Acquiring A 20th Century Word Processor

[Iconoclast]

I've set this out at some length in #19 but perhaps you missed it.

Sadly, I missed that classic post, Lord Orsam. I have no doubt that whatever it was, it would be cogent, impassioned, and its points well made and I genuinely regret it not making it as far as my attention.

You're still wrong about the journal, of course, though I suspect I'm on the wrong thread to be reminding you of that.

[GUT]

On the topic of new or second hand I have certainly sold gear that was technically new as second hand (ex display stock) or second hand as new, returned wi5gin hours after first sale and resold

[Abby Normal]

This was Dixons in the mid-1980s, where geeks went bearing gift-vouchers.

Lol. Beware geeks bearing gifts

[caz]

Seriously. Word processors. Ink pots. Pens and pencils. Who cares?

Evidently David does - a lot.

The word processor was bought in 1986, with money either lent or given by Mike's father-in-law. So what? Mike could hardly have submitted his articles to a magazine in his own handwriting, or in Anne's. The idea was to type them up and make them look professional, which Anne could help with. So if Billy Graham lent them the money, as one version goes, he may have been hoping the articles - particularly the celebrity interviews - would bring in enough to pay him back some or all of it.

More to the point, nobody seems to have a fvcking clue where and when the diary ink and pen(s) were obtained, and Mike the liar is David's only source for the guardbook itself coming from an auction. This is what Mike the liar swore to in January 1995:

'I feel sure it was the end of January 1990 when I went to the Auctioneer, Outhwaite & Litherland'.

To pinch an expression used by a charming but completely bonkers girl I was at primary school with: "How could he be sure when he didn't have a sure to be sure with?"

This thread is up sure creek without a paddle - or a forger - just like all the others.

And there was I thinking that "Little Red Diary & The One Off Instance" was the only book on David's bedside table and all he needed to put the diary to bed.

What has been achieved on this thread apart from more confirmation - if anyone needed it - that Michael told such dreadful and pointless lies, it made one gasp and stretch one's eyes?

Love,

Hilarious Bollux
X

[caz]

Barrett's signature seems remarkably fluent. No sign of uPpeR and LoWEr CaseD leTTers, either. Now, strike me down with a feather, but Barrett couldn't have been codding the dear old boss with his childisH sick NoTes could He?

Yes I suppose he could rj, if he kept it up right from 1992 to 2016, whenever he put biro to paper and let anyone see it.

I agree about the signature, but [and you knew there was one of those coming] I'd expect our Mike to have practised that and been proud of it, in connection with his freelance writing ambitions. He presumably had to sign any typed correspondence, but all his other hAnDwriTTen eFForTs would not have needed to be seen by any magazine editors. Many people just have an illegible squiggle for a signature, which ironically is harder to forge than a neat, legible one like Mike's.

Have you asked yourself why Anne didn't just let Mike write out the diary in his own 'remarkably fluent' but not 'too distinctive' hand? Could it be that 'M. Barrett, M. Barrett, M Barrett, M. Barrett, M. Barrett...' over 63 pages, while looking remarkably fluent, would not have been quite the page turner they were aiming for, even if it kept 'em guessing a while longer before they worked out that the author was meant to be J. Maybrick?

Or did Anne worry that he would lapse somewhere around page 3 and write:

M. Barrett, M. Barrett, LiAr liAR PAnTs oN FiRe...?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

14 March 2018

"I'd be surprised if Tony would ever have used the f word in front of young Caroline, assuming they ever met, as he had three daughters of his own and Liverpudlians in my experience [don't groan at the back there] may swear in the company of other men, but are quite puritanical when it comes to hearing or using bad language when women or children are present. If a naughty word does slip out it is usually accompanied by a profuse apology or at least a "pardon my French""

17 April 2018

"True story now (I'm ashamed to say) regarding a second-hand knitting machine I bought - very unwisely - in the early 90s, when my daughter was small…I couldn't get on with the bloody thing, the wool kept slipping off and the language got pretty ripe, so in the end I sold it on to some other poor devil. My daughter noticed it was gone straight away and said: "Mummy, where's your fvcksake?"

Standards must different around the country, and for different genders, I suppose.

And of course, I didn't see THAT coming from a million miles away, when I picked up - not for the first time - and ran with David's distinctive spelling of the f word.

No fukking, fuc*ing or f...ing around for me this time, but straight in with the fvcking word as quoted by David when quoting Shirley, who was quoting young Caroline - or more likely quoting sweary Mike, who was quoting Tony Devereux.

I was just thinking this morning how strangely things turn out sometimes. As a direct consequence of my daughter hearing me swear at that knitting machine, I had to sit her down and explain why there were certain words that had to be kept strictly entre nous, and what those words were. To my knowledge she didn't let me down, and I never had to worry what she might come out with when she started playschool. At the end of one session, at the age of four, the children were asked by the playgroup leader, in front of their parents who had come to collect them, to think of something beginning with the letter H. It could have been the letter F and I would not have worried. After a short pause, my daughter was the first to put up her hand. To everyone's considerable surprise, including my own, she came out with the word "hyphen".

She now has two first class degrees, a BA in English Language & Communication from KCL and an MA in Linguistics from UCL. Her dissertation at KCL? Taboo words and their usage across the generations.

