Redwoods Travels The Blacksmith Bureau

Redwood's Travels, 21 March 2014


Redwood's Travels The Blacksmith Bureau
Sullivans travels

Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:27

In "Sullivan's Travels" by Preston Sturges, perhaps America's finest, certainly its most sophisticated, film-maker, the hero, bright, well funded and determined, is always trying to find the "real world out there". Yet his travels, farcical and disastrous by turns, always end by bringing him back to the same starting place. Soon he's off once more: this time it will be different.

Probably only the Coen brothers, the direct descendants of Sturges and heavily in his debt, could make the film of the Madeleine McCann Affair. It wouldn't do the parents much good selling them the rights, though, since a Coen brothers film could only open one way – with a shadowy figure returning to where the body was hidden to find that it has gone…

Truth and fiction are entwined in the affair as in no other crime; so are showbiz and celebrity. But where either begin and end hardly anyone, including the main players, seems to know. Sometimes it's as though everyone involved, from the McCanns and Amaral onward, find themselves playing roles that they never intended but from which they can never break free. No movie could be as unreal as this one. And we in the audience struggle, really struggle, to break free too. Without success.


Into The Void

Some months after the Scotland Yard review was set up the Bureau wrote that "...in the end, after all the searching, the police will have to come back to the Ocean Club and the surrounding area where the trail went cold ".

To recap: our opinion didn't arise from any theory that the parents were involved in the child's disappearance. It's important to re-state this, both out of some sort of fairness to the Nine (they deserve a bit) and because our own reasoning, much to the confusion or displeasure of some readers, has never started with a theory of what happened to the child. We don't know. But one fact, above all, dominates the case: the trail goes cold on May 3 in Praia da Luz, perhaps in the Baptista supermarket area, perhaps at the sea's edge. Until that point there were, and are, investigative "footholds" – people, timings, events, sightings, weather conditions, physical objects, all capable of interrogation, measurement, corroboration and forensic examination. Once we leave the resort we find only a void. But it is a void, as a look at the thoroughly disturbing "sightings" volumes of the case files will show, bubbling with invention, crazed and otherwise.

In the case files of the Interrupted Investigation dealing with the Ocean Club and its residents we have evidence capable of development, to use the British ambassador's word. Beyond there is only this gigantic void with no anchors to act as a check on speculation and belief: hence the characteristic descriptions of all but one of the supposed "suspects" in the case – they are products of the imagination, not reality, horror film or bad-dream figures arising from within the mind, whether that mind belongs to a Gerry McCann rolling on the floor and bellowing of "paedophile bastards", or level-headed police officers past and present. As we learn in childhood, during our first walk into the darkness, the mind always fills a void with its own inventions.

So when the Yard review was set up in early 2011 it was pretty simple to form an opinion as to its chances of gaining results if it chose to reject the Interrupted Investigation and start completely anew. Had the trail been picked up anywhere since 2008? No. Had a single item of evidence which would give investigators something to bite on emerged in those four years? Nope. Had the famous anomalies in the evidence of the Nine listed in the Archiving Summary been resolved? No. Was there any new evidence to counter the Archiving Summary's statement that the McCanns had lost the chance to demonstrate their innocence? No.

So we took the view that any new inquiry wouldn't find anything real in the void either, only illusion. The question was merely how long it would be before it was driven back, or came full circle, to its starting point, when the real work could finally begin. We thought a couple of years, maximum. Hmm. In 2013 the Yard announced that it had 38 "persons of interest", that is people with no known connection to the disappearance, to eliminate. A year later they still have 38 and we head towards the dreaded St Madeleine's Day in May with the prospect of more statistics, more promises, more confusion and no reduction in the numbers.

If, that is, we listen to what the Yard is telling us about its accomplishments.

The McCann diehards, behind the curve as usual and seeing the case in the childish goody-baddy terms of the McCanns themselves, took the view that scepticism about the Yard's announcements, and the belief that some of their work was not being highlighted, were all down to "haters'" disappointment that the parents were not being put in the frame. In vain did people point out on Twitter that the Yard's public communications simply could not be made to add up to a coherent picture. Either the Yard was deliberately not telling the truth about its work or it was failing and flailing: there are no other possibilities. Only recently have the disciples' brows begun to furrow at Mr Redwood's announcements: welcome to WTF? world.

Accident or Intention?

But when we turn away from the rhetoric a faint but consistent development is clearly discernible, though whether it results from accident or intention is quite unclear. The supposedly worthless remnants of the "bungled" 2007 Ribeiro investigation are resolutely refusing to shrivel up and die under the harsh Scotland Yard growlamp while the healthy young shoots drawn from the void are not just failing to flourish but disappearing onto the compost heap. Metodo's creations, yacht-owning baby buyers and all, have quietly been wheeled onto the pile along with Edgar's risible garden gnomes, the Transylvanian woodcutters, axe under one arm, pleasure-child under the other.

