Cinderella of Luz

1. Introduction

ALL – except for us in this blog and for our supporters – interested in the Maddie case have to agree on one thing: the Tapas bar was an exceptionally good restaurant.

So exceptional that we know of no other in Portugal where people queue to make reservations to have dinner there.

We have seen at many restaurants people waiting outside or by the bar for a table to vacate. But to come in the morning and queue to be able to get a cover, with a high degree of uncertainty of getting it, for that evening, Tapas is absolutely unique in Portugal.

We would even go as far as saying it is unequalled in the world.


2. The wonder-restaurant

We know of many restaurants that are fully booked not only for the day but also for the following days, weeks and even months but these all have the same reservation procedure when it comes to getting a table: one can book today for whenever.

One can book for a different day from the one the reservation is being made.

To demonstrate, today being Friday, in any restaurant in the world one can book a table for tomorrow, Saturday, or for whenever the restaurant in question has a table available, if that means 3 months from today.

Only Tapas in Praia da Luz had in place the “first-come-first-served-but-only-for-today” reservation system. Unique in the entire world.

Thus the queues.

It seems one could not get in the queue, say on Monday, and upon realising that one had woken up just a little too late to get a cover that day and just ask to have a reservation for Tuesday. No, one had to accept one’s fate for the day and if one wanted a meal at Tapas one would simply have get up early on the Tuesday and apply like and with all others for a coveted spot. And hope for the best.

Was there a sign saying “Tapas reservations from 9am – 10am”? At what time did they start to accept reservations? Did one just stand there and wait for the grace of an employee to decide whenever he or she was in the mood to take reservations?

We said in our post “Tapas Dining - Fawlty Towers Style” that waiter Joaquim José Moreira Baptista said that to book a Tapas table, guests had to queue at reception from 11 am onwards on the day (The Sun 23.10.07).

The article, brimming with the Narrative of Negligence, was the Sun’s front page of Oct 23 2007: “MADDIE EXCLUSIVE: WHAT WAITERS SAW. Kate left kids alone 3 hours a night”.

Although in the article it’s said “a waiter at the resort where they ate out nightly with three other couples told The Sun it was always the men who looked in on the children. The employee, who did not want to be named... ” starts with “Jose Baptiste, 45, said...”

About the reservations this is what José Baptista had to say:

“Initially the couples went to the restaurant with their children in tow. But the youngsters were cranky and they moved to the nearer poolside tapas bar after a "quiet word" with the manager.

The waiter added: "To get a table guests have to queue up at reception from 11am on the day.

"But somehow the McCanns made a special arrangement to get a table for nine for the last four nights of their holiday.”

We also found an article from the Daily Mail, of the same date with a very similar title: “Kate and Gerry 'left Madeleine alone for three hours for four nights in a row'”:

“The waiter, who has asked not to be identified, said the nightly routine was "set in stone", making it easy for a potential abductor to "choose the right moment to take the child".

He said the group made a "special arrangement" to book the same table at 8pm every night so they could sit outside, 50 metres from where their children lay sleeping.

He told how the arrangement was widely known about by workers at the restaurant, who thought it was strange that other holiday-makers had to queue for reservations at the popular tapas bar.”

José Baptista saying that it was at 11am is contradicted by a guest Andrew Oxlade, Editor of the blog “This is money” in his May 9 2007 blog entry speaking from his own (alleged) very fresh experience: “My experience of Maddie's resort in Praia de Luz, the Algarve”:

“Around that pool was the Tapas bar which was in high demand every night. Most guests went to the buffet at the Ocean Club’s Millennium restaurant, a 10-minute walk away from the McCanns’ apartment. But eager guests would queue from 9am to book one of the limited number of tables at the Tapas bar, which served barbecued fish and meat dishes to order. Both restaurants were included in the price of the holiday”.

Which was it, 9am or 11am? How confused the guests must have been. But no confusion that there were guests queueing up for Tapas! What an exquisite restaurant it must have been.

We do wonder how many guests did spend their entire holiday trying to get a meal at Tapas without success? We are sure many got up early every single day of their holiday only to face bitter disappointment.

A holiday spent fruitlessly in queues. Quite sad when one comes to think about it. Our sympathy to all those people. How frustrating it must have been for them to have seen the T9 at Tapas every night.

