Swan Lake - Act 3

From Wikipedia:

Swan Lake

 Act 3

"An opulent hall in the palace.

Guests arrive at the palace for a costume ball. Siegfried's mother commands him to dance with six princesses and choose one as a bride. Siegfried complains that he does not love any of them. Von Rothbart arrives in disguise with his daughter Odile. He has transformed Odile so that she appears identical to Odette in all respects except that she wears black rather than white. The prince mistakes her for Odette and dances with her. Odette appears as a vision and vainly tries to warn Siegfried that he is being deceived. But Siegfried remains oblivious and proclaims to the court that he intends to make Odile his wife. Von Rothbart shows Siegfried a magical vision of Odette and he realises his mistake. Grief-stricken, Siegfried hurries back to the lake."

This is the post in which we said we were going to revisit the “shadow trick”.

As we said in our Textusa Corrects Textusa post, we've found out that the “shadow trick” was much a bigger trick than we thought it to be. We then said that what we had said about it in the Bluntly Brunting Things Up post was not "satisfactorily correct".

Today we intend to show it like it is, to your and our full satisfaction.

The investigation we did for this post, I must confess, was one of the most satisfactory to do because our assumptions made us begin to go down a certain path but our findings made us correct our steps.

We began at a stage that we’d figured out that the “shadow trick” together with the “chair stance” one were done with the purpose of creating the illusion that a round table was bigger than it really was and that it was of a different shape, oval, than it really also was.

The problem is that we had a round table apparently bigger than those from the Tapas Bar as pictured by Mr. Amaral.

It was a bigger than these but obviously not big enough to sit 9 people, nor 10 if you're to include Najoua, the Quiz Mistress.

Mr Brunt and his crew made sure that we got that clear.

He doesn’t show the whole table for a reason. He is already sitting at the table and isn’t shown getting up. The camera also doesn’t pan around the room not allowing us to see the table among the rest of the furniture so we could've been able to compare it with others, nor can we make our own judgment about the size and adequateness of the esplanade.

As we’ve said many times, a round table for 9 is not an easy object to find. If Mr Brunt had found such a table, we would have surely seen it in all it’s glory and size and most likely fully garnished with placemats, cutlery, plates and even napkins to make the set complete.

But no, Mr.Brunt never gets to show us the whole table, that place where the T9 last had peace .

So we thought that it could be a table brought in from The Mill, Ocean Club’s real restaurant, or then from some private house in PdL.

Although the table is shiny and highly reflective it’s seems to be darker than the ones from Mr Amarals’ pictures and this seemed to confirm our suspicions that it was table brought from outside on purpose.

We then started to seek evidence to prove this fact.

We started by checking that the square tables were of similar dimensions as the round tables. 

Both are a fold-away type, with X-format legs, typical of this kind of outside furniture. Fragile by nature not meant to be used with frequency to hold the weight of the various objects, food and liquids that are usually involved in a full course meal for 9 people.

Then we set out to compare the props used during the Brunt report and the furniture we see in Mr. Amaral’s pictures and verified that in fact the chairs were the same, and that a table from the Tapas Bar was used as the shadow (in blue) of the table legs’ X-format is clearly visible. This shadow comes from a table that's in the middle of the set of chairs (in yellow) near the beam.

And then… and then I was struck by a fist.

No, not figuratively speaking, literally. Struck really hard by this fist:

This fist hit me just like a cricket ball batted for 6 and that landed right in my teacup!!

Remember the question I asked in our Bluntly Brunting Things Up post about the picture above?

"Where is the table’s shadow?" That was the question I asked.

And when I asked that question that was when the cricket ball should have hit not the teacup but me bonkers on the top of my head to serve me right and show me how stupid I was being.

I even give myself the clue to the right path when, following that embarrassingly stupid question, I went and  wrote that “Mr. Brunt has the left half of his face lit up, while the other side is in shadow, meaning that a light projector from his left was used.”

I should have never have asked where was the shadow, as it’s perfectly visible in the carefully positioned chair on the right of Mr. Brunt, but should have asked the following crucial question: where in the heck is the light?

Where is the light on the table? Where exactly on that side of the table does the light end and the shadow begin? 

In other words, where is the EDGE of the table??

There isn’t one and it should be one there. No, not SHOULD be but HAD to be!

Observe the following on the above picture. One can see light reflected on Mr Brunt’s closed fist and even in what is visible of his forearm, which is quite a bit, when this part of his body is actually at angle that gets no direct light, that being the reason it’s not as bright as the fingers, but still perfectly visible. One can outline distinctly the knuckle line in Mr Brunt's fist.

