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AS
IF BY MAGIC
Larger than life American Magicians, Penn & Teller, currently
auditioning prospective Las Vegas stage acts via their U.K. T.V.
programme 'Fool Us,' have unfortunately been denied the chance to assess
potential illusionists Kate and Gerry McCann. Despite the variety of
candidates already examined, nothing of what they have been presented
with so far quite compares to the remarkable abilities of the duo
McCann.
Kate McCann's 'Madeleine,' written as it must have been under the
watchful eye of her legal advisors, and promoted as an 'account of the
truth,' sets forth particulars of Tuesday May 1, 2007 which include the
following:
"One of my photographs is known around the world now: A smiling
Madeleine clutching armfuls of tennis balls." (The very same photograph
Rachael Oldfield ascribes to Jane Tanner during her Rogatory interview).
"In the afternoon Gerry and I decided to take the children down to the
beach...we wanted to do something different with them, just the five of
us." (p.57. Note: they all go to the beach).
This is followed by a 'Woman's Own' style description of rain,
discomfort, and agonising over who should fetch the ice creams.
"Having polished off her ice-cream, Madeleine asked if she could go back
to the Mini Club now, please." (p.58)
After a paragraph defending the significance of all the trivia Kate and
Gerry have seemingly worked so hard to recall, and the importance of its
accuracy, Kate explains how the parents duly comply with their
daughter's request:
"We dropped the kids off at their clubs for the last hour and a half,
meeting up with them as usual for tea." (p.59).
Drum roll. Curtains back. Big reveal.
And there's Gerry already signing Madeleine into her 'lobster' group at
the Mark Warner creche at 2.30 p.m. on the afternoon of Tuesday May 1;
not for the last hour and a half as you might expect either. Far from
being signed out again at 4.00 p.m., Madeleine is not signed out at all.
And if you think that's an astonishing feat of teleportation, you'll no
doubt be amazed to discover that, at the very same time (2.30 p.m.) Kate
McCann is elsewhere signing both Sean and Amelie into their 'jellyfish'
group, where they stay for fully two hours and fifty minutes, before
Kate signs them out again (at 5.20 p.m).
The illusion is made all the more impressive by the two childcare
facilities not being equidistant from either the beach or the McCanns'
apartment ("Sean and Amelie were enrolled in the Toddler Club for
two-year-olds in a building...just across from our apartment on the
other side of the main pool...Madeleine's group, the Mini Club for
three-to-fives, was slightly further away...").
Penn and Teller would no doubt be disappointed to learn they have missed
this trick. The ice creams were clearly a distraction - or should that
be misdirection? |