But at least these “queue-people” entertained themselves with something to do every day during that holiday which unlike all other of the rest of the 300+ guests who were also there and about who we still have to be told to this day what they did during all that time in a Praia da Luz without beach or pool.

But this “first-come-first-served-but-only-for-today” reservation system was complemented with a “teacher’s-pet-guests” one, or as José Baptista said it best with his “special arrangement” and “"quiet word" with the manager”. A very nepotistic reservation subsystem. Only for those guests who the restaurant considered didn’t have to stand every day in line like all the rest. The elite of the elite.

The T9 seem to have benefitted from this as well. They were part of the chosen few, the “queueless ones”.

Only a fabulously extraordinary restaurant can treat its potential customers with such disdain and arrogance.

And indeed it seemed it could as we have yet to read a single complaint about this reservation system at Tapas in any of the reviews we have read about the Ocean Club, as per our “Reviewing the Reviews” post.

Guests were mistreated but the desire to have dinner at Tapas was apparently so great that they put up with the rejection without complaint.

It is quite strange that such a sought after restaurant is hardly mentioned in the reviews and that can only be explained by the fact that those fortunate enough to have been able to get a meal there not wanting to share it with the world, not wanting it to be known.

Tapas was to be their little secret. The less people knew how brilliantly good Tapas was the less long the queues would be.

And the secret was so great that even guests there didn't know they had to queue up were surprised by having dinner there. A guest on Tripadvisor wrote the following on Sept 20 2007:

“The staff at the Tapas bar were great and the pool was lovely and clean. We should know the kids spent most of the two weeks we were there in it!. We also had dinner at the Tapas bar which was a great surprise.... really nice food, well presented and the staff were pleasant.”

Tapas did not have Michelin stars because that company only gives 3 stars and anything below 5 or 6 stars would be simply unbecoming for such a fantastic restaurant.

Its quick serving and efficiency speak for itself as we showed in our post “Nights of the round table”.


3. Allotment

The reason for the supposed queues could only have been because of limited spaces available.

Kate confirms this in her book:

“Today we’d been able to make a dinner reservation for the adult contingent at the poolside Tapas restaurant. Apparently, this restaurant, a canopied outdoor addition to the bar, catered for only up to fifteen diners in the evenings, and reservations could not be made until the morning of the day in question. Being so close, it was far more convenient than the Millennium.”

Only 15 covers total says Kate. And she confirms that the “first-come-first-served-but-only-for-today” reservation system was indeed in place.

Receptionist Sandro Silva has this to say about Tapas v Millenium and the limited number of covers available:

“Adds that this family, like all Mark Warner clients had a half-board regimen, which is breakfast and dinner. For dinner, customers can opt between two restaurants, the "Tapas" and the "Millennium", the first being an “á la carte” service, and in the second "bufett" [sic], the customers choose not only because of food but also for reasons of proximity in relation to their accommodation. However, the deponent refers that the guests convey to him that restaurant "Tapas" has better quality that it's difficult to get a reservation as it has little [Portuguese: poucos] places.”

Sandro Silva is not as precise in the number of bookings available as Kate.

But Sandro was one half of what we called the “Tapas Duet”, the other half being Luísa Coutinho.

Luisa is, as we saw in our “Chasing Staff” post, a relative of the Garveigh family, joint owners of the OC.  John Garveigh B 1928 was one of 3 joint owners of the Ocean Club, with George Robin Crosland and David Symington.

As we then said we found it to be quite a coincidence to find the very person who was said to have arranged for the Tapas 9 to dine at the Tapas Bar every night was one of the Garveigh family:

“Remembers that, on Sunday 29, one of the elements of the group that arrived with the minor Madeleine McCann, whose name doesn’t know and only knows being of male gender and tall and thin, came to the deponent requesting the reservation [Portuguese: marcação] of dinner for all the group, for all the week, and always for 20H30”

This is what Luísa had to say say about Tapas v Millenium and the limited number of covers available:

“Adds that this family, like all Mark Warner clients had a half-board regimen, which is breakfast and dinner. For dinner, customers can opt between two restaurants, the "Tapas" and the "Millennium", the first being an “á la carte” service, and in the second "bufett" [sic], the customers choose not only because of food but also for reasons of proximity in relation to their accommodation. However, the deponent refers that the guests convey to him that restaurant "Tapas" has better quality that it's difficult to get a reservation as it has little [Portuguese: poucos] places to be reserved to “Mark Warner” clients, more precisely 20.”