The famous paedophile ring, which abducts its infant victims with military precision and unlimited financial resources, another fantasy but presented with absolute conviction by a string of coppers past and present, has vanished. And since last autumn Bundleman, that Frankenstein's monster invented by a group of unscrupulous doctors, has also gone, leaving only a helpless zombie remnant on the OFM resuscitation trolley.

These elements alone should be enough to demonstrate that the "return to the Ocean Club" will not be a mere backward look. On the contrary. Bundlestein, for example, may have been terminated but the magical recipe book for his creation remains, the paper almost crackling under the bright new light cast by "revelation".

Just Tell Us About These Alterations, Could You?

In two sticker books, one timeline and seven police statements the exact way in which he was incorporated can now be followed step by step as the creators build him up. Look at the sticker books and watch Oldfield and O'Brian removing themselves from the juggled narrative to make way for him. Read Gerry McCann's open-ended first statement with its reference to the shutter blades being partially open when he left the apartment at 8.30 and his helpful mention that Oldfield had found everything normal in the apartment an hour later – and then compare it with statement two and the tell-tale clues which Bundlestein has scattered around the apartment, with the "open shutter blades", which would, of course, have been the source of Oldfield's "external light" now forgotten.

You don't need a reconstruction to confront the prime movers with this evidence of collusion and invention. You simply put a highlight pen over the insertions and alterations, pass the papers over and and say, "OK, can you tell us the exact reasons why you changed this bit and added these bits? Thanks." One day it will happen.

Don't Use That Word!

And now we have, horror of horrors, the first admission that the belief of Ribeiro's team in a death in the apartment is "a possibility".

Let's not intrude into private grief by confronting the hopeless tangle that the two police forces have got themselves into over the latest hapless suspect. Black or white? Dead or alive? Burglar or pervert? Smelly or sweet? One or two? It serves them all right for their hopeless and repeated breaches of the secrecy both forces promised, breaches which the Bureau has been moaning for six months were leading them into a swamp. Open disagreement between the two forces, the possible intervention of a prime minister, the same atavistic tensions between the two countries – and still the Yard is briefing against the Portuguese.

When Alipio Ribeiro (rightly) let Amaral go, since he had become the focus, or rather the latrine bucket, of chauvinist insult not seen in the UK since WWII, it was in the shared belief that the hatred would go with him. No. Seven years on it still simmers for God-knows-what reasons beneath the tabloids, ready to erupt at any time into an outburst of vicious contempt aimed at all Portuguese police, their authorities and their legal system. The naive among us might think that that Yard could try a little diplomacy as well as silence.

Mr Redwood's admission has inescapable implications, even when given in the same strangulated prose that Kate McCann uses when birthing a difficult porkie. In Britain's tender-hearted (except when it comes to paedophiles and Portuguese) MSM fantasyland he can't bring himself to use the word "dead", even though coppers like him are hosing away entrails and eyeballs on motorways or crime scenes on a daily basis. No, no, the tot, as we must call her, might, it seems, have left the apartment "not-aloive", in other words, Andy, feet f*****g first, as dead a parrot and a whole lot harder to hide.

What will OFM, when its doctors turn away from trying to pummel the zombie back into life, make of such an unhelpful possibility? Surely it was demonstrated years ago that death in the apartment was a fantasy of Goncalo Amaral's, in conflict with the forensic evidence, the time constraints, the sheer wickedness of such an idea, wasn't it? Just where is this terrible stuff coming from?

"I mean," you can hear that dreaded nasal whine just as you can watch its owner, blank-eyed and as stiff as a statue, appear before your eyes, "I mean, never in a million years wouldn't we have known of something like that. [sighs] We were there. We knew." [falls silent, shakes long-suffering head, purses lips, clutches adjacent groin]. And she has a point, doesn't she? She and hubby were there most of the time and the most famous gust of wind since the Big Bad Wolf bore no whiff of Binman's notorious body odour. And while the bedroom door was ajar open unmoved wide open as I left it ten degrees open half way open wide open the bedroom itself, with the child's bed clearly no recent host to Stinky Pervert Binman, didn't show any signs of a violent monster-killing at nine fifteen just minutes before 10PM.

Ask The Dogs, Andy

Don't mention the dogs! We rarely do, but might they now provide at least some suggestive pointers to clarify or eliminate the new possibility? The trouble is that of the dogs' thirteen "markings" for further investigation described in the PJ final report, only four could point to Binman while the other nine, most embarrassingly, point solely at Kate & Gerry McCann, of all people, via their possessions. None of the four are in the children's bedroom, either.

So perhaps it's not surprising that Mr Redwood was so sensitive to the feelings of the grieving family in his language. Whichever way you choose to explore this possibility is going to cause some seriously unhelpful pain. How does Stinky Pervert Binman smuggle the body out? In a black bag? Don't. All right, a blue bag then. Not funny. Push the stiff out of an open window into the waiting arms of Bundleman? But he's dead!

