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One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

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  • Originally posted by Sam Flynn View Post
    I doubt that even the most attentive person would notice that a long-distance horse-race held this year took 10½ seconds less than an equivalent race a few days ago, never mind 20 years. It's just not the sort of thing you "feel"; more the sort of thing you'd have to look up.
    Absolutely and it's not even a case of comparing the 1889 race to the previous year's one - it's supposed to have been the fastest one that Maybrick had ever seen. But given that when adjusted for course length it wasn't especially fast it is literally unbelievable to suppose that Maybrick would have made such a comment.

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    • Originally posted by Sam Flynn View Post
      I doubt that even the most attentive person would notice that a long-distance horse-race held this year took 10½ seconds less than an equivalent race a few days ago, never mind 20 years. It's just not the sort of thing you "feel"; more the sort of thing you'd have to look up.
      This is getting plain silly. You're correct Sam. I was a regular race-goer for many years, and have attended the Grand national on a number of occasions. I can honesty say, not once did either I or my companions comment on whether a race was a fast ran affair. It's not the sort of thing race-goers comment on. Not only that, if you're on the course, you can only see the horses briefly as they fly past your position. It's a physical impossibility to gauge whether a race has been ran in record time.

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      • Originally posted by Sam Flynn View Post
        I doubt that even the most attentive person would notice that a long-distance horse-race held this year took 10½ seconds less than the equivalent race 365 days ago. It's just not the sort of thing you "feel"; more the sort of thing you'd "look up".
        Absolutely that. Anything else is special pleading.

        Also:

        The good news for the rest of the human race is that we can get by just fine without having to observe some form of perpetual and highly literal fundamental truth.
        What the cute hyperbole masks is the fact that people keep having to respond to David by insisting that there is something cranky about his taking the Diarist at his word when assessing its reliability. Oh, sure, he says he actually told his wife it was a one off instance, but maybe he didn't! Maybe he said it was the fastest National he'd seen because someone else told him that in their experience of time, it was the fastest ten minutes in decades!

        Well, yeah, maybe. And fair enough, if we allow that sort of maybe then it's not incontrovertible, and that was the point of the thread, so ok. But still, the pile of pebbles on one side of the argument seems far bigger than the pile on the other.
        Last edited by Henry Flower; 12-31-2016, 03:43 PM.

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        • Originally posted by Sam Flynn View Post
          Now, if we could find which book of [Grand National] records the forger might have used...
          It looks like the definitive book on the subject was The Grand National: A History of the World's Greatest Steeplechase by Vian Smith, published in 1969. This contains details of every race since 1839, including timings down to the fraction of a second, all pulled together into one handy volume.

          I'm not saying that there weren't earlier compendiums available, but a review of one such (T H Bird's A Hundred Grand Nationals, 1937) states that, "as with other early works it is short on photographs and statistics" [source here]. Vian Smith's 1969 book, however, seems to have been a treasure-trove of facts and figures.
          Last edited by Sam Flynn; 12-31-2016, 03:40 PM.
          Kind regards, Sam Flynn

          "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

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          • Originally posted by David Orsam View Post
            You've gone from the notion that someone "may have timed the race informally or the formal timer of the race may have commented" to someone now experiencing the race (wrongly) as the fastest in twenty years.

            I mean, if you have a 1 mile race where the winning horse crosses the line after 9 minutes and a 4 mile race where the winning horse crosses the line after 10 minutes, you are not seriously telling me that anyone would say that the 1 mile race was the fastest race of the two are you?

            It's the shortest one yes, but not the fastest. See the difference?
            No, I absolutely would not. But then I can see what you did there, David, and some gullible others may not have (I jest - it was of course utterly transparent). You took a bizarre example to make your point, imagining that that actually made the point! Any idiot would note that four miles run in 10 minutes was 'faster' than one mile run in 9 because the four miles would have to be run four times as quickly. That would be obvious to even the naked eye. We are human beings and we can see the vastness of that contrast very easily. It's significantly harder to do so at the level of 20 seconds in the 10 and a half minutes run, as some other points have actually noted.