Please note that Luísa’s and Sandro’s statement are exactly the same with exception of the first’s final words “[places] to be reserved to “Mark Warner” clients, more precisely 20”. One could even be tempted to think that Sandro forgot to say that last bit of his lines.

Luísa, besides contradicting Kate, brings a new element into the equation: the allotment of Tapas covers.

Not only there were more than 15, but out of whatever total number of covers there were (wish we knew), Mark Warner was limited to 20.

The Tapas was a so, so much sought after restaurant that its covers were rationed by tour operators! Oh, what a fantastic restaurant Tapas had to be! No wonder there were queues to dine at “a canopied outdoor addition to the bar”, as per Kate McCann. Loads of people just eager to have dinner outside in those chilly nights!

We’re certain that when Russell O’Brien speaks of Tapas with some disdain it can only be because he’s used to only the finest and poshest of Exeter:

“Jane went down and I certainly can recall saying ‘Well you know what I like’, you know, we’d ordered, it was a very limited menu, we’d discussed what we liked each night, and I said, you know, ‘Just order the me the’, ‘Order the X, Y and Z and I’ll be down when I’m happy that the kids are definitely asleep’.”

And:

“As the menu was always the same, the group already knew what plates made up the menu, for this reason the deponent told his wife what he wanted, and that she place the order.”

If Tapas was a restaurant with “a very limited menu” of a “just-order-me-that-again” kind and if  “"Tapas" has better quality [than the Millenium] that it's difficult to get a reservation” then we shudder to think how horrible the Millenium menu must have been.

According to Dianne Webster, it seems that Tapas was understaffed that being the reason why it was never fully occupied, even quite empty:

“And err they only ever took so many bookings you know, although there were quite a lot of tables in the restaurant it was never ever full, in fact it was generally I would say quite empty err but this was because I think the staff were limited you know they had limited staff at the restaurant so they could only cope with so many people and originally err I think you had to get there early in the morning to book, you could book at the entrance to the Ocean Club err and Rachael somehow managed to get a block booking every night for eight thirty. Err so that was why we ended up going there every night because it was near the apartment”.

She should know, she was, allegedly, there.

One would think that Ocean Club would just get more staff if it was that popular. After all restaurant personnel was not exactly something the resort was short of as there were 50 people hired (44 newly hired in 2007) at that time for that particular expertise by the Ocean Club as we showed in our “Tourism diet” post.

And do note how Dianne confirms the queues. One HAD “to get there early in the morning to book”. If one HAS to be early it’s because if one didn’t one risked not getting what one desired. 

Only the early bird gets the worm, or in this case a reservation for dinner.

But what we want to highlight is that from Luísa Coutinho  we get to know that the tourist operator Mark Warner had, allegedly, at their disposal 20 of the coveted Tapas covers.

What we don’t get to know is how many Thomas Cook, Jonathan Markson, the Travel Club, Style Holidays, WWOS and m o s [sic] each one had.

Or to know if guests registered as Clientes Directos/Owner/Donos were allowed to book dinners there, and if they were, how many of Tapas covers were they allotted.

The obvious question that has to be asked is where are the registries for the reservations made by Thomas Cook, Jonathan Markson, the Travel Club, Style Holidays, WWOS, m o s, Clientes Directos, Owner and Donos?

How many reservation books did Tapas restaurant use? One per operator or all in the same? If all operators in the same reservation book, where are the guests from the other tourist operators? There were queues, right?

If it was used one reservation book per operator, why on earth was PJ only interested in the Mark Warner reservations?

Or, was PJ only interested, as we think they were, in knowing who had supposedly dined in Tapas during that week and got fed a reservation system that never existed and much less a reservation-by-operator one?

All this is to say that it must be agreed by ALL (except us in the blog and our supporters) interested in the Maddie case, that if one had an opportunity to eat at Tapas one would certainly NOT pass on the chance. That if one was offered a meal at wondrous Tapas one would only refuse it if one had something one could not simply put off.

