When the calamitously useless Portuguese police declared the two doctors arguido ? suspects ? British reporters should have rallied round and dug up the fact there had been five previous incidents of paedophiles on the Algarve climbing into bed with holidaying children. They could have pointed out there wasn?t a shred of evidence to implicate the heartbroken couple. But the witch-hunt was in full spate.
Kate McCann?s ?crime? ? a lapse for which she would receive a life sentence ? was to have left her children sleeping while having dinner 100 metres away, returning to their apartment every half-hour. According to vitriolic online comments, she was a selfish bitch who had it coming.
Is it that human beings come to hate what we fear most? The McCanns were just like us, holidaying like us, doing their best for their kids like us, jumping into the freezing swimming pool with Madeleine the minute they arrived at the hotel because she couldn?t wait to get in. Just like us. But the family found themselves in a horror film with no final credits to release them from the dark, and it was too much to bear. So they had to be demonised, so we could be distanced from the pain. There, there, don?t worry; see, they?re really not like us at all.
I must admit I approached the book, Madeleine, with a heavy sense of duty. I needn?t have worried. Kate has done her daughter proud. This remarkable woman has experienced her own personal Calvary ? she has both suffered and been despised in her suffering ? yet she has found the strength to write down the truth so that her children will have ?a complete record of what happened so that, when they are ready, the facts will be there for them to read?.
When the Portuguese detective was pressing Kate to confess to her daughter?s murder and offering her a ?light? two-year sentence, all she could think was that if she and Gerry were charged, they would stop searching for Madeleine. The book is an attempt to keep that search going for as long as it takes.
I am sure the parents of Milly Dowler, the bright 13-year-old girl who, like Madeleine, was ?kidnapped in the blink of an eye?, will find much to empathise with in these pages. Kate is particularly good on how a mother and father grieve differently. She admits she sometimes resented Gerry for being able to get on with his work while she was still transfixed by the idea of Madeleine?s fear and pain. ?The thought of paedophiles makes me want to rip my skin off.?
Unlike the McCanns, Robert and Sally Dowler had their daughter?s body returned to them. This week, Levi Bellfield is on trial for Milly?s murder. Madeleine?s kidnapper is still out there so her parents can go on hoping, which is both a blessing and a curse.
?I cannot, and will not, allow this evil person to destroy anything else in our life,? writes Kate McCann. She has fought to recover her faith and now believes that, wherever Madeleine is, she is with God. If her mind ?ever starts to wander down dark alleys?, she focuses on her husband ?and the three beautiful children we have created together?.
One of those children will not be there for her birthday today, but her mother will never give up on her. This testament to the ferocity of maternal love tells us so.
- Who says that foreign languages are declining in this country? On Tuesday night, the Small Boy was getting help from his father with his French revision. What does ?au bord de la mer? mean?, he was asked. ?My mum is boring,? replied our home-grown linguist without hesitation.
Schoolchildren have always delighted in daft translations of foreign phrases. I remember how a Simon in my O-level class surprised the examiner with the news that ?coup de grace? means ?to mow the lawn?. Then there?s ?Honi soit qui mal y pense?, which means, ?Honestly, I think I?m going to be sick.? My absolute favourite has to be ?In loco parentis? or ?my father is an engine driver?. Obviously.
Some things have most definitely changed during the examination season, in whose feverish grip our poor household finds itself. Children used to get nervous about exams and do revision. Now
the parents do. For reasons I find hard to explain, I am speedreading Much Ado About Nothing. My daughter yawns ostentatiously at my exertions as I reel off another thrilling fact about the Liberal welfare reforms 1906 to 1914 for her history GCSE.
I know that I am not alone. ?I?ve already done exams once,? moans a fellow mother. ?Why do I have to do the damn things again??
We agree that our parents could barely have told you what subjects we were doing, let alone become director of studies for their little darlings. Apart from the annual visit to parents? evening, education was a matter for schools and children. No longer.
Parents of Britain, console yourselves. Even the most brilliant exam results will fade away in the end. Sic transit gloria mundi. Or, as we used to say, Gloria was sick in the minibus on Monday.
- What is there left to say about Alan Sugar, a businessman so visionary he told an interviewer in 2004: ?Next Christmas, the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput?? Honestly, that is the kind of foresight that put the great into Britain.
Lord Sugar is back this week in the BBC?s best comedy show. The Apprentice has taken the place of Big Brother as the nation?s favourite panto. The first laugh comes from the voiceover announcing that we are about to meet ?Britain?s entrepreneurial elite? as another bunch of fame-seeking egomaniacs and clich�-spouting clots appears. As Shakespeare and Moli�re knew, there is no one funnier than the person who has no grasp of how deluded he or she is.
The joy of The Apprentice is the cast may change every year, but the characters remain the same. There is always a wideboy braggart who couldn?t run the proverbial whelk stall, but endears himself to the Boss by reminding him of his youthful striving self. And there is invariably a female so ambitious she would sell her own young toasted in a panini, which suits Lord Sugar, who has rather old-fashioned views on maternity leave.
?I seek out pain rather than pleasure,? boasted Edna, who believes people with weak handshakes should be sent to Guantanamo Bay or similar. Edna, however, is a mere pussycat compared to Melody, who fled war-torn Iran after she raised her scary eyebrows and destroyed a town. ?I was once trained by Al Gore and taught by Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama,? explained Melody.
After the boys? team had elected to sell orange juice, the entrepreneurial elite paid a visit to a fruit market. ?Is that an orange?? asked one Alpha Male. ?I dunno,? said his team leader shrewdly.
?I?m not Sir Alan, the Patron Saint of Bloody Losers,? growled the Boss. Altogether now: ?OH YES YOU ARE!?
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