One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Graham]

Just a quickie, and then I hope we can move on:

- Melvin Harris merely expressed an opinion that ion-migration is not an accurate technique. But as he was gung-ho for the Diary being written by the infamous Scouse "Den Of Forgers", well, he would, wouldn't he?

- in fairness to Rod McNeil, he never claimed that his technique was 'accurate' to within a year, month, day, whatever. He stated his results were accurate to +/- 9 years, maybe even +/- 30 years depending on certain conditions under which the Diary was stored. What conditions those may be, we were never told.

Personally, I am quite satisfied that the Diary is not a product of the past 20 - 30 years, is a good deal older than that, was not written by James Maybrick, and was produced for what remains, to me at least, an unknown purpose.

I'm off to have a nice cup of tea and a bun.

Graham

[Geddy2112]

I did indeed pick up on your clever reference to our finest son and was trying to think how I could steal all the credit for it when you came out and made the link directly. I can't believe it has never occurred to me to use that one. I grew up in 1960s Newcastle to stories of 'Wor Jackie' Milburn, and all the misery since has simply raised his memory to sainthood. Personally, I was first a fan in the 1970s so my favourite player will always be Supermac, but Wor Jackie's ghost lingers in the ground every game in a way that no-one else's ever will.

But what of Wor Jackie Maybrick? Will his ghost linger forever in the history of Ripperology, or will we find that he was a one-season-wonder?

Answers on a postcard to the Liverpool Echo, dated October 10, 1888, please ...

Howay the Lads

Ike

My dad played as a semi pro for Newcastle during Jacks time. A great man apparently, like you my hero was Supermac but I fell out with NUFC as a small boy once they sold him. My father has never forgiven me. NE football... still waiting for that elusive trophy.

What will happen first the trophy or the 100% answer to the JtR mystery?

[Geddy2112]

Just for the slow ones at the back. (And those who CBA to wade though 100s of pages of threads...)

Is there anything, anything at all in the dairy that is written that 'only the killer could have known?'

[Iconoclast]

My dad played as a semi pro for Newcastle during Jacks time. A great man apparently, like you my hero was Supermac but I fell out with NUFC as a small boy once they sold him. My father has never forgiven me. NE football... still waiting for that elusive trophy.

What will happen first the trophy or the 100% answer to the JtR mystery?

Good question!

Sadly, the answer could well be 'neither' ...

[Iconoclast]

Just for the slow ones at the back. (And those who CBA to wade though 100s of pages of threads...)

Is there anything, anything at all in the dairy that is written that 'only the killer could have known?'

Probably not much given how much scrutiny the murders have had, but I contend that the journal effectively predicts that the red leather cigarette case was Maybrick's so if it were tested positively for arsenic or strychnine, I would consider that something that realistically only the killer could have known.

I would certainly take it as proof positive that Maybrick was our man.

Ike

[David Orsam]

Just a quickie, and then I hope we can move on:

- Melvin Harris merely expressed an opinion that ion-migration is not an accurate technique. But as he was gung-ho for the Diary being written by the infamous Scouse "Den Of Forgers", well, he would, wouldn't he?

I don't quite know what it is you are so keen to move on from, Graham, but it is incorrect to say that Harris expressed an opinion in his article that ion migration is not an accurate technique.

As the article makes clear, Harris was talking about the limitations of the technique. He said that the ion migration test has only ever been used to determine the difference in age between two writings supposed to have been created at the same time but not to provide accurate dating. So it's not the technique himself that he criticized but the way McNeil used it. He was also saying that, in attempting to use the technique to date documents, it can be fooled either by (a) artificial ageing or (b) the type of paper being tested.

And it can't just be Harris' "gung ho" attitude that is responsible because Shirley Harrison tells us in 'The American Connection' (p.341) that McNeil retracted his 1921 dating conclusion (which, she says, was in a range of +/- 12 years) a month after he formed it. He said in October 1993 that he now only thought that the diary was "created prior to 1970" but accepted that there was "the possibility of error associated either with the operator of the techniques itself".

But it gets worse because Harrison also refers to the opinion of Dr Wild at Bristol University who, she tells us, conducted a test on similar equipment to that used by McNeil but 'concluded that such a test could not be carried out as claimed'. He also said that 'not enough had been published about this particular test'.

All I am trying to do is get to the bottom of all this from a scientific perspective. You have frankly admitted that you know no more about the technique than that is an established one so I appreciate that you can't help on the point. It goes without saying that if McNeil's results can't be trusted then one of the main planks in support of the argument that the diary is an old forgery vanishes.

[Observer]

There's a lot of "radio silence" taking place in this thread, and mainly from the individual who first used the phrase.

[Iconoclast]

There's a lot of "radio silence" taking place in this thread, and mainly from the individual who first used the phrase.

What exactly were you waiting for? I used the phrase because I was waiting for GUT to answer the question he backed himself into.

As a matter of interest, given that he deliberately avoided answering the critical question he had backed himself into, does that not make him rather GUT(less)?

Oh I make myself laugh!

Ike

[Observer]

An answer to Ichabodcrame's post number 1889

[Observer]

Why have you just completely altered your post above, laughing boy?

[Observer]

And, you still havn't answered Ichabodcranes's post 1889

[Observer]

It's a classic case of kettle calling the pot black

[Iconoclast]

An answer to Ichabodcrame's post number 1889

What are you now, the post police?

If you follow the thread with any level of detail, you'll note that I asked that we stay on point and resolve the conundrum GUTless created by backing himself into 1951 without a paddle before I was willing to address tangential questions. I was trying to avoid what happens all the time on this Casebook, a moment comes when a critical question needs to be answered, but the moment disappears and we end up chasing the tails of some other point, usually not even particularly related.

It looks like our Australian insight-machine has gone off for a long-overdue oil change, so I will return to Ichabodcrame's post, but - no disrespect officer - I think I'll do it at my leisure if that's quite all right with you?

Over and out (for now).

Detective Ike Iconoclast
Iconoclast's Detection and Insight Office Team

[Iconoclast]

It's a classic case of kettle calling the pot black

See my recent post.

[Observer]

What are you now, the post police?

If you follow the thread with any level of detail, you'll note that I asked that we stay on point and resolve the conundrum GUTless created by backing himself into 1951 without a paddle before I was willing to address tangential questions. I was trying to avoid what happens all the time on this Casebook, a moment comes when a critical question needs to be answered, but the moment disappears and we end up chasing the tails of some other point, usually not even particularly related.

It looks like our Australian insight-machine has gone off for a long-overdue oil change, so I will return to Ichabodcrame's post, but - no disrespect officer - I think I'll do it at my leisure if that's quite all right with you?

Over and out (for now).

Detective Ike Iconoclast
Iconoclast's Detection and Insight Office Team

That's very good of you, you be a good boy and do so, and then we can discuss the empty tin matchbox. However, It still doesn't alter the fact that on the score of maintaining "radio silence " you're as guilty as GUT. As far as poster's going missing, it's the way things are in Casebook, you'll have to get used to that. This is a pastime to most of us our lives don't revolve around this Forum. By the way your attempts at humour leave me cringing.