beach village around half an hour, or 40km, to the east of Luz.

Carvoeiro does feature in the Madeleine case, courtesy of Operation Grange. Whether that drew Mark to the village, or whether it is simply some glossy, picture postcard shots, time will tell.

It is some years since I last visited Carvoeiro. If you follow the prominent, steeply sloping road in the photo, and then take the little dip very close to to the top, you get to one of the better restaurants on the Algarve, plus because it is perched at the top, stunning views out over the Atlantic.

Madeleine v MWT #1

Mark Williams-Thomas tweeted the following on 30 Aug 2021 –

“Just finished paper edit for a taster tape .I had forgotten how powerful and compelling the interview is . It is with the prime suspect who has for the first time on record admitted things which I hope in due course will lead to his arrest.”

As there is only one prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, I presume the reference is to Christian Brueckner. But how Mark managed to conduct a live interview inside a maximum security prison escapes me. And why Christian Brueckner was motivated to participate in such an interview is also puzzling.

I suppose we will just have to wait until the 3 part documentary airs on Channel 5 to find out what it covers. At least Channel 5 is one of those I can actually receive here.

In a quite separate development, on Aug 26 around lunchtime a German film crew was active in Luz. A vehicle about the size of a motor home, with some logo identifying it was from German TV, was parked near the junction of the N125 and the road between Luz and Espiche.

The only item of interest there is a tall, impressive mobile phone mast, one which featured in the Discovery+ documentary earlier this year. I haven’t seen the Discovery+ effort. In fact, I’m not even sure whether it has been released in Portugal yet. I’ve only seen a trailer in the Sun, and it is definitely this mast.

So I don’t know if both crews were simply using this phone mast for dramatic visual effect, because in truth it is dramatic. Or if they genuinely thought this was the relevant mobile phone installation. However, this tower did not exist in 2007.

You can check this out for yourself if you wish. Use Google Streetview to get a location to show you the tower as it is today. Then go back to get the view in Aug 2009, et voila, the tower disappears and the location is a greenfield site.

Madeleine v The Railway Killers

In 1985-1986 in London there were 3 murders. Around that time there were also many rapes, some of which would be linked to the 3 killings. The case would become known as The Railway Killers, because there appeared to be a connection to the SE railway network.

My interest in this case is how it reflects upon the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Alison Day disappeared on 29 Dec 1985. Her body was found in the River Lea. The Metropolitan Police dealt with her case. She had been strangled by a tourniquet made from her own clothes.

Martje Tamboezer disappeared on 17 Apr 1986. This was investigated by Surrey Police. It was not linked to the Day case until a fairly casual discussion over the phone revealed that both had been strangled in the same way.

Anne Lock disappeared on 18 May 1986. Her body was found in Hertfordshire about a month later, making recovery of forensics difficult.

For the full story, Google John Duffy and David Mulcahy.

Here’s two links to Madeleine.

In the Alison Day case, police were using pen, paper, and filing cabinets, much like the PJ were in Portugal. By the Martje Tamboezer case, computers had been introduced, and police were using HOLMES for the first time. Leicestershire Police were using HOLMES re Madeleine, and I assume there’s a lot on there that has not been made public.

Another first was calling in a criminal profiler, Dr David Canter. I don’t know if his profile was useful in assisting the police. However afterwards, his profile was found to have a high degree of accuracy. And using criminal profiling has become a standard part of major British cases.

Madeleine became a major British case, and so I wonder if there is a profile in the system in Madeleine’s instance. Judging by the scattergun approach used by Operation Grange, I suspect not.

And I have no idea whether the German police use criminal profiling. The current person of interest, Christian Brueckner, appears to have come under the microscope for entirely different reasons.