            A fractitionally shorter distance run in a fractitionally shorter time will not feel to the observer like a 'faster' race because the difference in distance run is not as transparent as your ridiculous 4 miles versus one mile. Of course the casual observer would not note the difference. It would take someone timing it (informally or formally) who could then note to any interested party that the time taken was the fastest in 18 years. If they neglected to add that "mind, it was over a fractitionally shorter distance", the mathematics of this mistake would be quickly cemented.

            It isn't any more complicated than that, and it absolutely does not prove a hoax I am afraid.

            Happy New Year everyone. We are 15 minutes away from 2017 so I really think we should get on the sherry and be done with it for now ...

            Ike
            Iconoclast
            Materials: HistoryvsMaybrick – Dropbox

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            • What was the state of the track?Heavy,soft,firm ,hard.Had it rained?

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              • Originally posted by Observer View Post
                I was a regular race-goer for many years, and have attended the Grand national on a number of occasions. I can honesty say, not once did either I or my companions comment on whether a race was a fast ran affair. It's not the sort of thing race-goers comment on. Not only that, if you're on the course, you can only see the horses briefly as they fly past your position. It's a physical impossibility to gauge whether a race has been ran in record time.
                Quite. It's not something a race-goer actually attending a race would notice; rather it's something that could be easily latched onto by someone reading the records retrospectively.
                Kind regards, Sam Flynn

                "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

                Comment


                • Originally posted by harry View Post
                  What was the state of the track?Heavy,soft,firm ,hard.Had it rained?
                  Well The Times reported that 'The weather was all that could be desired' so I imagine that the going was good.

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                  • Originally posted by Iconoclast View Post
                    It would take someone timing it (informally or formally) who could then note to any interested party that the time taken was the fastest in 18 years. If they neglected to add that "mind, it was over a fractitionally shorter distance", the mathematics of this mistake would be quickly cemented.
                    I repeat that the 1889 Grand National was NOT the fastest in 18 years. This fancy was something first dreamed up by Paul Feldman in 1997 based on a misunderstanding of the statistics and he has misled everyone else since.

                    Given that the 1889 race was not the fastest in 18 years no-one would have been saying it was in 1889. Therefore Maybrick could not possibly have written in his journal that the race was the fastest he had ever seen.

                    Anyone who has ever been to a horse race and understands how ludicrous it would be for Maybrick to have made this statement will know that the Diary has not survived to 2017.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by David Orsam View Post
                      Given that the 1889 race was not the fastest in 18 years no-one would have been saying it was in 1889. Therefore Maybrick could not possibly have written in his journal that the race was the fastest he had ever seen.
                      Utter nonsense. I know plenty of people who spout a lot of bullshit, and it's very likely that some of them write the same in their diaries/journals too, just like Maybrick could have done in 1889.

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                      • Originally posted by StevenOwl View Post
                        Utter nonsense. I know plenty of people who spout a lot of bullshit, and it's very likely that some of them write the same in their diaries/journals too, just like Maybrick could have done in 1889.
                        He could physically have written those words Steven of course. Just like he could physically have written that it was pouring down with rain all afternoon.

                        Given that it wasn't pouring down with rain all afternoon you must agree that he couldn't possibly have written that it was.

                        It also wasn't the fastest race he had ever seen and, therefore, he could not possibly have thought it was, therefore, he could not possibly have written those words in his journal.

                        Comment


                        • Given that StevenOwl accuses me of writing "utter nonsense", I set this challenge to him and to anyone who believes in the diary's veracity.

                          Imagine this was the sentence in the Diary:

                          "Did not the whore see her whore master in front of all, true the race was the slowest I have seen and it was pouring with rain all afternoon, but the thrill of seeing the whore with the bastard thrilled me more than knowing his Royal Highness was but a few feet away from yours truly ha ha".

                          As the race was not a slow race that day and as it was not pouring with rain would not either of those statements on their own prove that the diary was a forgery?

                          Finding that a record book gave the wrong impression that it was the slowest race in 18 years or that it was raining that day would, of course be the icing on the cake to explain why the forger made the mistakes, but I repeat my question: would not either of the inaccuracies in the above sentence have disproved the diary?

                          Or would you come back and say "people spout a lot of bullshit in their diaries so it means nothing"?

