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The fact that my erstwhile ex-housemate Jim recently hooked up with a girl called ‘Maddy’ offers a scary amount of potential for sick jokes. Just for one example, whenever she walks into a room I could loudly exclaim that ‘I’ve found Maddy!’. That, no doubt, would generate hours of amusement. The revelation also reminded me of a pretty damn funny story related to me, which I shall now pass on to you, dear reader.

But first, a disclaimer. It goes without saying that the actual facts of the abduction of a little girl on holiday with her parents are horrific beyond belief. Of course, the red-top froth and outpour of emotion at the demise of another People’s Princess reached epic proportions of stupidity within weeks. Tales of a bunch of bored journo’s hanging out in Portugese pubs, hungrily accepting every local rumour as unequivocal fact in their pursuit of the next front page scoop have become legendary. Their hounding of Robert Murat threw fresh doubt on the methods of the press, while the Shannon Matthews affair was hilarious and disturbing in equal measure. The disappearance quickly transcended one family’s personal tragedy and became the media event that would go on to define the year 2007.

At the peak of Maddy-mania, my cousin Rob (who just happens to be a dead-ringer for camp chat show host Graham Norton) was peacefully spending a Sunday afternoon with his family in a beer garden in Norfolk. Next thing he knows, a police car comes screeching up, and a bunch of rozzers pile out, saying they had received a report that Madeleine McCann had been spotted with Rob. His two young daughters (twins, by the way) did indeed bare a marked resemblance, but the police quickly realised they neither was Maddy and went on their way. End of story… apart from the fact I take great delight in imagining the 999 call that preceded the police raid:

“Hello emergency? Police please. I’ve found Madeleine McCann. She’s with Graham Norton in a pub in Norfolk… and the bastard’s only gone and cloned her…”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Randomness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.