And it all stemmed from that fvcking knitting machine.

Unlike the Maybrick diary, which did not stem from that fvcking word processor!

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

A fellow student and friend of mine at UCL, a linguistics student, was related to Sir James Whitehead, whose inaugural Lord Mayor's Parade was rained upon by the murder of Mary Kelly. Small world!

[rjpalmer]

The word processor was bought in 1986, with money either lent or given by Mike's father-in-law. So what?

You see no relevance in the fact that Mike and Anne lied about when and why they bought the word processor? I thought it was in order to "tidy up" Mike's 1991 research notes? In 1986?

When this receipt was obtained by Feldman's team in the mid-90s it should have sent off alarm bells about Anne Graham's credibility. Was she even asked about the contradiction?

[David Orsam]

Sadly, I missed that classic post, Lord Orsam. I have no doubt that whatever it was, it would be cogent, impassioned, and its points well made

Yes, absolutely correct.

[David Orsam]

On the topic of new or second hand I have certainly sold gear that was technically new as second hand (ex display stock) or second hand as new, returned wi5gin hours after first sale and resold

I trust you are not suggesting that the certificate of purchase that I posted from Dixons showing the sale of an Amstrad at full retail price in 1986 reflects anything other than the sale and purchase of a new word processor, one which could never be described as "second hand".

[David Orsam]

You know, I couldn't care less if a member of this forum wants to swear in front of a young girl although it's amusing to read the long defensive reaction about such appalling behaviour. My only point has been that it is utterly ridiculous, not mention absurdly stereotypical, to say that a man from Liverpool would never swear in front of a young girl.

[David Orsam]

I can only assume that the extremely hostile reaction to this thread from one member of the forum is for three reasons. Firstly because I have posted a document that neither she nor Keith Skinner was able to locate, secondly because I have demonstrated an obvious error by that person when she said to me sourly that the invoice did not show as much as I may have been hoping for (and she never acknowledges or corrects such errors) and thirdly because this person once posted of the word processor:

'As I recall, it was purchased second hand with money given to Mike and Anne by Anne's father?'

These were Keith Skinner's words being posted but apparently to even suggest Keith might have got something wrong is like blasphemy where some people are concerned.

Now we know that Anne's father was prepared to bankroll Mike with a quite large sum of money in 1986 there would be nothing particularly unusual in him giving Mike another £50 in 1992 to acquire a photograph album.

We know from Mike's affidavit that he muddled up his dates. For example, he said in that affidavit that, "I had actually written the "Jack the Ripper Diary" first on my word processor, which I purchased in 1985" but we now know for sure that the purchase was in 1986. He also said, "I finally decided in November 1993 that enough was enough and I made it clear from that time on that the Diary of Jack the Ripper was a forgery," and "Since December 1993 I have been trying, through the press, the Publishers, the Author of the Book, Mrs Harrison, and my Agent Doreen Montgomery to expose the fraud of ' The Diary of Jack the Ripper" but he didn't make his forgery "confession" until June 1994 (firstly to Shirley Harrison on 21st June and then to Harold Brough of the Liverpool Daily Post three days later). He said that Tony Devereux died "late May early June 1990" when it was August 1991 . So there would be nothing odd about Mike making another error when he dated the acquisition of the guardbook. He was drinking very heavily at the time and clearly one has to make allowances when it comes to chronology, especially as he also makes clear in the affidavit that he acquired his red diary BEFORE the guardbook and we know for a fact that the red diary was acquired in March 1992.

As to the red diary, here is what the world's leading expert tells us about what Barrett said on the subject in his affidavit:

"I suggest he mentioned the red diary to Alan Gray, in the context of having given it to Anne recently, and Gray helped him "make something of it" in his January 1995 affidavit." (#1677, Acquiring a Victorian Diary)

So we are being told that Alan Gray is responsible for the contents of Mike's affidavit based on what Mike had told him. This is quite possible, in which case perhaps it was Gray who muddled up the dates, misunderstanding what Mike had told him and Mike did not read the affidavit properly before he signed it.

[GUT]

Sadly, I missed that classic post, Lord Orsam. I have no doubt that whatever it was, it would be cogent, impassioned, and its points well made and I genuinely regret it not making it as far as my attention.

You're still wrong about the journal, of course, though I suspect I'm on the wrong thread to be reminding you of that.

I trust you are not suggesting that the certificate of purchase that I posted from Dixons showing the sale of an Amstrad at full retail price in 1986 reflects anything other than the sale and purchase of a new word processor, one which could never be described as "second hand".

I know nothing about Dixon’s but I certainly know of companies where just that could, would, and did happen.

[David Orsam]

I know nothing about Dixon’s but I certainly know of companies where just that could, would, and did happen.

Sure but what I'm getting at is that even in those examples you mention, the customer, through paying full retail price, presumably thinks he is being sold a brand new model and has no reason to think otherwise, and therefore wouldn't describe it as "second hand".

[caz]

A fellow student and friend of mine at UCL, a linguistics student, was related to Sir James Whitehead, whose inaugural Lord Mayor's Parade was rained upon by the murder of Mary Kelly. Small world!

Blimey, Gareth. Small world indeed.

Love,

Caz
X