One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

Was it not Sue Iremonger (Martin Fido's favorite of the lot) who noted that the strokes on certain letters were artificially added---not a natural component of the writing but more like someone trying to fake copperplate writing---'mock Victorian' to use your own phrase?

It was actually Audrey Giles, later head of Scotland Yard's Questioned Document division. "....evidence of strokes added to the characters of "f", "y" and "g" to give the large and rounded loops typical of copperplate writing. Compared to Maybrick's will, she found "many differences"....the initials 'J' and 'M' are very different. Since these are Maybrick's initials these differences are significant."

[rjpalmer]

Blimey, something about Marilyn's IQ seems to have touched a nerve.

Nerve? Not in the least.

The only legitimate response to Tom comparing his deductions about the Maybrick hoax to the deductions of a woman with an I.Q. of 225+ is good natured mirth. How could it be otherwise?

And unless you suddenly believe that Sue Iremonger and Maureen Casey Owens and Audrey Giles and Kenneth Rendell, etc. etc., got it all wrong and the diary really is the handiwork of James Maybrick, then you must think Tom is just as wrong as I do. But please don't tell him.

Tom has deeper problems than flippantly claiming that the Mudbrick's "private hand" must have been radically different than his "public hand"---an argument that doesn't seem to have attracted much of a following. Perhaps this is Ms. Savant-Ros territory, and the herd can never hope to appreciate Ike's logic, but some of the mere mortal handwriting experts didn't believe the penman was even Victorian, let alone Maybrick, which throws something of a spanner in the Mitchell machinery.

Was it not Sue Iremonger (Martin Fido's favorite of the lot) who noted that the strokes on certain letters were artificially added---not a natural component of the writing but more like someone trying to fake copperplate writing---'mock Victorian' to use your own phrase?

[caz]

Are you suggesting, RJ, that the reasonably-large nation of the United Kingdom back in the late 1980s had only one cheap tittle-tattle rag which untalented but aspiring creatives could palm their efforts onto?

I cannot buy the notion that Celebrity folded and therefore Mike Barrett's options were:

1) No outlets for his creative genius so he needed to write a hoaxed Jack the Ripper scrapbook; or
2) Be without any income.

I'm assuming that Barrett could easily have got references from Celebrity and then plied his trade with any of a large number of chit-chat, tittle-tattle crap rags that either preceeded it or replaced it? After all, none of them would have required insights from Deep Throat to get the printing presses rolling.

This is why I suggested that editors had sussed him out (because there were other mags) but I was only saying so lightheartedly because - of course - the editors of other mags would not have known about him. The challenge for Barrett was the realisation that the magazines were there but the talent to write was not. In truth, I take it as read now that Barrett got no work because he had realised that it was too much effort for the small reward that came his way. Nothing whatsoever to do with his mortgage, and to imagine that his acquisition of a mortgage was the reason why he wrote the Maybrick scrapbook is simply not sustainable.

Morning Ike,

I suspect everything changed for Mike when Anne wanted to move house against his will, to be nearer Billy Graham [not the infamous evangelist, for anyone who was wondering]. Now with a mortgage to pay and an ageing father to keep an eye on, Anne may not have been able or willing to spend her limited spare time helping Mike revive a less than lucrative writing career, which would have relied heavily on her efforts to get it off the ground to begin with.

Moving home is one of the biggest causes of stress and strife after all, and then in January 1994 the stress went through the roof for hubby when his 'trouble and strife' upped and left.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Parade, for those in the UK that might not know, was a glossy, weekly tabloid that was sometimes given away free with newspaper subscriptions, filled with chit-chat and public interest stories.

It wasn't too different from the magazines that the diary's discoverer and chief promoter, Michael John Barrett, wrote for in the 1980s, before alcoholism, kidney disease, and stroke took their toll, forcing him to seek more imaginative means of securing an income.

Those of us in the UK who are d'un certain âge, might recall - ahem - a rather different Parade magazine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade_(British_magazine)

'Parade was a British magazine for men. With origins dating back to 1916, the magazine went through a number of different incarnations and different publishers until it went defunct sometime in the mid-2000s. It was originally known as Blighty between 1916 and 1920 and was intended as a humorous magazine for servicemen. Relaunched in 1939, as Blighty Parade, it was turned into a pin-up magazine. Renamed Parade in 1960, by the 1970s content had progressed to topless and nude photos of models, and at the end of the 1990s it went hardcore.'