Finally, we have the question of how Stinky carried the stiff through the streets, assuming, in this fantasy land that both police forces appear determined to inhabit, that it wasn't neatly baled in a refuse truck. And that, friends, really does take us out of all these free creations and back to solid ground, the ground of Ribeiro's Interrupted Investigation, which, day by day, is beginning to look like a rational model of realistic investigation compared with its successors: the only unresolved sighting of a man with a figure in his arms that evening around 10PM was no pot-bellied stinker from the void, was he? And he was undeniably real.

This is one oif Blacksmiths' best.....    


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Mr Redwood's admission has inescapable implications, even when given in the same strangulated prose that Kate McCann uses when birthing a difficult porkie. In Britain's tender-hearted (except when it comes to paedophiles and Portuguese) MSM fantasyland he can't bring himself to use the word "dead", even though coppers like him are hosing away entrails and eyeballs on motorways or crime scenes on a daily basis. No, no, the tot, as we must call her, might, it seems, have left the apartment "not-aloive", in other words, Andy, feet f*****g first, as dead a parrot and a whole lot harder to hide.'

All so true, so eloquent and so logic. Why on earth can't the police see it?

Very sobering reading. Pretty good stuff!

Freja53 wrote:All so true, so eloquent and so logic. Why on earth can't the police see it?

Because Operation GStrange is 'paid' £6,778.00p a DAY to NOT 'see' it?

jeanmonroe wrote:

Freja53 wrote:All so true, so eloquent and so logic. Why on earth can't the police see it?

Because Operation Grange is 'paid' £6,778.00p a DAY to NOT 'see' it?

Exacto!

Usual bullshit,why some continue to idolise this drunken failed 'journalist' who conveniently wooshed many of his failed predictions remains a mystery.
Who now wants to be fair to the tapas nine ? I certainly dont,neither would i call Madeliene a 'stiff' even though most of us believe She died in that apartment.
High time billy no mates was left to decompose in his own World of self indulgence.

You have to wonder why the Press don't do some investigating instead of panderieng to the McCanns all the time.!!! They know Joe Public is not interested in the case any more.

Lioned... I carry no torch for Blacksmith, and he has written some appalling stuff, such that many people prefer to ignore anything he writes, but this latest piece, overall and in general, I reckon is pretty good. I do get to think he is pompous, and likes the sound of his own voice, but just sometimes he is spot on.

comperedna wrote:Lioned... I carry no torch for Blacksmith, and he has written some appalling stuff, such that many people prefer to ignore anything he writes, but this latest piece, overall and in general, I reckon is pretty good. I do get to think he is pompous, and likes the sound of his own voice, but just sometimes he is spot on.

I agree with you comperedna and that line I highlighted is priceless  

comperedna wrote:Lioned... I carry no torch for Blacksmith, and he has written some appalling stuff, such that many people prefer to ignore anything he writes, but this latest piece, overall and in general, I reckon is pretty good. I do get to think he is pompous, and likes the sound of his own voice, but just sometimes he is spot on.

I agree with Lioned. I don't like B. because he is sometimes very nasty and unhealthy and I think it's too easy to forgett his unpleasant attacks against people he doesn't like and the big errors he makes sometimes.
And I have to say that, for me, very often, the enless pieces he writtes, could be reduced, without damage, to one paragraph.
But without the inflation of complicated words and twisted sentences that impress the reader, what would remain? Not always, but very often, a succession of utter platitudes.
But , may be, it's because English is not my mother tongue and I can't see the subtleties in his speech.

comperedna wrote:Lioned... I carry no torch for Blacksmith, and he has written some appalling stuff, such that many people prefer to ignore anything he writes, but this latest piece, overall and in general, I reckon is pretty good. I do get to think he is pompous, and likes the sound of his own voice, but just sometimes he is spot on.

I agree

frencheuropean wrote:

comperedna wrote:Lioned... I carry no torch for Blacksmith, and he has written some appalling stuff, such that many people prefer to ignore anything he writes, but this latest piece, overall and in general, I reckon is pretty good. I do get to think he is pompous, and likes the sound of his own voice, but just sometimes he is spot on.

I agree with Lioned. I don't like B. because he is sometimes very nasty and unhealthy and I think it's too easy to forgett his unpleasant attacks against people he doesn't like and the big errors he makes sometimes.
And I have to say that, for me, very often, the enless pieces he writtes, could be reduced, without damage, to one paragraph.
But without the inflation of complicated words and twisted sentences that impress the reader, what would remain? Not always, but very often, a succession of utter platitudes.
But , may be, it's because English is not my mother tongue and I can't see the subtleties in his speech.

Your English is very good and you are quite right to point out the insults he has thrown at this and other forums,referring to us as a cess pit for those who fail to remember as well as the insults at particular individuals.
He prefers self adoration to any kind of respect for a missing child.
He has been banned from Jills site as he should be here if his insults continue.

Coo! Referred to us as a cesspit! I missed that one. That is totally and utterly unacceptable, obviously. I have read ones where he has slagged off individual posters which is also well out of line.