One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

You know, I wasn't around back in the days of Melvin Harris and John Omlor but am I not correct in thinking that their arguments were rejected by certain Diary Defender as "risible, far-fetched nonsense"? If only they had twigged that the evidence shows the Diary was acquired and written AFTER Mike attempted to purchase the red diary, Harris and Omlor might have seriously rattled those Diary Defenders, just like they are clearly rattled today.

Rattled? I'm about as rattled as my cat Monty, looking at a large juicy rat.

My guess is that if Melvin could see how ridiculous his original modern hoax theory is now being made to look in your hands, he'd be spinning in his grave. He clearly wanted Mike, Anne and Tony D to have all been in this together, as per Mike's affidavit, and the diary to have been forged by around 1990, also as per Mike's affidavit. A supposed 11 day creation in early April 1992 wouldn't have suited Mighty Mel at all, and the fact that the floorboards in Maybrick's old bedroom had been lifted the previous month, on the same day Mike asked Doreen if she'd like to see the diary of Jack the Ripper he'd found, would have really given him the willies.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

I see that at last we have a concession from the Diary Defender-in-chief that the argument is that Mike WAS being honest and can be relied on, when he stated that he was given the Diary by a drinking buddy from the Saddle pub and was told to "do something" with it.

That's what I said quite some time ago - Mike is not ALWAYS dishonest when it suits the Diary Defenders - but that was disputed. We got there in the end though.

[David Orsam]

I see we now have a rather desperate "colour blind" strategy.

I'm not colour blind but it's interesting to note that "many men are to a certain degree" because one wonders if that applies to Robert Smith who claimed that a sample sent to him in 1995 showed the same bluish undertones as in his sample written some 17 years later. It's funny that a certain person was happy to rely on Smith's assessment of the colour of the ink in that letter (which has not been reproduced for some reason) and didn't seem to wonder if he is, perhaps, a bit colour blind.

[David Orsam]

From RJ's source, namely a 2002 book by Katherine Koppenhaver, entitled "Attorney's Guide to Document Examination" we read this (my bold):

"In addition to the first manufacturing date of ink, forensic chemists have devised a method of testing ballpoint ink samples to give a relative date of the writing. Ink dating can only determine the approximate date a message was penned on paper. According to Erich Speckin, an ink chemist with Speckin Laboratories in a lecture to the National Association of Document Examiners, "In the field of forensic chemistry advances in technology have made it possible to date ink within six months or less.

Ink chemists determine the age of ink by the rate of extraction from the paper and the percent of extraction. They measure how fast the ink can be chemically removed from the paper and how easily it is removed. Ink dries chemically in approximately three and one-half years according to Erich Speckin. By using the rate of extraction, ink chemists can determine the age of the application of the ink to within six months. After the ink has completely dried, the chemist can only state that the ink is over three and one-half years old."

So Koppenhaver was discussing, in 2002, in a book written for American attorneys (thus obviously relating only to the dating of modern documents) a technique for the dating of documents written in ballpoint ink using a method based on recent advances in technology.

The Speckin Forensic Ink Dating Technique(s) can actually be viewed here in this 1998 video, involving a punch, a backer, a vial, a syringe and/or an oven, a plate, a densitometer and a computer and it bears no relation to the type of simple solubility test that would have been conducted by Dr Baxendale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKUsdgPOzkw

Let's move along, nothing to see here.

No own goals…

[David Orsam]

It's pretty obvious that proving the diary is a fake – as the phrase "one off instance" does - is a completely different issue to whether the Barretts forged the Diary in March and April 1992, the latter subject indeed requiring a million more words to be written.

I nearly posted this yesterday in response to an identical comment but couldn't be bothered because it was so obvious and now the world's leading sleep inducer – someone who actually believes that the diary is a fake!!!! - has repeated the same flawed point today so I'm compelled (yet again) to state the bleedin' obvious.

[David Orsam]

"Have you ever wondered why Mike [helped along by Alan Gray] backdated the writing of the diary to early 1990 in his January 1995 affidavit, putting Tony Devereux's death back accordingly to mid-1990?"

I've spoken in the past about the Great Misunderstander, but even knowing of her amazing ability to fail to comprehend, it's genuinely hard to believe that I can read a question like this.

As I have said time and time and time again, it is easy to confuse "writing" or "drafting" with "transcribing". What I am suggesting could easily have happened is that Barrett told Gray, no doubt through a drunken haze, that the diary had been written while Tony Devereux was alive, by which he meant the text of the diary had been drafted, not that it was then transcribed into the scrapbook. Gray, however, believed that the entire forgery was done in 1990 (or 1991 because I assume that's what the affidavit was meant to say) and set out the chronology of events accordingly but had misunderstood what he had been told. Subsequently, Barrett – the drunken Barrett – either did not read the affidavit or did not read it carefully before signing it. How many times do I have to repeat this simple point before it actually sinks in to the head of Chief Diary Defender?