This post is about asking the following question: if that was so, then why were there so many who passed up the chance of having dinner there when they were given the chance?


4. The gruesome march of April 2007

To answer that question one must understand why the Tapas restaurant was made to be such a wonderful place.

As our usual readers know, we don’t believe that the Tapas dinners ever took place. We think the Tapas was just a bar to support the pool during the day and most likely specialising in sandwiches and salads, and possibly pizzas in the evening.

The Tapas seems to have been a snack type bar by day and casual meals in the evening. Very basic with cheap, light-weight furniture.

We think its quality was upgraded to literally ridiculous levels as a necessity because it had to be an integral part of the Narrative of Negligence.

To allow the T9 to leave the children “acceptably” alone, they couldn’t be very far away, and the only place they could be placed at was at the Tapas bar.

The restaurant really prepared and meant to serve meals to the resort’s guests was the Millenium. That’s where guests with half-board dined. That’s where the resort was logistically prepared to serve dinners.

A reason had to be found for the T9 to be at Tapas and not to eat at the Millenium.

But that alone wouldn’t be enough, they had to be placed at Tapas as a routine so they would have been near apartment 5A every night.

For the first part of the story the “Saturday Evening Gruesome March to the Millenium” was invented.

That terrible march during which for 600 gruesome yards 9 adults dragged themselves with their little children on the day they arrived for the holidays.

Their moans and groans that night must have terrified many little children of Luz, so loud they must have been. One trip to the Millenium and it was enough for the T9 to know for certain that it would be an impossible feat for them to repeat it in the forthcoming days.

What had been done countless times by so many other guests before them and was certainly done by as many who came after them simply couldn’t be done by them. Go figure.

Because of it they had to have special treatment and consideration. Go figure.

The use of baby buggies that were available – both Kate and Gerry “confess” using them for the beach trip (although one says 2 single and the other a double) and the 2013 UK Crimewatch even shows the McCanns using one before the gruesome march – wasn’t even considered. Go figure.

We also note that JW, who is together with Derek Flack and TS, one of the witnesses who claim to have seen Pimpleman, when the first time she sees him, is shown in the 2009 Mockumentary at the T-crossing just ahead of Murat’s property, around 08:00 going on foot with her little daughter towards the Millenium.

JW wasn’t given the same consideration or special treatment the T9 had. She’s not entitled to a week’s reservation at Tapas.

She has to go to the Millenium like all other guests.

If JW is Jeni Weinberger as we think she is it seems she got in the queue TWICE: on Tuesday May 1 and on Wednesday May 2, as the Weinbergers (written as Weinburger on the Tapas booking sheet) dined in Tapas those evenings.

For negligence to happen the T9 had to be unable to go to the Millenium because it was too far for the little children to walk and simply could not be stopped because of a minor detail such as the baby buggies being there to be used.

The part of the T9 not being able to go to the Millenium in the Narrative of Negligence was taken care of. Next, they had to place without any sort of doubt, the T9 at Tapas.


5. The “Cinderalisation” of Tapas

It seems to us that if the T9 had used a simple “we ate at Tapas every night because it was near” would be sufficient.

And indeed it would. It seems reasonable that if one has a restaurant at the resort that serves the half-board meal one has paid for right near our backdoor, there’s no reason for one to walk 600 yards.

But liars need veracity for their tales. They need to present proof so that they are assured that we think what they are saying is true. Thus the expression he who tells a tale adds a detail.

In this case the added detail was physical evidence to “prove” that what they were fibbing about had really happened: the Tapas dinners.

The Tapas reservation sheets were the physical evidence which validated the Tapas dinners and in turn these validated the negligence. The Narrative of Negligence in a nutshell.

And like Cinderella went from maid to princess, so did a mere snack-bar that merely supported a pool become a wondrous and a fantastic and desperately sought after restaurant.

With Cinderella it was a magic wand, with Tapas a collective lie. But both equally real. NOT.

As we said, the Narrative of Negligence required proof of a negligent routine.

The proof the T9 were negligent every night. Not just that night. They had to have had dinner at Tapas every night and every night they had to leave the children alone.

