Who was the author of the 'Maybrick' diary? Some options.

[Henry Flower]

I try to respond to posts in the order they were posted, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Too needy!

Love,

Caz
X

Oh, you respond to them in order of posting.

Too nerdy!

Love,

Needy
x



Thanks Caz. Glad we didn't part on glowering terms. All the best.

[caz]

Life is too short to deal with morons like Kaz. I'm outta here.

Caz, it's a pity you didn't have the class to apologise for a real dick move.

I didn't have the class or the chance, dear Henry! Blimey, a girl has to go and powder her nose at some stage. I can't see every post as soon as it arrives on the screen. I only just read the one I responded to above, and have yet to read all the posts written subsequently to that one. That's just the way I roll. I try to respond to posts in the order they were posted, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Too needy!

Love,

Caz
X

[Henry Flower]

Bless you Caz, and thank you.

You have a lovely weekend too. I always liked and admired you, and still do.

Thanks for the clarification, Henry. I admit I thought you had joined the ranks of those - past or present - who have maintained that getting too close to the 'players' was the problem, while the best way to sort the truth from the lies was to keep one's distance from them and comment on the action from the sidelines.

We all start somewhere. I started with most of that 'bigger picture' of yours, in 1998, when I read the existing diary books, and after a couple of years I was invited by Keith to dig deeper into the details he already knew. We did some more digging together for Ripper Diary, then he did even more digging of his own after that. If I got so far into the detail, so blinded by the minutiae and my own expertise, where does that leave Keith? It has given us both similar insights, and we do think alike on most diary matters, but I'm certain he has burrowed much deeper into the detail and minutiae than I have, from the day he started back in 1992 right up until this afternoon, and has far more expertise than I could ever gain.

Keith's research is indeed outstanding, and he supports the best football team, but one thing I can accuse him of is that he never takes his eye off the bigger picture you describe, not for one blasted minute, even if you are right to accuse me of losing sight of it. He was there when it came into view and he is not about to forget the inherent difficulties with each and every aspect of the diary and watch sagas and with every version he has been given as to how they did or didn't come into being.

Have a really good weekend, Henry, and I'm sorry I made you cross.

Love,

Caz
X

[Henry Flower]

HF has been disrespectful for awhile now, maybe a break is what he needs.

You mean 'a while' not 'awhile'. The adverb 'awhile' cannot follow a preposition. By the way, did you ever acknowledge that you were wrong and I was right about the definition of the word 'temporarily'?

Language isn't your strong point is it? Maybe some remedial classes are what you need.

[caz]

I don't quite know where you're getting this idea from, dear Caz. Possibly you pulled it right out of your ass. Did I ever suggest anything other than that it was brilliant that people were asking questions of the protagonists and digging deep into the details? The wood-for-the-trees aspect refers only to the need not to do what you have done - get so far into the detail, so blinded by the minutiae and your own expertise, that you lose sight of the bigger picture, viz: the diary of Jack the Ripper has no properly demonstrated or documented provenance beyond a man who was a published freelance writer, who acquired a partially blank Victorian diary, and who made two confessions to having forged the thing. Beyond that there is what may be a coincidence of dates regarding the possible lifting of floorboards, and the deeply, unfathomably unlikely story that came from Anne.

Thanks for the clarification, Henry. I admit I thought you had joined the ranks of those - past or present - who have maintained that getting too close to the 'players' was the problem, while the best way to sort the truth from the lies was to keep one's distance from them and comment on the action from the sidelines.

We all start somewhere. I started with most of that 'bigger picture' of yours, in 1998, when I read the existing diary books, and after a couple of years I was invited by Keith to dig deeper into the details he already knew. We did some more digging together for Ripper Diary, then he did even more digging of his own after that. If I got so far into the detail, so blinded by the minutiae and my own expertise, where does that leave Keith? It has given us both similar insights, and we do think alike on most diary matters, but I'm certain he has burrowed much deeper into the detail and minutiae than I have, from the day he started back in 1992 right up until this afternoon, and has far more expertise than I could ever gain.

Keith's research is indeed outstanding, and he supports the best football team, but one thing I can accuse him of is that he never takes his eye off the bigger picture you describe, not for one blasted minute, even if you are right to accuse me of losing sight of it. He was there when it came into view and he is not about to forget the inherent difficulties with each and every aspect of the diary and watch sagas and with every version he has been given as to how they did or didn't come into being.

