pap

I often claim, much to my daughters' collective disgust, that there is "no need" to wipe your arse if one is transitioning directly from bog to bath.

Bletch, I am a little confused with your "number threes" situation. While I often multi task myself, the equation isn't constantly 1 + 2 = 3. This is largely because I have more beverages in a day than meals. Please explain.

I loved the fact that these boys and girls ostensibly think they invented peeing in the shower.

Dogs generally aren't wrong in these cases. They weren't wrong in the landmark Zapata case that Gerry McCann based his passionate "dog evidence is crap" argument on. They were right, despite the huge lengths that Zapata went to in order to cover up his crime. Even after the confession, the remains are still not recoverable due to the amount of moving about and attempts to destroy. Your defence of Richard D Hall is unnecessary. For such a massive crank, he has done a deft job in highlighting the huge issues in the case without straying too far off the reservation. I am looking forward to buctootim's review.

Panel shows.

York is well worth a visit if you haven't been, although know in advance that it's a tourist Mecca. If you want typical English, you'll be disappointed. If you want to chat up foreigners, it's ace. Spent Christmas 2012 in Ambleside, up in the Lakes. Had great weather for the time of year. Very mild. Pricey though; even self-catering - take essentials with you. The biggest shopping area if you forget is probably Kendal. Beautiful part of the country that anyone fit will enjoy. The walks were fantastic. I have already mentioned Stratford, which is very impressive. I love my adopted city of Liverpool and am entirely unsurprised at its inclusion near the to top of Rough Guides best cities lists. Architecture is probably the best outside London. Nightlife has been great for 50 years. Sort of city that pulls your pants down and gives you a pleasant seeing to.

A big part of the problem is that it isn't worth watching broadcast telly for scripted shows. Loads of people watch in other ways, such as streaming or torrenting, both better options for many. Unfortunately, it can leave the impression that viewers are only interested in reality crap.

I can see that. Places like Liverpool and Manchester are pretty charged politically. Liverpool has the two safest Labour seats in the country. However it's places like Leigh and Wigan that could go UKIP. There are a lot of them about. Medium sized towns with strong local identities that are more likely to have noticed newcomers. Liverpool and Manchester are huge by comparison, more diverse and less likely to be alarmed (although I have noticed a sharp increase in racist taxi driver chat).

Bah, they're only a couple of episodes in. Besides, I don't know what happens to this young Bruce Wayne fellow

I've caught a couple of brand new shows both riffing on popular DC properties. First up, Gotham. It's Smallville for the Batman universe, with the pilot episode kicking off with Bruce Wayne's parents being murdered. Essentially, it's a police procedural with slightly nuttier villains and a lot of fan service. There is a young Catwoman, a very good Penguin and quite a bit of Carmine Falcone, the mob boss that was also in Batman Begins. Sean Pertwee plays Alfred Pennyworth, and is clearly going for the Michael Caine take instead of the refined Alfreds of yore. Out of the three episodes I've seen, two have been good and one was a little concerning. Smallville used to have a lot of "freak of the week" episodes, something that Gotham will probably have to do if it's going to fill a 20+ episode season. The only other slight concern is that it's airing on Fox, which isn't known for being the most hospitable incubator for new shows. The other show is Flash, a CW show set in the same universe as Arrow. Indeed, the character was introduced in Arrow a while back, according to ms pap. They show a bit of the crossover in this show. I've only seen one episode of this, but of the two shows, definitely the "safer" option. Smallville spent nine years having Clark run around like a blue-arsed fly. It's really not going to be difficult to pull this off here. Quite enjoyed the pilot, despite everyone overacting. Jury is out on both of them right now, but I'll probably watch next week regardless.

Stratford-upon-Avon is one of my favourite places. Certainly didn't hurt that we travelled there by narrowboat.

It's relevant because she phoned friends and family individually, telling them all something that was not true. http://www.mccannfiles.com/id31.html What have you read on dog evidence?

That game looked in trouble after they held it back. Was hoping that the delay would have allowed to refine it into a AAA title, but doesn't seem that way. 72 on Metacritic, with a lot of respected publications skewing lower.

