One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[ChrisGeorge]

Leaving aside that the phrase "one off instance" is in common usage today, and was in 1992, I fail to understand the obsession some people seem have with this exact phrase.

Take the expression "one off occurrence". The word "occurrence" is a synonym of "instance". So if you say "one off occurrence" you are, in effect, also saying "one off instance".

It's the same for the expression "one off occasion". The word "occasion" is a synonym for "instance". They are interchangeable.

That's why I have always said that the expression "one off instance" or similar was not in use in 1888.

Exactly. Thanks, David.

[Sam Flynn]

That's why I have always said that the expression "one-off instance" or similar was not in use in 1888.

I completely agree. Going by the dictionary, the particular use of the expression seen in the diary only turns up in the latter half of the 20th century; that's three-quarters of a century too late for Maybrick, or any near-contemporaneous forger.

[caz]

Whatever came of the watch - was that proven to be a hoax? I always felt that it added weight to the Diary, but the official research camp seemed to distance themselves from it. I guess the problem is that although the watch is undoubtedly old enough to have been Sir Jim's, nobody could prove when the scratches were made. IIRC not only did it have far better provenance than the Diary, it also passed initial scientific tests, AND the signature matched that of Maybrick's wedding certificate and will.

Hi Steven,

Still trying to catch up...

The watch is, in many respects, more interesting than the diary and raises a lot more questions that are far from easy to resolve. It gets sidelined in my opinion, partly because it didn't come with a handy Mike Barrett attached, and partly because nobody has been able to point a finger at anything 'suspiciously' modern about the engravings/scratchings.

For what it's worth, I could see the diary as a sort of companion piece for the watch, authored by someone who had seen the latter and was inspired by it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if both items had at one time been together in one place, although I don't believe Mike ever had - or was ever given - access to the watch. For some reason he was trusted with the blasted diary, and look what happened!

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And let's not forget that Albert Johnson paid £400 for the scientific testing himself, despite the Diary publishers offering to do so in return for a stake in it. Not the actions of a man who suspected that the test results would prove his watch to be a hoax. So we know that Johnson had owned the watch for 2 years prior the Diary coming to light, and that his actions do not point towards him being a hoaxer. We also know that the watch had been in the family of the jewellers who sold it to AJ for at least 15 years. I find it highly improbable that they made the scratches. So we have a watch that's claiming to be JM's, and is claiming that JM was JTR, and it's either genuine, or hoaxed sometime prior to 1976. Hmmm......

Hi again Steven,

Albert Johnson actually bought the watch in the summer of 1992, just weeks after Mike had taken the diary to London. The scratches were not found and deciphered until the summer of 1993, when Albert happened to take the watch in to work to show his colleagues (as a result of an episode of The Antiques Roadshow featuring a gold watch) and one of them noticed some letters scratched inside the back cover when it was opened and held up to the light. They are not at all easy to see otherwise. But this was still before the first diary book was published, with its facsimile and transcript of the text. We don't 'know' how long the jewellers had sat on the watch before selling it to Albert; we only have their word for it. However, I have always found it odd that any item of value would have been put away and forgotten about by someone in the trade, instead of being serviced straight away and sold on - if that was going to be the end result anyway. In theory, any seller might reasonably be tempted to backdate the acquisition of a valuable item if people began asking pointed questions about when and how they had come by it. Were they perhaps understandably worried that the watch may have been stolen property when they acquired it - hence the questions?

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

The watch is, in many respects, more interesting than the diary and raises a lot more questions that are far from easy to resolve. It gets sidelined in my opinion, partly because it didn't come with a handy Mike Barrett attached, and partly because nobody has been able to point a finger at anything 'suspiciously' modern about the engravings/scratchings.

When the diary is in trouble fall back on the watch???

Can I suggest the reason why the watch has been "sidelined" in this thread is that it is entitled "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary".

[caz]

Topline, most plausible interpretation (assuming no guilt on his part): He wanted to write out the journal in another document and take that to London rather than risk taking the original. When that plan fell quickly apart, he took the journal, and the rest is ...