Mr Brunt’s knuckles form an edge which is clearly visible but right in front of it there's no clearly defined table edge!! Could someone please show me a clearly defined table edge in the white trapezium above? There isn't any!!

And darkness doesn't serve as an excuse because there had to be one by the amount of light that illuminates so well the chair on the right of Mr. Brunt!

We’re either before a most strange phenomenon that defies the expansion of light waves or before some sort of illusion.

I don't know about you but I'm not going against the laws of physics.

And this illusionism might just explain one of the most interesting things there is to be watched on Mr Brunt’s report. Some may call it the “fidgeting edge” but I prefer, to maintain things within the ballet theme, to call it the “ballerina table”.

Like a ballerina that is up on her toes and doesn't go anywhere although we can see her feet in movement so the same happens with the table. With the “ballerina table” if you watch when Mr. Brunt does his "Negligence Pirouette" (from 1:35) you can see that edge move, flickering a couple or more times, and, like the ballerina, goes nowhere.

video link

And you know why the edge moves so?

The edge moving is just a consequence of the fact the image has been digitally manipulated, or I think the correct term is remastered, with the intent to hide in the best possible way the REAL edge of the table on the right side of Mr. Brunt, something that should be clearly discernible but after this is done, no longer was. 

And to further prove what we're saying you only have to enlarge the following area below: 

It doesn't take an expert that there are areas where it seems that some of the colouring seems like it was done with a large paintbrush:

This is not the way pixels spread out when an image is enlarged. You can testify to that by looking at the various images we've enlarged in this and other posts. This is pure image manipulation.

Knowing that we were before a visual HOAX we stopped looking for an external or internal table because we had first to try and determine what table we were looking for!

To solve our problem we got an unexpected help from Mr Brunt when he does his “Negligence Pirouette”:

When he does that so does the camera move, to confirm this you’re now able to see more of the back of the chair on the right of Mr. Brunt than you could before.

It’s an ever so slight movement but enough to alter the “lighting arrangement” and with it may just provide a clue that answers many questions.

We went back to the Tapas Bar round tables. What did we know of them? Not much. Only that they were of the same dimension as the square tables as we’ve said already. And that both types had the same X-format fold away legs.

We noticed that the square tables had a pattern, quadrilateral designs, each made up of 7 wooden slats, within an outer border:

Now it made sense that the furniture, for obvious decorative reasons, were bought in bulk, thus, as example, all the chairs are the exact same type.

If that was so, then the round tables would have the same pattern as the square ones:

Unfortunately, if we have little imagery of the Tapas esplanade, we have less than that on the Tapas Bar round tables. We only have two pictures, and both from Mr. Amaral’s book. And only one shows the top of the table but at a very slanted angle:

Augmented, it tell us nothing about the tabletop. It can have a pattern but it can also be with no pattern at all. So these are the two possibilities for the Tapas Bar round tables' tabletop, with a pattern and without one:

But if we go back to our now familiar “Negligence Pirouette” what do we see?

A pattern.

And similar to the one we find in the square tables:

Also you can also see in this picture what they so desperately tried to hide: the table's edge on the right of Mr Brunt:

The "reflection" that you see in front of Mr Brunt's sleeve is not a reflection at all because it curves the opposite way. That, dear reader, is the illusive edge of the table. 

And now we might understand that the reflection below (area in blue) is also a non-reflection but the inside of Mr Brunt's sleeve. If not that, then it's a reflection of what?

Mr Brunt used nothing but a Tapas Bar round table. Remarkable to say the least.

And, as you know, if you can't see that, you know we know the reason why.

So, in Swan Lake's terms, Von Rothbart (Mr Brunt) had transformed Odile (a Small Round Table (SRT)), so that she appears identical to Odette, (a Big Round Table (BRT), to Siegfrieds’ eyes.

We’ve vainly, for almost 4 years, tried to show Siegfried that he is being deceived. But Siegfried remained oblivious and proclaimed that it was Odette (a BRT), and those saying otherwise were raving mad lunatics.

Von Rothbart (Mr Brunt) had showed Siegfried a magical vision of Odette (a BRT) and we now hope that Siegfried now realises his mistake.

The SRT was never a BRT. The T9BRT never existed. “Odile” was just a Tapas Bar round table.

This is how we think this illusion was created:

For you to compare and make up your own judgment:

 In trying to fool us, Mr Brunt only confirms the obvious: a Tapas bar round table could never, ever, sit 9 people.