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by David Orsam View Post
                            Given that StevenOwl accuses me of writing "utter nonsense", I set this challenge to him and to anyone who believes in the diary's veracity.

                            Imagine this was the sentence in the Diary:

                            "Did not the whore see her whore master in front of all, true the race was the slowest I have seen and it was pouring with rain all afternoon, but the thrill of seeing the whore with the bastard thrilled me more than knowing his Royal Highness was but a few feet away from yours truly ha ha".

                            As the race was not a slow race that day and as it was not pouring with rain would not either of those statements on their own prove that the diary was a forgery?

                            Finding that a record book gave the wrong impression that it was the slowest race in 18 years or that it was raining that day would, of course be the icing on the cake to explain why the forger made the mistakes, but I repeat my question: would not either of the inaccuracies in the above sentence have disproved the diary?

                            Or would you come back and say "people spout a lot of bullshit in their diaries so it means nothing"?
                            I'm unclear - Happy New Year, incidentally, everyone - why you have slipped in the fabricated raining aspect of the quotation. He didn't touch on the weather so let's just stick with what he did write. If he had written it was the slowest race he'd ever seen, then I'd be a confused reader indeed because we know the race in 1889 was completed in the fastest time for 18 years (regardless of the fractional differences in distance) so that's what ultimately prompted him to note the fact in his journal. If - in the less obvious sense of time relative to distance - it turns out that he was relatively-speaking incorrect, I doubt very much he really cared. Why would he care? I doubt further that he is presently spinning in his grave over his ambiguous journal entry. He wrote what he wrote based on what he saw or was told or had read. Who knows how he ultimately formed the view, but we all know that it was perfectly possible for him to do so. StevenOwl is quite right in this regard. It was perfectly possible for him to do so, even if he knew it to be incorrect! If he knew it to be incorrect, I very much doubt he would have written it, granted, but we are dealing with the possible inner musings of a psychopath here. The rulebook might be out the window in certain aspects of what he chose to record. Personally, I assume that he believed the race to be the fastest he had ever seen in terms of time elapsed, that he assumed the race was over the same distance (as I'm sure most of us probably did until you shattered that belief), and therefore felt no psychotic urge to confuse any possible future readership by reporting his belief incorrectly in his journal. I thought it, so I wrote it. 'Cogito' ergo something or other.

                            If it had not rained that day and he had written that it had, my first thought would be to check if there were any periods at all during or after the race when it rained. If there hadn't been any such periods, I would genuinely be confused and somewhat concerned that the old psychopath had finally undone himself, I agree. Thankfully, he didn't so we can all breathe easier again on that score.

                            Ike
                            Last edited by Iconoclast; 01-01-2017, 10:16 AM.
                            Iconoclast
                            Materials: HistoryvsMaybrick – Dropbox

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by David Orsam View Post
                              As the race was not a slow race that day and as it was not pouring with rain would not either of those statements on their own prove that the diary was a forgery?
                              To your question - if the author of the journal had said either of these two things, on first consideration I would concur that they seem the work of an ill-informed person and therefore the likely work of a hoaxer (by the way, I agree with Caz that the journal is either authentic or a hoax - it cannot be a forgery as it makes no attempt to mirror Maybrick's known formal handwriting).

                              I don't believe that Maybrick could have experienced a slow race nor been informed by someone timing it that it was any sort of slow race (unless the record books were wrong and it turns out that it was run over 100 metres and was actually a straight sprint that year).

                              If it had been a uniformly dry day that day and the author had written it was pelting down, I'd draw the same conclusion.

                              On either count, I would keep an open mind for some time in considering how either or indeed both of these errors could have crept into the journal but - ultimately - I imagine my conclusion would be that both entries were written by someone who simply wasn't there that day and - therefore - was presumably not James Maybrick.

                              Hope this helps.

                              Now, pray tell, what was the point you were trying to make here?

                              Ike
                              Iconoclast
                              Materials: HistoryvsMaybrick – Dropbox

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Iconoclast View Post
                                we know the race in 1889 was completed in the fastest time for 18 years
                                We do not know any such thing. It was the shortest race by distance in 18 years. That's all.

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