So the absurd and unrealistic reservation system was invented and the absurd and unrealistic reservation sheets the physical evidence that the T9 had been constantly “acceptably” negligent, was needed to be presented to make the lie a truth.

But for there to have been the need for reservations the demand had to supersede the offer. Tapas had to be wanted otherwise why reserve? Tapas had to have less covers than the demand to dine there.

And so Tapas became the daily most sought after restaurant in Praia da Luz, in Lagos, in Portugal and maybe even in the world.


6. Tennis

As we have said in our post “Praia da Luz”, the town has very little to offer besides the beach and pools. Without these, one struggles to find something to do there.

The week of April 29 – May 3 2007 was one without beach and pool due to the weather.

There seems to have been only 2 other alternative activities: tennis and watersports.

The latter requires equipment, namely wetsuits, and it involves a significant degree of risk, so is limited only to people with some sort of experience.

It seems that tennis may have been the most popular activity during that week.

Let’s then see what is in the PJ Files about tennis:

- Daniel Stuk May 08:

“Asked, the deponent relates that the only tennis instructors of Mark Warner are himself and his colleague called GEORGINA.”

- Georgina Jackson May 08:

“Questioned, the deponent relates that the only tennis instructors at Mark Warner are herself and her colleague called Daniel, commonly known as DAN.”

- Luís Machado May 08:

“On the other hand, questioned regarding the possibility of having giving lessons to the parents of said child, the deponent negates peremptorily that he did so.

On that subject [Portuguese: Nesse sentido], the deponent would clarify that does remember the resort [Portuguese: empreendimento] in which the McCann family stayed and is used by the tourist operators "Jonathan Markson" and "Mark Warner", adding that he only works with clients of the first.

Consequently, he denies that at no time did he administer any classes to the father of the minor, GERRY McCANN or to the mother KATE HEALY.”

- Vasco Sales Portas 08May:

“That he works for the company "Jonathan Markson", exercising his functions as a tennis instructor in the "Ocean Club" resort since 2001.

(…)

He clarifies that besides the company for which he works, "Markwarner", owner of the resort, also has its own tennis instructors.

He adds that "Markwarner" has its tennis “base” set [Portuguese: instalada] near the Tapas restaurant, being rare the times they use other courts.

Questioned, he says that during the past week (29 APR 07 to 05 MAY 07) he had only four students, who are detailed in the fax which he has handed over during this act of the investigation [Portuguese: autos].”

There is another instructor, named Marco Alemão, who appears listed together with Portas and Machado. There’s no statement on the files from him. We imagine that he also works for Jonathan Markson.

The Mark Warner employee list only mentions Georgina Jackson and Dan Stuk as tennis coaches.

- Gerry McCann on May 10:

“Subsequently, at 17h00 [of Saturday], the whole group, including children, went to the TAPAS situated at the back of the apartments, next to the pool, to attend a welcoming committee arranged by MARK WARNER where they met with instructors in tennis and sailing and other resort employees, which ended at 18h30, glasses of sangria having been served to them.”

- Stephen Carpenter 21 April:

“On Sunday, April 29, Carolyn and I took part in Mark Warner’s tennis group morning coffee, where I met Gerry, Kate, Julian, Rachael, Annie, Georgina, Annie’s sister and Ann, there were other tourists whose name I’ve already forgotten. There were in total, approximately 16 people in that morning coffee, and tennis was one of the activities that he, or both enrolled for during the week.”


7. The importance of tennis

Of the resort’s 5 tennis courts, only 2 were used by Mark Warner, the Tapas ones. The ones near the Millenium seem to have been for the other tourist operators.

Taking the above at face value, if Portas had only 4 sudents, and imagining the other 2 tennis coaches, Machado and Alemão, would have an equal number, that makes it that out of all the other  guests from all other tourist operators (Thomas Cook, Jonathan Markson, etc.) there were only about 12 people being accompanied by tennis coaches that week.

If we add the 14 (one must exclude Georgina and Dan from the 16 Carpenter claims to have been present at the Tennis meeting), that makes a total of 26 people interested or together with people interested in playing tennis.

What did the remainder of the 300+ guests present that week do? All of them did watersports? We don’t think so.