Have a really good weekend, Henry, and I'm sorry I made you cross.

Love,

Caz
X

[Kaz]

HF
you have the options of putting posters on "ignore".

don't go!!

HF has been disrespectful for awhile now, maybe a break is what he needs.

[Abby Normal]

Life is too short to deal with morons like Kaz. I'm outta here.

Caz, it's a pity you didn't have the class to apologise for a real dick move.

HF
you have the options of putting posters on "ignore".

don't go!!

[Henry Flower]

Life is too short to deal with morons like Kaz. I'm outta here.

Caz, it's a pity you didn't have the class to apologise for a real dick move.

[caz]

When asked to give some evidence to back up that Mike didn't fabricate the diary your silence is deafening Caz

What? Because I actually have a life away from these boards, which means I can't sit here reading and responding immediately to each new post? Come on, John, give me a break. You previously told me to shut up and now I read that my silence has been deafening.

It must be equally deafening on the other diary threads, which I simply haven't had time to catch up with yet, and won't be doing so for some time to come, as I am taking a break next week to show my better half round the better pubs and sights of Liverpool. The diary saga will not be featuring.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And you have so far presented no evidence that he couldn't. Considering all the bullshit and backtracking concerning the diary the onus is on those who believe Mike didn't fabricate the diary to prove it. As your one of the loudest voices saying Mike couldn't possibly have written the diary either give some evidence that he couldn't have possibly written it or shut up.

Nice.

If you were to pick on one of the men with mental health issues back in the ripper's day, who 'confessed' to the Whitechapel murders, and insisted he was guilty because he had admitted it, the onus would most certainly NOT be on me or anyone else to prove you were barking up the wrong tree, no matter how long and loud we might protest. It would be entirely down to you to provide the evidence that this man's confession was not just the desperate, self-destructive, attention-seeking fantasy of an ill man at the end of his tether, but provably true - or shut up.

That said, I'm not asking or expecting you to shut up on the subject of Mike's confession. You are merely invited to consider whether it just might have been the desperate, self-destructive, attention-seeking fantasy of an ill man at the end of his tether.

Love,

Caz
X

[Hunter]

Thank you, Caz.
Hope you have a fine weekend. I'm gonna try to.

[caz]

I get precisely the opposite impression, Caz. To me, the author is trying to "dumb up", so to speak, but falls flat on his/her arse in the attempt.

Yes I know you do, Gareth. But would you have been any more impressed by a Liverpudlian cotton merchant and arsenic-eating mutilator of street sex workers, who displayed a word perfect A* work of creative writing worthy of the Booker Prize? And if so, why?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hello Caz,
Hope things are going well for you...

Very well thanks, Cris. Hope it's the same for you.

How was the handwriting comparison done and by whom? If you might know.

I believe Sue Iremonger was supplied with samples of the Barretts' handwriting along with James Maybrick's, when she was asked to examine the diary handwriting. If she checked for any similarities, she apparently found none.

But I was thinking more about anyone who has seen the diary or facsimile since 1992, who has also had access at any time, from the Barretts' childhood upwards, to examples of their handwriting, in school exercise books, handwritten correspondence, job application forms, you name it. Nobody has ever piped up, to my knowledge, and said that, actually, they could see certain points of similarity in the letter formation, language use, sentence construction etc.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Mind you, I have always felt the author was dumbing down to create the low, brutish character as portrayed in the diary

I get precisely the opposite impression, Caz. To me, the author is trying to "dumb up", so to speak, but falls flat on his/her arse in the attempt.

[caz]

But since when did Druitt - or Cream, JK Stephen, James Kelly, to mention but three others - attract such rabid adherents as Maybrick? And how many popular, oft-repeated documentaries or news articles have appeared in their name?

Who and where do you see all these 'rabid' adherents to Maybrick as the ripper, Gareth? There are far more modern/older hoax adherents posting daily on the message boards. And if Maybrick documentaries and news articles are relatively 'popular', doesn't that merely mirror the 'most popular' result here? You would surely not suggest it's because the same 'rabid adherents' watch each documentary over and over again, or buy fifty copies of each news article, to rig their popularity.

Love,

Caz
X