We know that the Swan Lake has alternative endings, so we’ll patiently wait to see which fate will be chosen for the Final Act of this Maddie Affair. However, in none of the possibilities things end up well for Von Rothbart or Odille…

Mr Brunt, you can say that you set up the table as a prop in the way described for dramatic effect alleging that you believed that the story of the table was true.

But then, with each trick you saw yourself "forced" to use to make the story "true" shouldn't you have rapidly become a disbeliever?

The fact the piece was aired means that that didn't happen. And you're very clear in your words that that was THE table: 

“I’m sitting at the table where the McCanns and their friends were eating on the night that Madeleine disappeared. This place is shut now for the winter.

The apartment is some distance away, it’s beyond the swimming pool, there’s a wall and a hedge, and behind that there’s a path.

It would be very difficult, from here, to see anybody going in and out of the apartment.

Going to check on the kids wasn’t easy.

Well, 80 paces as far as the gate, the distance between the Tapas Bar and the apartment, not quite as Gerry McCann described it.”

If we add to all this his  unexpected “intimacy” with Jennifer and Robert Murat,  we have to question Mr Brunt's role in PdL.

The picture above shows a man walking off with the emptiness of one who has just been shown where he has left his soul.

We’ll not go the easy route to condemn your actions Mr Brunt.

Many have sold their souls for much less and we understand your predicament under the circumstances.

This does not minimize an ounce of the severity of your actions, it just states that in the current state of affairs of modern societies the soulless survival is taken as a regular lifestyle.

We refuse to accept that.

At least without putting up a fight.

We hope that by exposing this deed of yours Mr Brunt we will allow your peers some “elbow room” in the real Big Round Table that life will never cease to be and they may act more independently than your generation of journalists or “journalists” was able to.

Finally, a word to our readers. We hope that you understand the importance of this post. 




Post Scriptum:

First, to our reader Guerra, who submitted the video such a long time ago, we hope that now you understand the reasons for taking so long. The clues, as you can see, are all there to be seen immediately but the process of proving what we saw had to be a painstakingly meticulous one and this takes time, a resource none of us have that much to spare from our personal lives.

Second, we’d like to inform our readers that, for personal reasons, we’re taking another break until the end of the month. We’ll continue to publish your comments, which, as you well know, are posts by themselves and the reason many come to visit the blog.




Post-Post Scriptum: 

A reader has placed 2 comments (Anon at Nov 11, 2012 9:00:00 AM and Nov 11, 2012 1:05:00 PM) raising the possibility that Mr Brunt might be using a different chair from the ones seen in the report. The only way to clarify this is through images. I think this is what Anon is referring to:

As you can see, by enlarging the picture below, is that there's a transparency between this arc and the back of the chair that is sideways behind Mr Brunt. This clearly proves that its a shadow. Of what, I don't know nor I think is relevant:

Mr Brunt when talking to us before his "Negligence Pirouette" covers completely his chair, only when he turns his body is there a little bit of the chair visible, in all similar with the other chairs as shown circled:

Hopes this clarifies your question.



Post-Post-Post Scriptum: 

Hi Textusa,
It is nice and easy to have the comments listed by numbers but since then I can't see the comments made after 200. There is anyone experiencing the same problem with a clue, or is only my computer that decide to rest?
Thanks

Dear Reader, another reader, Su, requested that we adopt the numbering in the comments which we've applied. However Blogger only allows 200 per page, so all you have to do is click on the "newer" link at the end of the comments.



Post-Post-Post-Post-Scriptum:

As of today, November 30th, 2012, this post "Swan Lake - Act 3" is the blog's first post to have passed the 3,000 pageviews mark:

This post now holds the following records:

- Most number of page views;

- Most number of comments (what a pleasant surprise);

- Most number of Post-Scriptums!

The Chair Stance

During the “Brunt vídeo”, in the bit he appears sitting at the Tapas Bar, the most noticeable thing that you notice is NOT, obviously, the T9 Big Round Table or T9BRT.

However, in our opinion, it is. You just don’t know it is but that it is the exact intent of the report.

The most noticeable thing you consciously noticed was how negligent the T9 were.

When Mr Brunt turns around and points in the direction of the distant and practically imperceptible apartment 5A showing you, clearly, how totally irresponsible all the T9 had been, how really pointless it was to even think that the apartment could be observed from where they were.

Negligence was the word that popped right into your mind at that very moment. How could they, you asked yourself, leave their little children alone in apartments that were far from being at a reasonable distance to guarantee a minimally responsible surveillance?

That turn that Mr Brunt does, arm pointing towards the 5A, I call it the “Negligence Pirouette”.

A move of capital importance as you’ll see. Not on this post. This post is not about ballet, we’ll leave that for later. Today it’s about stage-propping.