Assuming our Mike wasn't still at the planning stage by March 1992, trying to obtain (while not actually ordering) a diary dating from before 1890, to impress Doreen with by the middle of April, with the ink still wet on the page, I think your interpretation is a definite possibility. He used a false name at first, as if testing the waters, but before showing Doreen 'the' diary he had gained the confidence to give her his real name, along with the reassurance that his baby would be (relatively) safe in her hands. The trust issue would have gone both ways. He may have wanted enough blank pages to copy out some particularly significant parts of the text, to give Doreen a taste of what he had on offer and gauge her interest, before parting with the 63-page guard book itself. Had she decided against asking for sight of the actual document, he could have tried elsewhere without having lost anything.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

When the diary is in trouble fall back on the watch???

No David, just responding to other people's posts as per usual. Have a nice cup of cocoa and calm down. The diary was in trouble when it was first noted that the handwriting didn't match Maybrick's. It's in no more or less 'trouble' today as far as I'm concerned. You read this, David, over and over again, yet you don't seem able to absorb it.

Can I suggest the reason why the watch has been "sidelined" in this thread is that it is entitled "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary".

You can suggest anything you like, but why are you only now suggesting it, and not when the first poster here brought up the watch? Losing your touch, or just touchy?

Cocoa - now! And a comfy chair. You know it makes sense.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

It's in no more or less 'trouble' today as far as I'm concerned.

Remind me again why you say Barrett made strenuous efforts to purchase an 1891 diary with blank pages?

And where do we find another example of "one off instance" or anything similar or synonymous in the nineteenth century?

[David Orsam]

You can suggest anything you like, but why are you only now suggesting it, and not when the first poster here brought up the watch?

Because you were the first person to suggest that the watch was being "sidelined".

[David Orsam]

Assuming our Mike wasn't still at the planning stage by March 1992, trying to obtain (while not actually ordering) a diary dating from before 1890, to impress Doreen with by the middle of April, with the ink still wet on the page, I think your interpretation is a definite possibility. He used a false name at first, as if testing the waters, but before showing Doreen 'the' diary he had gained the confidence to give her his real name, along with the reassurance that his baby would be (relatively) safe in her hands. The trust issue would have gone both ways. He may have wanted enough blank pages to copy out some particularly significant parts of the text, to give Doreen a taste of what he had on offer and gauge her interest, before parting with the 63-page guard book itself. Had she decided against asking for sight of the actual document, he could have tried elsewhere without having lost anything.

You do realise that this makes no sense all right?

[David Orsam]

He may have wanted enough blank pages to copy out some particularly significant parts of the text, to give Doreen a taste of what he had on offer and gauge her interest

You do realise that you are suggesting here that Barrett was intending to present Doreen with a forged 1888 diary written by Maybrick?

That's exactly what I am saying. That's the obvious reason he wanted a diary with blank pages.

If he had simply wanted to show Doreen the text he could have just copied it out into a modern exercise book or produced a typed version for her.

[caz]

So we are being asked to believe that the diary author took an expression that had a narrow specific meaning in a trade context and, on his own, turned it into a metaphor for him hitting his wife on one occasion whereby he apologises to her saying it was "a one off instance". He expects his wife to understand it and the readers of his diary to understand it...

Does he, David? Isn't he meant to be a serial killer, holding a private conversation with himself, right up to when he thinks of bequeathing his rotten jottings to whoever comes across them after he shuffles off? This was never meant to be a work of literature, with the author only lifting expressions from other formal works he has read. Casual thoughts, conversations and discarded personal jottings must hugely outnumber the preserved and documented written word, and everything we see written down was thought of and almost certainly spoken of long before the first person decided to use in a formal written context.

I would prefer it we could just stick to 'no evidence' that anyone could have thought of an instance being a 'one off' as early as the 1880s, rather than a flat assertion that the phrase simply didn't 'exist' back then, and therefore could not have been thought of either - as if it was tripping off your average forger's tongue by the late 1980s.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Remind me again why you say Barrett made strenuous efforts to purchase an 1891 diary with blank pages?

Remind me again where I said that?

And where do we find another example of "one off instance" or anything similar or synonymous in the nineteenth century?

Did I suggest 'we' had found anything of the sort?

You really need that cocoa, David.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

You do realise that this makes no sense all right?

You do realise the above makes no sense - right?

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Remind me again where I said that?

I meant remind me what your explanation for it is.

There is no doubt that he made strenuous efforts to purchase a Victorian diary is there?

Having seen your explanation above, it makes no sense as I have already commented. In fact, I can't believe you are giving it any credence.