Talking about seeking a more imaginative way to make a living, our very own Michael Barrett once tried his hand at creating riddles for submission, but the one I was shown was unprintable for two painfully obvious reasons. It was of the type that starts: 'My first is in... but not in...', and the clues used a plethora of naughty words, which were clearly meant to spell out the word O R G A S M. [Apologies for revealing the intended solution, in case it ever gets published in Viz.] The problem was that Mike got the spelling wrong, so it all went tits up, if you'll pardon the expression.

It was a forerunner to Mike's repeated 'sweet intercourse' bloomers.

[caz]

To be pedantic, her mother's maiden name appears to have been Savant-Ros, inherited from the grandfather, Giuseppe Savant-Ros.

If women were supposed to take the surname of their mother, as Marilyn claimed in justifying her nom de plume, her mother didn't follow the tradition, so the pen name is somewhat contrived. (And in Italian the word for wise is "sapiente").

Still, I suppose one can't blame her. Marilyn Mach doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

Mach brings to mind Machiavelli---a name more suitable for an 'Ask Marilyn' advice column with particularly nasty advice. I don't remember Parade having such a thing.

Blimey, something about Marilyn's IQ seems to have touched a nerve.

Don't worry about me, though. Mine must be below 70 for voting against Brexit and not seeing a Barrett hand in the diary.

[caz]

And there, it would seem, we have it.

The handwriting in the scrapbook which does not look like any of Maybrick's public handwriting leads us to folly if we pursued it as a criticism of the scrapbook's authenticity. I couldn't agree more, RD!

What we need is an example of James Maybrick's private scribbling for his own eyes only. Or - more to the point - another example of his private scribbling for his own eyes only ...

What I'd most like to see is an example of Anne Graham's handwriting from March 1992, when she was practising her best mock Victorian script in readiness for the 11-day creation in early April.

If anyone has such a thing, perhaps they would be kind enough to post it and I could take up dentistry or something.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Okay, if Parade magazine persuaded her that Marilyn vos Savant (her mother's maiden name) was a catchier name than Marilyn Mach (her father's name and her actual surname) then surely we should be struck by the thought that Fate had an inkling as to what was coming when It gave her mother her surname long before Marilyn was even thought of?

It's nice to be back. I'd hate to think Lord Orsam was struggling for articles on his blog without me. Imagine what mastery of statistics we can look forward to from him as he attempts to prove that vos Savant-Mach was wrong all along???

I can't wait ...

Is Parade magazine the one I remember my Dad trying - and failing - to hide from me back in the 1960s?

Nice to think it was Marilyn's mum who had the apt surname. Keeping it in the genes, rather than the jeans, perhaps?

I should have adopted my own mum's maiden name, I might have become a billionaire.

Clue: her maiden name was not Lottie Winner.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Rookie Detective]

No problem RD, I appreciate the clarity in your follow-up comments.

No offence has been taken.

I appreciate the point you have clarified.

Handwriting analysis takes us into areas that can be regarded as subjective and open to various viewpoints. Which makes Ike’s point pretty valid on that basis.

The handwriting has been my biggest challenge with the scrapbook, but I believe the K in the watch does match Maybrick’s style.

But both could be wrong, one could right or both could be right.

I agree with you completely on this, great post!


RD

[erobitha]

No problem RD, I appreciate the clarity in your follow-up comments.

No offence has been taken.

I appreciate the point you have clarified.

Handwriting analysis takes us into areas that can be regarded as subjective and open to various viewpoints. Which makes Ike’s point pretty valid on that basis.

The handwriting has been my biggest challenge with the scrapbook, but I believe the K in the watch does match Maybrick’s style.

But both could be wrong, one could right or both could be right.

[Iconoclast]

I don't think there's much point in going on, Ike.
Whenever one of your wild inventions is challenged, you immediately come back and state you were being "jocular" or "lighthearted."
You've played this card once too often.
Ciao.

What I actually said was:

It seems to me that no health-related issues took their toll on his ability to write (!) from the late 1980s onwards. The evidence simply suggests that he either gave it up as the dead loss that it patently was or that editors sussed him out and stopped publishing any of his hard-hitting material in their gentle rags.

Now, I think it's reasonably clear that I was emphasising the first suggestion - "The evidence simply suggests that he either gave it up as the dead loss that it patently was" and that the second part was a little tongue-in-cheek (because - as I suggested in a later post - I don't believe that editors even knew of him never mind 'sussed him out').

