Mr Grub: Best Celebrity Fathers

"You! Yes, you behind the bike sheds. Stand still, laddy".

Sorry to be so authoritarian Gerry, but with all this talk in the Portuguese media about how you control the flow of information, and your use of body language and subtle physical contact to guide Kate on the occasions you allow her to speak, I thought you may be the sort of person who appreciates someone who gives orders.

Interesting thing about Kate - having been taught a little about body language, I have noticed how she often appears to give the same "am I doing this right?" look as Madeleine appears to in some of her photographs. Then again, you did say Maddy takes after her mum.

I was watching a commercial television current affairs program last night. Normally I don't enjoy this particular program as their information is often as inaccurate and as doctored as a McCann family press conference - only with better sun tans. However, they did carry a segment that caught my eye. The best Celebrity Fathers. As you can imagine, I thought to myself, "I bet good ole Gerry will be near the top of that list."

Well I'll be buggered - not a mention of your name. O.K, granted there were three criteria needed to be nominated and you only fulfilled the one beginning with C, which is somehow quite appropriate. Even so, I thought you would at least get a mention after your high profile, global media extravaganza.

On the other hand, no one here really knows who you are. All we see are two parents whose child is missing because she was left unsupervised, and we think, "It's your child, get off your bums and look for her, instead of using emotional blackmail to get others to do your job".

It's not that we don't care about Madeleine, we do - we just don't give a toss about you and Kate. We don't need to know the ifs and buts and wherefores - we just know the core element. You chose to neglect your children.

The winner by the way was Hugh Jackman, who is of course Australian. Between you me and the gate-post, I myself think it was rigged - as in the words of your Scottish friend, "We look after our own".

However, there was some discussion about Michael Jackson. You remember Michael Jackson, and the infamous baby dangling incident? Remember how the British media attacked Jackson and his irresponsible behaviour? The press called for all sorts of enquiries, investigations and intervention by child welfare agencies. Same thing happened with Britney Spears who was vilified for her irresponsibility.

But with you and Kate - nothing. All we hear is the Silence of The Rat Pact. In fact we hear it so clearly we find it upsetting and disturbing.

Two parents who deliberately, knowingly and frequently leave their children unsupervised both home and abroad (you must have done the same thing at home, because one of our relatives said you "don't do it much at home" implying that it does actually happen), became the poster children for responsible parenting.

The question is - why? What is the secret Gerry? Why does the British media think we need thought control?

We don't need no thought control - we need answers.

* From Pink Floyd's "Brick In The Wall" good job I did a quick check before posting - I'd misspelled "brick"