Acres of newsprint on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann now means that one in three UK tabloid readers believe themselves to have a greater knowledge of forensic science than the Portuguese police. Staff tea-breaks in supermarkets, normally occupied by highly complex negotiations over rotas, have descended into slanging matches on the double-stranded structure of DNA and how long a battery-operated Bagpuss can be detained without charge.

The Sun’s bestselling Pop-Up Book of DIY Crime Scene Investigation, entitled ‘Solve Your Own Murder’, has been a soaraway hit, with its free inflatable corpse of Jordan, an industrial pneumatic pump and a set of adjustable crampons. A readers’ poll in the Daily Mail revealed that evidence in the McCann’s hire car would not affect house prices, outside parts of rural Leicestershire.

“DNA is like a brick wall,” explained Andy, an Express pebble-dasher from Lewisham. “Each one is deceptively non-identical. Roughly the size of a dewdrop on a gnat’s knob. But with the same properties as pollen. One gust o’ wind can blow it fousands o’ miles. This Pot Noodle could contain the living organisms of an adulterous Mullah in Casablanca. Not enough for a conviction, because it’s sweet and sour pork - but he’d certainly be a formal suspect.”

Elsewhere, suggestions that the GPs had doctored a key image of their daughter were described by Fleet Street as "outrageous". “What sort of scum would retouch a photo for their own personal benefit?” said the editor of the Sport. “Mind you, who’d o’ thought Marc Bolan would turn up working as a crash test dummy at Kwit-Fit... and give us the exclusive in person.”