I think my posts were clear enough: I believe that by the time Celebrity folded, so had Barrett's literary ambitions. It was hard work and his rewards had been pitiful (to say the least). I have no doubt that the blowhard that he was did not 'retire' from the creative arts, though. I think we can all imagine him down The Saddle Inn in 1990 and 1991 and 1992 boring anyone who would listen about his literary connections and his creative past. Possibly he gave one of his famous nods and a wink when asked if he was still working in the field (when, of course, he very much wasn't) and - as a consequence - he was seen as the 'book man', the 'bookish type', the literati of Liverpool's working class and when Eddie Lyons and/or Jim Bowling turned up one day with an old, damaged scrapbook that was incredibly difficult to read, perhaps they were directed to the doyen of the inn who immediately recognised the value of the book and sought to have it.

The rest, as they say, is very much his story ...

[rjpalmer]

This is why I suggested that editors had sussed him out (because there were other mags)

but I was only saying so lightheartedly

because - of course - the editors of other mags would not have known about him.

I don't think there's much point in going on, Ike.

Whenever one of your wild inventions is challenged, you immediately come back and state you were being "jocular" or "lighthearted."

You've played this card once too often.

Ciao.

[Iconoclast]

As your good friend Lord Orsam suggested, it was the collapse of Celebrity that forced Barrett to look for other outlets for his creative juices.
In brief, an income.

Are you suggesting, RJ, that the reasonably-large nation of the United Kingdom back in the late 1980s had only one cheap tittle-tattle rag which untalented but aspiring creatives could palm their efforts onto?

I cannot buy the notion that Celebrity folded and therefore Mike Barrett's options were:

1) No outlets for his creative genius so he needed to write a hoaxed Jack the Ripper scrapbook; or
2) Be without any income.

I'm assuming that Barrett could easily have got references from Celebrity and then plied his trade with any of a large number of chit-chat, tittle-tattle crap rags that either preceeded it or replaced it? After all, none of them would have required insights from Deep Throat to get the printing presses rolling.

This is why I suggested that editors had sussed him out (because there were other mags) but I was only saying so lightheartedly because - of course - the editors of other mags would not have known about him. The challenge for Barrett was the realisation that the magazines were there but the talent to write was not. In truth, I take it as read now that Barrett got no work because he had realised that it was too much effort for the small reward that came his way. Nothing whatsoever to do with his mortgage, and to imagine that his acquisition of a mortgage was the reason why he wrote the Maybrick scrapbook is simply not sustainable.

[rjpalmer]

or that editors sussed him out and stopped publishing any of his hard-hitting material in their gentle rags.

Sussed him out? What fiction is this?

The chief vehicle of Barrett's articles, Celebrity, ceased publication in the late 1980s. Barrett was still writing for them when they closed down, and the editor later characterized Barrett as a very 'reliable' contributor.

There was no "sussing out" or rejection of his services. Please refrain from inventing things from thin air.

As your good friend Lord Orsam suggested, it was the collapse of Celebrity that forced Barrett to look for other outlets for his creative juices.

In brief, an income.

I, of course, have no problem with Barrett being a more capable writer than what the diary friendly crowd like to portray.

My point about his health problems goes more to the tendency of the diary crowd to point to Mike's woeful state in 1995--when he was at the depth of his alcoholism--as evidence of what he was supposedly like in 1991-1992.

To that, I call foul.

Have a good afternoon.

[Iconoclast]

It wasn't too different from the magazines that the diary's discoverer and chief promoter, Michael John Barrett, wrote for in the 1980s, before alcoholism, kidney disease, and stroke took their toll, forcing him to seek more imaginative means of securing an income.

The alcoholism we can all sign up to - the evidence was clear two years AFTER he brought the scrapbook to market so no arguments there (though I'm not sure what evidence there was from the late 1980s and early 1990s other than possibly a throwaway remark from his wife?).

But the stroke? He only claimed it, yes? We know that his GP (Dr Khan) inexplicably failed to mention any stroke when Barrett agreed to the good doctor sharing Barrett's medical records. Strange but true.

And the kidney issues he experienced were - IIRC - caused by a serious accident as a child? They don't appear to have stopped him in his tracks as he reached out year after year in the mid-1980s for his Pulitzer Prize chit-chat with minor celebs.

It seems to me that no health-related issues took their toll on his ability to write (!) from the late 1980s onwards. The evidence simply suggests that he either gave it up as the dead loss that it patently was or that editors sussed him out and stopped publishing any of his hard-hitting material in their gentle rags.

Honestly, I think you might just have over-played your hand a wee bit there, RJ, but I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong.

[rjpalmer]

Parade, for those in the UK that might not know, was a glossy, weekly tabloid that was sometimes given away free with newspaper subscriptions, filled with chit-chat and public interest stories.

It wasn't too different from the magazines that the diary's discoverer and chief promoter, Michael John Barrett, wrote for in the 1980s, before alcoholism, kidney disease, and stroke took their toll, forcing him to seek more imaginative means of securing an income.