One cannot let go unnoticed the huge discrepancy between Gerry’s and Stephen’s statements as regards when the tennis meeting took place.

One says Saturday late afternoon, the other Sunday morning. And neither are mistaken because both connect a beverage to the event.

Gerry says he was served sangria, a drink hardly likely to have been served in the morning and Stephen remembers the coffee, typically served in the mornings.

Gerry with his sangria makes sense it to have been Saturday afternoon, Stephen with his coffee makes sense to have been Sunday morning. What doesn’t make sense is for having 2 meetings about tennis and Gerry and Kate attending both.

Kate, by the way, contradicts Gerry and sides with Stephen. In her book:

“After dropping off the children we went along to a ‘tennis coffee morning’. Neither of us is a regular tennis player but before we’d had the kids we’d spent many holidays knocking a few balls around. Perhaps that’s a bit of a casual way of putting it: we’re both pretty competitive so there have been some fierce matches over the years, thankfully all ending amicably with a hug over the net and a post-match beer. So we were keen to get in some tennis on this break and maybe improve our technique a little. We played a few games and signed up for group lessons for the rest of the week, me at level 1 and Gerry level 2 (I must grudgingly concede that he is better than I am).”

And do note that neither Georgina nor Dan speak of such meeting.


8. The tennis dinner

Another thing neither Georgina nor Dan speak about is the Tennis dinner.

We get to know that on Friday, May 4, there was the intention to have one. The reason why the T9 names don’t appear on the sheet of May 4. They already had a dinner reserved there that evening under the collective umbrella of Mark Warner tennis.

Dinner was reserved on Friday for 12 people: the Mark Warner Tennis dinner.

Now, let’s do some very simple maths.

Of those 12, 9 were the T9. Saying it was only the tennis players of the T9 is ridiculous as nowhere else is it mentioned where the remainder Tapas were supposed to have had dinner if Maddie had not disappeared?

Some say that Jane Tanner and Rob O’Brien had planned to dine out on May 4 to go to a birthday party of a friend who happened to be in Luz at the time.

Jane Tanner says this in her rogatory interview:

“4078    “Okay and the last number then, is 07949 XXX844”?

Reply    “Yeah this is the one I think it would be, this is erm, this is Charlotte, my friend in Exeter who was actually out in Portugal with us when we were there, but I think I rang her, she went home on the Saturday and she hadn’t taken her mobile out with her, cos I’d (inaudible) texted her, that day we were supposed to go, it was her husband’s birthday, I must have, I’ve still got the text on here that she, we were supposed to go to their apartment for a barbecue at lunch time, so I text her in the morning and said, (inaudible) text (inaudible), there you go, I text her in the morning and said that, so you see what time that is and but she didn’t answer so, cos she hadn’t got her mobile phone”.

Jane Tanner was answering about why she had sent 2 text messages to the 07949 XXX844. As per PJ Files:

“The raw telecom data provided to OP TASK shows that the mobile phone attributed to Jane TANNER (0780xxx191) was in contact with mobile number 07949xxx844 at 20:30:21 hrs on 3rd May 2007 and again at 09:04:46 hrs on 4th May 2007. Each contact was an 'SMS'. Enquiries are underway to subscribe the '1884’ number.”

We do find it strange how just one text message is enough to set up a meeting for a party on foreign soil (we’re supposing the May 4 text was to cancel) but what is important to highlight at this moment is that it’s very clear that Jane Tanner speaks only of lunch, “a barbecue at lunch time” and not of dining or spending the whole day there.

There’s no doubt in our mind, of 12 tennis diners, 9 were the T9. That leaves out only 3. Counting with tennis coaches.

Were the T9 so unpopular that no one wanted to dine with them? Were they so unpopular that if they said they didn’t want to come maybe then many other of the many Mark Warner guests there would have? Were the T9 so unpopular that because they said they would come everyone else decided to go and find dinner elsewhere?

And who were these remaining 3 tennis diners? 

If Georgina and Dan were meaning to go, which would be the logical and an expected thing for them to do, there is only one person left. Who was the mystery man or woman?

It does make sense BOTH tennis instructors would be present, so we do have to ask who was the lonely heart that got stood up that night?