The “Negligence Pirouette” was indeed the most noticeable thing you consciously noticed, but the report wasn’t destined for your conscious self but rather had your subconscious in its sights.

Pieces of information were fed so that you would absorb them all at once and, unwittingly, notice and assume the T9BRT as the genuine article. No conscious cooperation on your part was required, except, of course, for your eyes to be looking at the TV screen.

You see, the “Negligence Pirouette” practically “grabs” your brain by the collar and makes it concentrate on that fact while distracting it from all other details that are there to be seen and are captured by your subconscious.

I’ve already spoken about the “shadow trick” in the Bluntly Brunting Things Up post and said in our Textusa Corrects Textusa post that it was an issue we would come back to in a later date.

Today let me call you attention to another neat little optical illusion that I shall call the “Chair Stance”.

As is shown above when Mr. Brunt leaves the Tapas after doing what he had been there to do, the rest of the area of the esplanade under the canopy is empty, as expected.

That means that whatever piece of furniture that was shown during this report served solely the purpose of being props.

The idea, obviously, was to replicate the scenario with the original furniture (why use other?) where the Tapas dinners had taken place.

Any stage-hand will tell you that no prop is set up at random. Each object has to have a purpose to be where it is otherwise it simply isn’t brought on stage.

So when Mr Brunt speaks to you, what "props" were used?

First you have the table, obviously. Then you have three sets of chairs.

The first set is made up of four chairs, the one where Mr Brunt is sitting in, two to his left and one to his right.

The second set, is made up of three chairs, next to the beam.

The third set, is behind Mr Brunt of which we can only see two chairs.

Of the three sets of chairs, let’s concentrate on the only set that matters, the first set. Let's number to each chair of that particular set:

What stands out right away?

The distance between chairs 1-2 and the one between chairs 2-3 are not exactly the same, to say the least, as the one between chairs 3-4:

And when Mr Brunt does his “Negligence Pirouette” we can see clearly the distance between chairs 2-3.

Where is the space D between chairs 3 and 4? There isn't one. Chair 4 is stacked up right against chair 3.

One does need elbow room to eat, doesn’t one? Mr. Brunt exemplifies:

Where’s the elbow room for the two people that had to sit in chairs 3 and 4? There isn’t any whatsoever. And just by looking at Mr Brunt you couldn't sit two people on those two chairs the way they're set even if you tried without one falling off of his chair!

Mr Amaral unintentionally gives us a clue how far apart the chairs must be, on the photograph where he signals apartment 5A. On this photo a round table appears in the foreground:

Unfortunately for the T9 and their Tapas dinners theory, the chairs at Tapas bar are rather wide as can be seen. 

Check for yourself how much further you would have to stretch the yellow arrow above to fit in another chair between those two. Picture how far apart the back of the chairs would have to be if the chairs were joined feet to feet. 

Now stretch that distance a little further to give some passage room. You know, there was a lot of standing up and sitting down in those evenings according to some people.

That's why when one of our readers left the following comment I almost called him/her a spoilsport because s/he had almost rendered useless this post:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Bluntly Bruntling Things Up":

"good point anonimous, the chairs... did you see also how wide the chairs are in GA book? I can imagine the caricature of the Tapas 9 trying to acommodate 9/ 10 of these chairs around any round table ( no matter the size of the table). if they managed to squeeze the chairs one against the other, the all crew had to fly to get in to the chairs. so many things acquired a special gift that night to be able to fly, that Kate should be a beetle and Jane Tanner the luggage normally beetles carry on."

Posted by Anonymous to Textusa at Sep 22, 2012 10:01:00 AM

Look now at the distance between chairs 3 and 4:

Look at how evenly distributed are the chairs, and the distance between them, in a real table for 8 people: 

So why is chair 4 positioned in such a ridiculous way? 

Simple answer: to create a simple effect.

To give you the optical illusion that the table is bigger than it is. Logic dictates that chairs are set around a table according to the table's shape, right? So by setting the chairs in a linear way, it gives the illusion that the edge of the table follows that line, thus the "oval" perception.

Neat little trick, isn’t it? Those 2 chairs were placed there by Mr Brunt and his crew that way to deliberately deceive you.

And don't go saying that the chairs are set up like that because Mr. Brunt required the space to do his “Negligence Pirouette”. 

Allegedly Gerry McCann did the exact same pirouette on that exact same table when he had the conversation with Jez Wilkins on the night of May 2nd about the child checking system just when one had finished dinner and the other had just started...

Textusa Correcting Textusa

There’s a correction that this blog has to make.

