sadoldgit

I am not getting upset. I am just fed up with the way you conduct yourself on here. But then that is what you do, you try and wind people up. But you win, this is the second thread I am bailing out of because of you and your patronising comments.

Isnt that the point though? It is my own view (and I am not the only one by the way). No, thank God I don't have any experience of trench warfare, but I used to live near the Imperial War Museum as a kid and spent a lot of time there. I also did Modern History at A level and read many books about WW1 and its horrors. That is why I feel it shouldn't be used to sell Christmas groceries, but again, that is just my opinion. It may be "laughable" to some people but it is a view shared by many.

Then why get your knickers in such a twist? Is it just so you can feel better about yourself? No I haven't written any letters to any of the above. All I have done is express and opinion on an internet forum about a Christmas ad and have contributed to the online debate. Have I lost sleep over the ad? No. Do I want it banned? No. Do I think it is distasteful? Yes. I supposed you will also sneer at the cinema full of people who sat through the ad when it was launched only to say as one "FFS" when the Sainsbury logo appeared at the end? A lot of us have clearly got it wrong but it is good to know that there is always someone trolling away waiting to redress the balance.

There wont be any Tories left soon, they will all defect to UKIP!

It is not the first time that C B Fry has infected a thread and ruined it. I wonder if he has dashed off a patronising letter of mock outrage to the authors of the articles reproduced earlier from The Guardian and The Independent who also had the temerity to say that they also found the ad to be in poor taste?

As soon as I saw the picture I knew what it meant. The timing wasn't brilliant either.

You really are a deeply unpleasant person.

Is it just "left wing types" now though. I know all types of people who are now careful about being PC. Although she didn't say anything there was an inference in the picture about "white van man" and nationalism. She knew what she had done and that is why she resigned.

Once you again you managed to ignore the point in order to take a cheap shot.

What bothers me about the Matthew Parris comment is that there must be other "middle class" missing children that we no longer hear about surely?

The father of a seven year-old boy who has been missing for 11 years has claimed that the parents of Madeleine McCann have received “favouritism” over the campaign to find their daughter. Norfolk Police launched an extensive hunt for Daniel Entwistle, of Great Yarmouth, who failed to return to his home on May 4 2003, four years to the day before the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal. Daniel was captured on a local shop’s CCTV and his bike was found near a local quay, leading to a river bed search. But he remains missing 11 years on and the case faded from the headlines. David Entwistle, Daniel’s father, questioned the resources and media attention which the McCann case still receives, seven years after her unresolved disappearance. “I’ve got 110% respect for Madeleine. I hope she does get found but I can’t understand why they’re in the paper every couple of days,” Mr Entwistle told Channel 5 documentary, Madeleine McCann: A Global Obsession, which airs Tuesday night. He added: “Feels like to me it’s favouritism because they’re up there and they’re always…they’re campaigning, they’re getting money here, there and left right and centre.” The Madeleine McCann case Contributors to the programme claimed that the disparity was because the McCanns were a “middle-class family” who were able to successfully “market” their family tragedy. Judy Bachrach, Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair who covered the case and interviewed the McCanns, said: “Gerry McCann (father) made it his business to, as he put it me in an interview with me, ‘Market his child.’ He called it the ‘Marketing of Madeleine McCann’ and this, of course, was the act of a very desperate father. I cannot tell you that it worked perfectly, it worked very imperfectly but it worked.” Ms Bachrach added: “They were told by child abduction experts ‘If you cry on television…the kidnapper might get off on that.’ Horrible though that sounds, so she (Kate, mother) had to keep a stoic face on television. She couldn’t weep, she couldn’t look distraught and so she looked kind of like a robot.” Matthew Parris, the Times columnist, told the programme: “Middle class people are better at arousing interest and at keeping attention focused. Sometimes they have the levers at their disposal that working class people don’t.” Journalist Martin Bright said: “If you’re a missing person, you shouldn’t be a boy, black or working class. I find it very worrying that journalists and editors go down the route of being particularly selective about the missing children that they focus on.” Kate and Gerry McCann: Madeleine McCann was abducted in Portugal in May 2007. The press treatment of her parents, particularly by the Daily Star and Express newspapers, is heavily criticised. Leveson states: “If ever there was an example of a story which ran totally out of control, this is one.” The press appetite for news of Madeleine is described as “insatiable” with the search for the truth “the first principle to be sacrificed”. A number of titles were described as being “guilty of gross libels” with “gross inaccuracy” in reporting criticised as “bluntly outrageous”. The parents became “a news item, a commodity, almost a piece of public property”. And because the McCanns had tried to engage with the media, the press behaved as though “they had waived their right to privacy.” Kate and Gerry McCann speak about their missing daughter Madeleine Martin Frizell, GMTV editor at the time of the Entwistle and McCann cases, who narrated the documentary, admitted: “ The police investigation continued (into Daniel Entwistle) but after a few days and with no donations and no PR campaign, there was nothing new to report so we, and the rest of the media, quietly stopped covering it. It’s the nature of news that other stories were developing at the time. Eleven years on, Daniel’s still missing.” Michael Cole, PR advisor to Mohamed Al Fayed, said of the negative media coverage that McCanns subsequently received: “The monstering of the McCanns by the British media is one of the most shameful episodes of the British free press. It should not have happened. Perhaps it was the heat of the Algarve sun or the fact that they were a long way from Fleet Street, though a collective madness seemed to afflict the whole of the British Press corp.” In 2008, the McCanns accepted £550,000 libel damages and front-page apologies from Express Newspapers over false allegations that they were responsible for Madeleine’s death. Madeleine McCann: A Global Obsession airs tonight at 7pm on Channel 5 This from the Independent the day the programme aired.