Let’s imagine that either Georgina or Dan for some reason couldn’t attend, who then was the mystery couple?

No one has ever heard of them. Of this possible couple or this possible man/woman. They don’t get a mention from anyone.

And shouldn’t the name of this couple/man/woman be on the reservation sheet?

It begs the question where did this person/couple have dinner on May 4?

When this person/couple woke up on Friday morning they were certainly counting on having dinner at the luxurious Tapas, and the fact the collective dinner was cancelled wouldn’t mean that his/her/their dinner had to be elsewhere as others did dine at Tapas that night. The place didn’t close because of Maddie’s disappearance.

The covers for the tennis dinners had unexpectedly become available then and there, so no reason for these/this “non-T9” not to dine there at, we remind readers, the most sought after restaurant in Luz.

Besides, isn’t it very strange that the 12 meant to go to dinner aren’t detailed by name?

Wouldn’t one expect to see their names be detailed just like the T9 were on the other days, in this case with a bracket saying “Mark Warner Tennis dinner”, so it would be known to the staff they were meant to sit together but pay for their meals separately?

Because, if the dinner had indeed taken place, who was supposed to have been billed, controlled or achieve whatever purpose these so called reservations sheets were supposed to have?

And the proof the purpose of these sheets is completely lost is shown how this generic “12” leaves us today at odds to know who was supposed to have dined there that evening.


9. Rejecting the wondrous

But what  one really has to do is go full circle in this post and link this so-called Tennis dinner with the highly desired Tapas restaurant.

Why didn’t anyone else of the tennis gang, with the exception of eventually these one or two people, want to go to this dinner in the fancy and grand Tapas? Why not jump at the chance and have the marvellous adventure of degustation that so many wanted to try and so many left Luz without having experienced it.

It doesn’t make sense, does it?

The tennis dinner is a hoax as are the rest of the Tapas dinners. Practically nothing that was said to have happened in Tapas did happen.

The Mark Warner tennis dinner was something invented to validate the tennis that had to exist during that holiday. Writing it up on the Tapas reservation sheets was the physical evidence that it was thought to be enough to validate it.

And in our opinion tennis is not a code name for anything. Tennis was simply the only activity they could find for people to have an excuse to be doing that week. 300+ guests and 5 courts.

As Cinderella would certainly advise the scriptwriters of this absurd story, “by all means do use your imagination, like making pumpkins into carriages, mice into horses, rats into servants and rags into a dress fit for a princess, but at least make an effort to keep it real as possible like I did by bringing into the story a magic wand to turn the absurd into some sort of reality… otherwise how do you expect people to believe anything you say? Your absurd tale, unlike mine, is just absurd”



Post Scriptum:

With this post we are breaking for Christmas. We do hope that 2016 will finally be the year of closure. All is in the hands of the British government as we believe this case to be an exclusively political one.

We continue to believe that the Deciders are waiting for the outcome of the Lisbon trial now in the hands of the Lisbon Appeal Court.

We so wish that the decision is known soon as we subscribe fully to the concept that justice delayed is justice denied. A serious mistake that the Portuguese justice system is very prone in making.

As we expect to come back only in 2016, we thought we could leave readers links to the posts we have done on the Tapas bar:

- About the  Tapas reservation sheets:

Post “# 01 - What are they?” (29Mar2011) - in which we asked for what exactly were those sheets of paper known as the Tapas reservation sheets because we really fail to understand their purpose outside them existing to deceive that there were T9 Tapas dinners when there weren’t.

Post “# 02 – Continuity” (05Apr2011) - in which we showed there was no continuity as would be logical and expected to be found in these sheets.

Post “# 03 - The Doodle” (21Apr2011) - in which we showed how strange it was to find a SINGLE doodle on page of a book that was supposed to be opened and used only on occasion.

Post “# 04 - Slide & Splash” (10Aug2011) - in which we showed how the Slide & Splash sheet was the pre-written and was put in the Tapas reservation sheet of May 7.

Post “# 05 - Shrink to fit” (15Aug2011) - in which we showed how ridiculous it was to sit a family of 4 on a table for 9/10 people when there were other tables available.