[David Orsam]

This extract from a letter written by Melvin Harris to Alec Voller (presumably in 2001) may be of interest (bold highlighting by me):

"…Nick Warren saw the Diary in December 1994, found no bronzing and for the record, wrote to Robert Smith drawing his attention to that oddity. Smith replied on December 21st; he accepted that Nick was right but went on to argue that “Your comment on ‘browning’ is not, as far as I know, conclusive.”…

Following that you kindly made up samples of the original Diamine Black Manuscript Ink and gave these to Smith and Harrison and to Nick. You also gave advice to aid in making tests with this ink. On January 26th 1995 Nick set up one test by sending me a letter written with your Diamine Ink. Ten line[s] were written with a new clean fountain pen, while a large Jack the Ripper signature and flourishes were written with a Victorian steel pen. This letter was kept by me between two protective sheets of plain white paper and checked for damage at intervals.

By late 1998 I saw signs of irregular fading and bronzing. Since then the bronzing has increased to the extent that, today, the portion written with a steel pen is dramatically bronzed. Bronzing in the heavier, fountain pen section is not so dramatic and is uneven. I have taken this letter to colour-copying firms but all the fine details are far too subtle for the machines to pick up fully, nevertheless they have managed to capture enough of the bronzing effect to let you see the proof for yourself.

To sum up….your authentic Diamine ink has been shown to fade in an irregular pattern and age bronze IN THREE YEARS. Thus the phenomena you observed does not equate itself with any great age at all….

In brief: The Diary ink has been identified as an iron-gall ink using nigrosine. Your ink is an iron-gall ink using nigrosine. You speak of the poor opacity of the Diary ink. But everyone who has seen your authentic ink in action has noted its poor opacity. Nick in the enclosed letter even comments on this saying “…the effect is very watery, astonishingly so at first.” Indeed the Diamine ink I have seen is so close to the ink on your Diary pages that I regret that Smith and Harrison did not take your advice and write something down on a blank page back in January 1995. "

[MrBarnett]

I'd certainly like to know precisely who wrote the diary, Caz, but whether it was the Barnetts or not is secondary to the question of its being a modern fake. The fact that I believe it is derives from the text itself, not from any presupposition of authorship.

Er... it wasn't the Barnetts - we wouldn't have made such a 'raw' job of it.

[Scott Nelson]

How many times do I have to repeat this simple point before it actually sinks in to the head of Chief Diary Defender?

Can you please define Chief Diary Defender? Someone like Iconoclast?

[MrBarnett]

What I do understand about "top myself", specifically, is that I was completely unaware of this particular bit of street-slang until it started turning up in the Porridge, Minder or Sweeney shows I watched in my youth. As to how familiar or well-used that phrase would have been amongst most Victorians is another matter. Perhaps Druitt used it in a long-lost suicide note?
I see no evidence to suggest that the authors of the diary were particularly thorough in their research into Victorian-speak (quite the contrary), nor that they were such accomplished writers that they'd imbue their fictional creation with such a backstory.

So, Sam, the fact of your not being familiar with the term until the 1980s is more relevant to our discussion than that it was in use in the prison population - and explained in the press - in the 1870s?

[MrBarnett]

Can you please define Chief Diary Defender? Someone like Iconoclast?

David likes throw what he considers to be subtle insults at anyone who doesn't tug the forelock. 'Dear boy', 'Muppets', 'Chief Diary Defender etc' roll off the Awesome pen like shite off a hot shovel. Such a shame, because if he wasn't such an insulting little twerp, one might almost admire him.

[MrBarnett]

So, Sam, the fact of your not being familiar with the term until the 1980s is more relevant to our discussion than that it was in use in the prison population - and explained in the press - in the 1870s?

Edit: 1970s rather than 80s - when BBC/ITV scriptwriters dealt exclusively in newly-coined phrases.

[Sam Flynn]

Er... it wasn't the Barnetts

Predictive text strikes again!

[Sam Flynn]

So, Sam, the fact of your not being familiar with the term until the 1980s is more relevant to our discussion than that it was in use in the prison population - and explained in the press - in the 1870s?

Yup. We live at a time when such relatively obscure things as prison slang can more easily reach a wide audience than they ever could in the Victorian era.

[Sam Flynn]

Edit: 1970s rather than 80s - when BBC/ITV scriptwriters dealt exclusively in newly-coined phrases.

When TV and radio scriptwriters were able to bring such slang to the attention of millions of ordinary people on a regular basis.