Trying to find stuff that is balanced is difficult. Much of the stuff I have read online is either firmly pro or against the McCanns. There is also a lot of stuff that is taken out of context - again from both camps. It is hard to see how this will ever be resolved unless they find a body.

If Evans was a plumber or an insurance broker I wonder if people would have an issue with him returning to his job. Clearly he will be on the sex offenders register and returning as a teacher would be a no go so there are some things he couldn't go back to. Footballers are in the public eye and no matter what we think about them, are seen as role models for the youngsters who wear their names on the back of their shirts. I spoke to a guy who runs a moral philosophy workshop in our local pub about the issue and he is struggling with it too. As things stand though there is no question of his guilt in the eyes of the law.

The actress playing the lead said it wasn't meant to be a parallel (she would wouldn't she) and that it goes off in a different direction. Some parts are clearly different but others very similar (the rich benefactor - the red herring with the would be peado etc). Good programme though and does keep you guessing. Halo - I think you are right about people's perceptions about the McCanns. I'll give the book a read.

Sorry I don't really get your fattist point Batman. What has an opera singer got to do with anything? Did people complain because the guy is overweight???

You really are a very sad little man aren't you? You seem to get off on trying to be a smart ar*e when in fact you just come across as someone who doesn't have a life and gets off on taking the p*ss. Trouble is you are the one left looking stupid bless you. I bet you are a riot at parties. Carry on and pour your scorn buddy. At least it keeps you off of the streets.

Not sure about the advert you are talking about so don't know why I would find it offensive. Just for the record I said I found the Sainsburys ad "distasteful" rather than "offensive."

Doesn't take much to be fair though does it?

Now you have read some of the arguments against the ad, can you at least see the other point of view Batman?

Many moons ago I used to work for The Guardian and got to sit in on a number of editorial conferences. Back then the editors of each sections (finance, politics, sport etc) seemed to have plenty of autonomy over what they ran. Having said that there did seem to be a central theme - whether that was driven by TV media or the "wires" I don't know but only the tabloids seem to have very different front pages. All of the newsrooms get copies of all editions of other papers so that is probably why there is so much repetition in each paper. No one wants to miss a story.

Not here, we do love to flog a dead horse (perhaps there is a supermarket ad in there somewhere? )

You are completely missing the point.

Which is why I said earlier that the ad is a "lie."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/13/sainsburys-christmas-ad-first-world-war Here is the article in The Guardian which I thought was worth reading (especially the replies below). Sorry that I couldn't cut and paste.

I promised myself that I wouldn't be seduced back here after getting "Fryed" but I spent an hour watching a programme last night which purported to deal with why the McCanns get so much press and the parents of other missing children get essentially none after the initial interest. In effect the programme turned out to be mostly another McCann puff piece. It skirted round the more important issues and seemed to focus on how driven the McCanns are, what lovely people they are and how they have been so badly treated by the media (the talking media heads they rolled out all seemed to do their very best to redress the balance - all nice middle class people too!). Very disappointing in all. I did feel very sorry for the one guy they chose to interview whose son had disappeared and who thought it was a class thing as to why his son gets no media coverage at all.