Where?

In our Bluntly Brunting Things Up post where we told you was the exact spot where the T9BRT (T9 Big Round Table)  in the Tapas esplanade.

There is very little visual material to work on this issue. The fact that there’s very little imagery of the Tapas esplanade, the location where dined the parents, and their friends, of the world’s most renown “abducted” child last dined is in itself, a very, very strange and suspicious one.

But what we have is what we have and is what we work with, and we got it wrong so must admit to that, which we’re now doing.

From the first day that I read Mr Amaral’s book among the many questions I asked myself, mostly rhetorical and in pure dismay and amazement, there was one that I was unable to answer, or better said, to understand, and that was why the detective pointed to that particular table as the one the T9 said they used on that fateful night:

It seemed obviously too small, which in fact it is, and too near the canopy.

This stands out further when one can see in the foreground of same picture 3 square tables that would accommodate 8 people, so only one more was required extra 2 places, one of which that would used to sit 9 people:

Remember that then I had no idea that the table was round as per Kate McCann and Jane Tanner.

The fact that it was so near the canopy (just out of pure laziness, I ask the readers if there is anyone that refers in their PJ statement or anywhere else that the T9 were near the plastic window, was this a myth or is it just something I made up in my mind by looking at that picture?) just seemed highly unlikely as if there was something the T9 required it was space and choosing a table next to the canopy limited significantly that.

The Brunt video proved that I was right when the Sky News reporter places the T9BRT away from the canopy as we showed in the Brunting post.

So why had Mr. Amaral signaled that particular table when it seemed obvious, to me at least, that it wasn’t in that small table that was "pushed" against the canopy, that the T9 had dined?

The answer is simple: Mr. Amaral was right and I wrong.

How did I come to that conclusion?

Well, I enlarged the picture to confirm the “X” leg format of the various tables, both square and round (the reason I did this you’ll find out in a later post), and saw at once that I was wrong.

As you can see, it’s away from the canopy, at the angle from the beam that can be seen in the Brunt video as well as away from the tree. That chair in the background (yellow arrow), which is close to the canopy, was what had misled me. It gives the optical illusion that it is part of the signaled table set but it isn’t.

The signaled table is in the exact spot where Mr Brunt is sitting in his report and where Gerry says it is in the Mockumentary:

We, in our post, wrongly placed it a couple yards further in and even said that where the T9BRT was supposed to be, there appeared a square corner in the picture below that we used on that post:

Now we know that the blue arrow in the above picture is wrong. The T9BRT is, in this picture, superimposed by the white arrow that points to the tree.

Mr Amaral signals that table because that was the table he was told by whoever that that was the one used by the T9.

Sorry Mr Amaral for having doubted your word, or in this particular instance, your arrow, on this one.

We also apologise to our readers for this fact.

We missed it by a couple of yards which are completely irrelevant. About the two relevant facts of that post, I can, at this stage, tell you that one continues to be absolutely unchanged and that is the fact that that object is said, by Mr Brunt, to be the genuine, one and only mysterious and illusive T9BRT.

The other fact,  the “shadow trick”, we've found out that it is a much bigger trick than we thought it to be. Shall we say that what we say about it in the Brunting post is not "satisfactorily correct". But unlike the mistake mentioned in this post, for which we assume full responsibility as certainly Mr Amaral didn't take the picture with the intent to deceive us, in the case of the size/shape of the table, there was a deliberate intention to mislead the viewer.

We thought we were so clever for having detected the trick and just moved on grinning like the idiots we were being because, as always, arrogance will only block reason and we failed to see how big a trick the trick really was. Hopefully soon we will correct our hand on this one too, but then we won't apologise because as we've said many times, s/he who says that s/he hasn't been fooled is the biggest fool of all.

Back to the fact that those couple of yards may  be irrelevant  as fact, they aren’t irrelevant for us, as a blog..

We wish never to make any sort of false statement, accusation or assumption, so when we find that we’ve done just that we have no qualms whatsoever in recognising the fact and correcting it.

As you know, and we’ve repeatedly have said, we have no inside information and we make our conclusions solely from publicly available material and based on logic and logical variables determined by gravity, space, distance, speed, volume, weight and time.

Now, the fact that we now have in Mr Amaral’s picture a T9SRT (T9 Small Round Table) instead of a T9BRT is the content of another post, not this one.

This post is for us to "backtrack our steps", as our friend Insane would say, something we won’t ever hesitate to do whenever we find ourselves to have been wrong. Here, we'll always correct what is there to be corrected and not turn our eyes away and pretend we didn't see.