One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

You are wrong.

In this case, you were in fact addressing your post to me because you said:

"Your incontrovertible fact is as solid as the old gem that Michael Maybrick only composed music."

What I was saying was that it's not legitimate to take one claim which refutes the diary and then say "oh well someone else said something which refuted the diary and it turned out to be wrong".

It's nothing to do with me personally, it's the way you are framing your response to the "one off" point which has nothing to do with "one off".

Oh but it is!

Everyone reading this will clearly see that you leapt to the assumption that I was suggesting you had said something I clearly had not said that you'd said.

You said "I have never said anything about Maybrick only composing music - I have no idea - so what does that have to do with the price of fish?".

I did not say that you said this.

You took it as a personal attack and it clearly wasn't.

I think I need some cocoa myself at this rate ...

[Iconoclast]

No I meant repeating yourself over the course of four months (August to December).

Honestly, David, I don't think this qualifies for 'keep repeating myself' (or however you phrased it)?

[David Orsam]

Oh but it is!

Everyone reading this will clearly see that you leapt to the assumption that I was suggesting you had said something I clearly had not said that you'd said.

You said "I have never said anything about Maybrick only composing music - I have no idea - so what does that have to do with the price of fish?".

I did not say that you said this.

You took it as a personal attack and it clearly wasn't.

I think I need some cocoa myself at this rate ...

No, you are quite mistaken.

I was fully aware you weren't accusing me of having said that Maybrick only composed music.

What I was asking was: what does the point about Maybrick composing music have anything to do with the point I have been making about "one off instance"?

You were the one who linked the two separate points when you said to me:

"Your incontrovertible fact is as solid as the old gem that Michael Maybrick only composed music."

I simply wanted to make clear to others that this wasn't something I had said and thus can have no impact on whether my own "incontrovertible fact" is solid or not.

[David Orsam]

Honestly, David, I don't think this qualifies for 'keep repeating myself' (or however you phrased it)?

I said "Saying this repeatedly does not make it so."

And, yes, if you say it in August and say it again in December (ringing a bell in my mind that you have said it before) it does count as "repeatedly".

[Iconoclast]

No, you are quite mistaken.
I simply wanted to make clear to others that this wasn't something I had said and thus can have no impact on whether my own "incontrovertible fact" is solid or not.

Okay - accepted.

[John G]

How do we know it was lie?

Of course we don't. However, to my mind, his story doesn't really add up. For instance, his claim that he gained "full knowledge" of the pub by virtue of working there as a barman several years earlier. And his reason for purposely referring to the pub as the Poste House in the diary, knowing this was an error.

[Iconoclast]

David,

Be honest here. Have you - in your opinion - been wrong about anything, ever?

Cheers,

Ike

[John G]

Or he might have forged the diary.

And how are we to determine which alternative is most likely correct? Bearing in mind that most people who have met him have concluded that he didn't write the diary.

[ChrisGeorge]

David,

Be honest here. Have you - in your opinion - ever been wrong about anything, ever?

Cheers,

Ike

I will freely admit I have made mistakes in making assumptions during my research. As far as I know, Donald Trump is the only living man who is never ever wrong.

[David Orsam]

Of course we don't. However, to my mind, his story doesn't really add up. For instance, his claim that he gained "full knowledge" of the pub by virtue of working there as a barman several years earlier. And his reason for purposely referring to the pub as the Poste House in the diary, knowing this was an error.

You focus on the phrase "full knowledge" but in reality it only means that he knew the Poste House pub was called the Muck Midden. That doesn't seem so unlikely.

I have no idea if what he said about the inclusion of the Poste House in the diary is true or not. If false it could be that he was embarrassed by having made the error and wanted to stress that he knew it all along. I don't know. But the statement was made in his second affidavit, not the first one in which he sets out how he forged the diary and I would therefore place far less importance on it, if any.

[David Orsam]

And how are we to determine which alternative is most likely correct? Bearing in mind that most people who have met him have concluded that he didn't write the diary.

Well I reject those conclusions as unreliable for the reasons I've explained.

What we know is that he ordered a Victorian Diary with blank pages in 1992. No-one has yet provided a sensible explanation as to why he did it if it was not to produce a forged diary.

Whether Barrett wrote every single word, some words or none seems to me to be entirely unimportant if he was involved in some way in the forgery (as suggested by his acquisition of the diary).

At the same time, he gives an explanation of how the diary was written in his affidavit and there does not appear to be any good reason to think this was not how it was done.

I don't really understand what you are trying to establish here John.

[David Orsam]

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.

This doesn't work by the way Caz.

According to the diary, Maybrick hits Florence and then:

"I apologised, a one off instance, I said..."

So he records it as something he has said to his wife, who he presumably expected to understand him.

[Iconoclast]

This doesn't work by the way Caz.

According to the diary, Maybrick hits Florence and then:

"I apologised, a one off instance, I said..."

So he records it as something he has said to his wife, who he presumably expected to understand him.

This only works if what he wrote was literally what he said, and we would have no way of knowing that. He may have said to Florrie:

"I'm sorry, that will never happen again".

If that was the only time that he had hit her then, in recording it, he may well have used the terminology 'one-off instance' rather than "that will never happen again" (or whatever).

Is it possible that the cotton broker knew the term 'one-off' and used it in a journal entry intended only for himself, using the combination 'one-off instance' possibly for one of (if not the) first recorded occasion in history?

As he was au fait with US ways, was this a term he could have come across over the pond long before it was used over here?

These questions are why you should not be so quick to claim that your 'fact' is an incontrovertible one ...

[David Orsam]

This only works if what he wrote was literally what he said, and we would have no way of knowing that. He may have said to Florrie:

"I'm sorry, that will never happen again".

If that was the only time that he had hit her then, in recording it, he may well have used the terminology 'one-off instance' rather than "that will never happen again" (or whatever).

Is it possible that the cotton broker knew the term 'one-off' and used it in a journal entry intended only for himself, using the combination 'one-off instance' possibly for one of (if not the) first recorded occasion in history?

As he was au fait with US ways, was this a term he could have come across over the pond long before it was used over here?

These questions are why you should not be so quick to claim that your 'fact' is an incontrovertible one ...

Well his own words were:

"a one off instance, I said".

So that means he said it was a one off instance.

You really think he has this phrase in his head that no-one else knows that he writes down for himself in his diary?

I don't know what US ways have got to do with it. It's an English expression.

The reason why I claim my fact is an incontrovertible one is that I have searched many databases and if you actually do it you can see with your own eyes that a phrase which does not exist prior to the Second World War and is never used suddenly explodes into life in the 1960s and 70s.

By which I mean "one off instance" or anything similar.

[Iconoclast]

Well his own words were:

"a one off instance, I said".

So that means he said it was a one off instance.

No it doesn't. Don't be so literal, man. It says he said it but in reality the words he used may well have been very different (as I illustrate with my example).

If the term 'one-off' was ever used in the US in relation to cotton brokering, then 'one-off instance' may well spring to his mind in the moment of writing down his recollection of events.