It seems that things at 'the fund' are worse than we were led to believe.

All last week Team McCann were running stories appealing for more money, and claiming that unless the dosh was forthcoming that the search for Madeliene would grind to a halt.

In yesterday's Sunday Mail, John McCann, who gave up his job to become chief money counter, was more forthright in his views of who preceisely is to blame:

""The funds aren't anywhere near the level they were a few months ago thanks to a lot of the crap that's been written over here.""

I do find myself wondering what planet the McCann's live on sometimes.

Ordinary people do have sympathy for the McCanns, and the situation they have found themselves in. But can you honestly say there has been any sign of a mass movement in the UK?

The events that have made the news have needed pretty tight cropping by a picture editor to make it look like a crowd was there. And that the concert, in July, that was supposed to attract 3500 people, managed the attract around 80.

I can honestly say that I have seen a writst band, let alone anyone wearing one. The sole proof I have witnessed of support for the McCanns were posters in Superdrug, and photocopied posters in Jessops and Birthdays card shop. All of these posters came down within days of the McCann's fleeing from Portugal.

What I have noticed is that a number of celebrities have pledged the odd £100k here and there, and that soon mounts up. Without finding exactly who pledged what, it does take a genius to work out that the bulk of the money in the fund came from a handfull of people. Indeed it could be argued that the fund was established in order to allow these gifts to be given in some quasi-legal way.

Of course the spin was that the McCann's were facing a situation like Live Aid, and were forced to set up the company, so great was the public demand to send them money. But one wonders how true this is.

The McCann's accepted a cheque from the Leicester Mercury at the beginning of October. That cheque was for £57k. This was the total of money collected by the paper on their behalf since May; and equates to roughly £10k per month.

To place this in context, the Leicester Mercury is the local paper and would have given great coverage to the McCanns, and also to any fund rasising events in the area. Presumably there would have been collections locally, and that these monies were all paid in centrally to the Leicester Mercury: who would have been keen to be seen helping.

Which is not to dismiss or decry the efforts of the people of Leicester, merely to place into context that around 5th of the fund was raised in this one cheque; and that covered a five month period.

It is also interesting to consider what John McCann means by "the level they were a few months ago".

Again you don't have to be a genius to work out that if you spend more money that you are recieving then the balance will diminish. Presumably Mr McCann is shocked to see just how quickly money can be spent on advertising campaigns, private detectives, forensic examiners, legal fees and living expenses. And I doubt Clarence's phone bill will come cheap.

Again it suggests that the McCanns are not living in the real world.

Posh and Becks and Brittany Spears can afford a celebrity lifestyle because they have a web of endorsements and rolyalty payments providing them with a regular income.

(In the case of Brittany it is incredibly @$750k a month (@ £2.85))

Though I do wonder why John McCann thinks that the money is drying up because of stroies written in the press.

The McCanns get wall-to-wall positive coverage in the press. To the extend that headline writers perjure themselves in Pravdaesque fashion to make day appear like night. Who can forget the days of headlines about Kate McCann's weeping?

It would be interesting to know which 'crap' story Mr McCann thinks is to blame for the fall in donations?

Or could it be the crap story that the McCann fled the police after refusing to answer questions, that could have helped to discover what happened to their missing daughter, that is to blame for the current cash flow difficulties?

Of course there are those that say that it is all about the money, by Team McCann would disagree with those people: I guess.

peace:)