Smiling and laughing

One of the things that really seems to get peoples goat is the McCanns smiling and even laughing, especially in the early days in 2007.

They really should not listen to "desert island disks" today -

Julia Samuel was the guest, a scion of the Guinness family, a psychotherapist and a member of the Charity Child Bereavement UK. They help paents who have lost a child, and children who have lost a parent. So she may have a bit of expertise in this field.

Kirsty Young suggested that her job may be a bit sombre. Not at all - when a parent talks about a lost child, or in remembering them,it is common for their face to light up at the memories of the person they love, to laugh, to be animated. This is perfectly normal, and is because their mind is focussed on the good memories, the happy times, the delight. At other times, the sense of loss and the despair is crushing. Laughter and tears, all at once.

Anyone who has lost a parent, a child, a good friend, a spouse will know this at a deep level (although may not have thought about it in such a clinical way).

This is of course quite beyond some of the "sceptics" - "if i'd lost a child i'd never smile again, so how dare them McCanns".

Bollocks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b053sbvb

This attitude defeats me as well. It's obvious that The McCanns were reacting to acts of kindness and compassion.

I often think a lot of the haters have a few of the basic building blocks missing, Jean-Pierre. They simply have no grasp of the wide range of perfectly normal human reactions.

Also, a lot of the armchair defectives are so dumb, they think TV cop shows are documentaries. They seem to idolize Columbo, for instance, which I personally never liked, as it was so predictable, formulaic and repetitive.

bb1 wrote:I often think a lot of the haters have a few of the basic building blocks missing, Jean-Pierre. They simply have no grasp of the wide range of perfectly normal human reactions.

Also, a lot of the armchair defectives are so dumb, they think TV cop shows are documentaries. They seem to idolize Columbo, for instance, which I personally never liked, as it was so predictable, formulaic and repetitive.

But Bonny - isn't CSI a documentary....?

Oh yes, I forgot, it is! Did you see the episode about the pretendy profiler and the pretendy policeman doing a Ghoul Tour of Portugal?

bb1 wrote:I often think a lot of the haters have a few of the basic building blocks missing, Jean-Pierre. They simply have no grasp of the wide range of perfectly normal human reactions.

Also, a lot of the armchair defectives are so dumb, they think TV cop shows are documentaries. They seem to idolize Columbo, for instance, which I personally never liked, as it was so predictable, formulaic and repetitive.

That is because they are completely as you say, Bonny. Too afraid to turn away from the original hit premise via the network and advertisers.