So UKIP has its first MP in Clacton. Fair play to Carswell; sought a mandate from the public there, which is more than you can say for most. The other by-election was interesting too. UKIP missed out on snaffling a safe Labour seat by a paltry 617 votes. Off the back of the result, Farage has claimed that UKIP are now Labour's main opposition in northern cities.

A film you haven't watched but still feel qualified to comment on anyway? That is an AWESOME power. What's the new Star Wars like?

If they speak to you

It's refreshing to see so many other conspiracy theories referenced in one thread. Some would be cynical, casting such remarks aside as transparent attempts at kicking the crap about. Not I. There is an inherent honesty in their positions that makes me expect a flourish of passionately argued new threads reflecting their new found interest. The scope of all of these topics are far too broad to be accommodated in the McCann thread. It'd be a shame if such blistering content were improperly archived. Think of the beleaguered curator of national digital treasures in two centuries time.

I haven't watched it, so I don't have the luxury of an opinion. I'm not a big believer in any kind of religion, but authors have tackled the origins of Christianity and found parallels with earlier myths. I think the tenets and messages of Christianity are pretty sound, but the human implementation, especially when prosecuted from power centres like Rome, was often just a means of empire building and control, working all the way from the illiterate peasant that didn't and couldn't know any better to excommunicated heads of state. Did you like it?

Where do you stand on Internet dating, Tim?

Sir is to be commended for at least expressing an opinion on the argument, even if I don't agree with that opinion. High ground noted. I can't agree because we're not talking about circumstantial evidence. We're talking about evidence that if diligently pursued, would have them up in front of a jury trial. That's the real problem with this case; due process hasn't taken place. The Portuguese fancied the McCanns big time for being complicit in Madeleine's disappearance. The UK government and media both played a part in wrecking any chance the Portuguese cops might have had of getting to a resolution. The government appointed their head of media monitoring as the McCanns advisers, the media did everything they could to portray the Portuguese authorities as bumbling idiots. The contradictions in stories, either different people giving different versions of the same events, or worse, one person completely altering their version of events to fit later facts, is something that any competent detective would have ripped through, if of course, those questions had been answered. The British sniffer dogs led by a British expert who now works for US authorities flies right in the face of the bumbling Portuguese plod meme. It's some of the strongest evidence indicating Madeleine may have died in the apartment, proven reliable in countless cases. Gerry McCann gets to tell the whole world that it's unreliable, based on a 1976 murder case in which sniffer dogs reacted, but a judge ruled the evidence out. No-one mentions that Zapata, the guy accused, later confessed and that the sniffer dogs were bang on. The problem is not the weight of evidence. It's that no-one has been charged, due process hasn't happened, no trial and no closure. Announcement after announcement has been made about possible sightings, arrests or breakthroughs in the case. Nothing has come of any of it, because in my opinion, someone made a political decision that nothing would. They were given the chief spinner, spirited out of Portugal quick-smart, the case transferred to Leicester, when all talk of the McCanns being suspects vanished. It's funny; zero evidence for abduction and every newspaper story runs with that as a point of truth. Lots of evidence implicating the McCanns, yet they're never mentioned as suspects. It's spin versus evidence. Spin's winning.

I'm guessing Oxbridge.

There is no proof that Madeleine McCann was abducted and plenty of evidence to suggest she was not. Getting it into a court is the problem.

Does a degree underpin this vast analytical insight? It's a credit to our education system, if so.

I think that's a big part of the reason why there is such huge public interest in the case. Anyone with kids will run their own parenting logic and quickly determine that something doesn't add up, which is a fairly large proportion of the population. All the points you mention are valid. Said it before, but as a parent myself, the last thing I'd be thinking about if my kid was missing was how I might be perceived. It really wouldn't matter at that point, especially if I knew I was innocent. I think the films ably demonstrate the way that stories were changed as new information came to light. Had the Portuguese authorities had a free hand in pursuing the prosecution, I think any competent prosecution lawyer would have ripped their testimonies to pieces under cross-examination. Any cleverness has been in ensuring that real scrutiny, especially judicial scrutiny, didn't happen. I wonder how many people that donated to the Madeleine fund knew that part of the money was going to be used for a media monitoring unit.