Post “# 06 - How many seats?” (14Sept2011) - in which we ask the question we asked in the current post: how many covers in total could REALLY be reserved each night for Tapas? And if there were queues to be able to dine there, then why wasn’t Tapas fully occupied every night, as Dianne Webster confirms it wasn’t?

Post “# 07 - The Deleted Dinner.” - in which we showed how a nameless dinner was billed to table #209.

Post “# 08 - The Obsessive Dining Timing Disorder.” (21Sept2011) - in which we showed how strange we found it that for any restaurant that there was no need to know if a person wished to dine at 20:00, or if s/he wished to do so at 20:15 or 20:30, it made a difference, apparently, for Tapas.

Post “# 09 - The Unique Reservation Sequencing Technique.” (24Sept2011) - in which we show how reservations are jotted down by the order in which they are requested, unlike what appears to have been the methodology in the sheets which was to write them down in the sequence of when people expected to dine.

Post “# 10 - The Irwins” (26Sept2011) - in which we showed how the Irwins, like the T9, also got“special arrangement” or had a “"quiet word" with the manager”. Why, we don’t know.

Post “# 11 - The Missing queue” (28Sept2011) - in which we showed that if the Tapas reservation sheets were true, then very strangely there were no queues to reserve on May 4.

Post “# 12 - Being there before being there” (02Oct2011) - in which we showed how the Savages and the Newmans were able to book dinners at Tapas before arriving in Praia da Luz.


- About the Big Round Table (BRT) at Tapas:

In the Sun article referred to in the post, waiter José Baptista speaks of the BRT: “There was a big round table near the pool. The McCanns and their friends had it every night.”

We have never seen it and we don’t just doubt its existence, we know that it didn’t exist. These were the posts we have done on the BRT:

Post “In an Emergency call 112, when in a HOAX call 211” (05Dec2010) . in which we presented our arguments questioning BRT’s existence.

Post “Textusa Meltdown” (13Dec2010) - in which we reacted to the reaction to our “In an Emergency call 112, when in a HOAX call 211” post.

Post “Textusa Meltdown - "The Day After"” (10Mar2010) - in which we showed how the other side tried to rewrite history in the best Orwellian style, by wiping off the internet Sidmouth’s precious comment about the Tapas round tables and pergolas.

Post “Tapas Dining - Fawlty Towers Style” (12Apr2011) - in which we parodied these queued-up for reservations.

Post “Nights of the Round Table” (16Feb2011) - in which we showed how there was a “really-very-fast-food” service provided by Tapas bar.

Post “Will Kate’s Book Definitely Prove Textusa Wrong?” (15Apr2011) - in which we defied Kate McCann, 1 month before publishing her book, to prove us wrong by asking her to publish Dianne Webster’s pictures of the BRT.

Post “Bluntly Bruntling Things Up” (20Sept2012) where we showed that the images of a video in which Sky News’ Martin Brunt appears showing the BRT had been manipulated.

Post “Textusa Correcting Textusa” (03Nov2012) whereby we corrected our correction of saying Mr Amaral had been wrong when pointing out the BRT out in his book. It was us who were wrong, so we corrected ourselves.

Post “Swan Lake - Act 3” (10Nov2012) - in which we showed the extent of image manipulation in Mr Brunt’s Sky News video.

Post “The proof Ocean Club reads Textusa” (07Mar2014) - in which we showed how the Ocean Club had come up with a BRT for Mr Amaral’s 2013 documentary. In this post we also showed how CNN was also economical with the truth.

About the BRT we would like to bring over a comment we had from a reader that was posted on our Facebook page:

“Hi Maria we make tables, sometimes big round ones. Your comments on the tapas dinners are bang on the money, I’ve been an avid reader of you and the sisters for some time, great work. I will add a comment on big round tables, hotels and restaurants rarely purchase due to the space they take on the restaurant floor, and certainly a place like the tapas certainly wouldn’t entertain a round table to seat 8/10 persons. Keep up the good work, please, justice for Maddie Best Regards”

The BRT not existing, the Tapas dinners don’t exist. The Tapas dinners not existing the Narrative of Negligence goes down the tube.


- About the Quiz Nights at Tapas:

Post “Quiz nights at Tapas” (15Mar2011) - in which we questioned ever being Quiz nights in Tapas.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!