Call me callous and unfeeling if you like - really I'm not - I think that what the McCann family must be going through is about as bad as it can get, losing your child with no sense of where she might be, who she's with or even whether or not she's still alive, which I am sure we all hope she is. But how on earth does this one single case and this one family manage to hold the media spotlight, get an enormous reward fund setup, get half of Scotland's footballers to wear a yellow wristband, and now get a private audience with the Pope? It's extraordinary.

I suppose none of the mothers whose children disappear in the favellas of Sao Paolo or the streets of Manilla would have the financial wherewithal to get to the Vatican, even if they would be granted such an extraordinary audience. So why for Little Maddie? Why Philip Green's jet (not that he's not absolutely entitled to do whatever he wants with his money and resources)? Why do they get to stay at the British embassy in the Vatican? Their DVD played to 60,000 football fans at Wembley at the weekend?

It's extraordinary. And somehow strangely garishly ostentatious. I can't help wondering whether it's actually making the situation more precarious for the little girl herself.