One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

You fail to mention that this was all retrospective knowledge. When Barrett ordered the 1880-1890 diary (with or without dates), he had not at that point actually composed the text of the scrapbook (according to his January 5, 1995 affidavit) so he pretty much needed just one page or ideally a few more - after all, as you've said yourself, he could just cut his cloth according to what he got, right? Surely you aren't hoping to have this argument both ways?

I'm using retrospective knowledge, Ike? Unless I'm very much mistaken, you're the one who claimed (inaccurately) that the red diary wouldn't have worked because Mike's 29-page transcript was 63 pages in length. That's the depth of retrospective thinking.

You then agree with me that your own statement was illogical, because Mike could have 'cut his cloth.'

As for Mike "pretty much needed just one page" ---it makes no sense whatsoever in the context of what you're arguing, and I am right in thinking that you've been seduced by Caroline's argument over on JTR Forums?

"A single page of Victorian notepaper would have done the job in seconds:

'I leave this letter where - God willing - it will be found after my death. I murdered those women in Whitechapel last year.

Signed,

James Maybrick

May 1889'"


And how many advanced book sales do you and Caroline think this single sheet of paper would have drummed-up for Robert Smith and Doreen Montgomery?

The Diary of Jack the Ripper had 70,000 advanced sales. Who is going to pay see a single, two-sentence confession in handwriting that is not Maybrick's?

You seem to keep forgetting that the diary was a literary hoax, Ike. Even Caroline (I think) admits that. The appeal is the story and reading the internal ramblings of Jack the Ripper.

So, for those in the back of the room, Barrett was selling a story to a literary agent. He wasn't selling a document to a collector. That's the difference.

And according to Barrett's secret affidavit (for those who don't dismiss it out of hand) he states that the idea of the diary dates back to Devereux (and Devereux had Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool, so that supports this claim) and he further states that the idea had been formulating for some time and that he had at the very least some rough notes or outline.

Sounds like he's describing how many writers work. The idea formulates over many months.

From Mike's years publishing public interest stories for Celebrity magazine, Mike would have had a good idea that a diary from Jack the Ripper would need to be at least 20 pages to achieve the big payday he so obviously wanted.

I'm sorry I can't be convinced by any of your arguments, Tom. I keep trying, but I can't ever see the logic. But thanks for your efforts--they help reassure me that there is never any reasonable counterargument to my own beliefs.

I must really go now.

Ciao.

[caz]

If Mike was desperate to prove the diary was a fake, then why is Mike so often lying to him? Why is Gray, at times recording Mike secretly? Does one need to secretly record a man who is supposedly desperate to give up the goods?

I think Palmer could probably answer his own questions if he put his mind to the task. He did say he would stay out of it and make no comment if and when Keith released the typescript and all 15 tapes. So I presume he checked that Keith was happy to do so without making that a condition.

Mike could only have proved to Alan Gray that he and Anne faked the diary if a) they had actually done so and b) he had the proof.

If Mike was lying about both those things, he was stringing Alan Gray along in the hope of gaining whatever advantage he was seeking by then.

If he wasn't lying about both those things, he was still stringing Alan Gray along, but for some other purpose, because he sure as hell didn't 'give up the goods', did he?

Gray was left frustrated because he couldn't tell when Mike was or wasn't lying to him. From Gray's point of view, Mike might reasonably have been holding back for fear of arrest whenever he knew he was being recorded, so recording him secretly would have made sense if he was trying - and failing - to get something definitive and incriminating, which he could potentially send to Melvin Harris or Stanley Dangar. Gray's motive was to be paid for the work he had already done for Mike as his client, and was continuing to do. If Mike was unable or unwilling to pay him, Gray needed to find other ways of making any further investigation worth his while, or he could just be wasting more of his own time and may as well have thrown his own money down the drain.

One can clearly hear Barrett saying in one recording that he wants to be PAID for his 'confession,' and has no intention of speaking to anyone--including Melvin Harris--unless he gets a payday.

This puts everything in a much-needed context. No money, no talkie the truth.

And that means - what? That if Mike can only convince Gray, Gray could then sell the true confession story and they'd both get their payday. So why IS Mike 'so often lying to him'? If he is hoping to get PAID before he has to provide the necessary evidence, how does that indicate that he has any evidence and is not bluffing out of desperation?

We know that, behind the scenes, Barrett's own solicitor was reminding him not to "strangle the Golden Goose" (Ie., the Maybrick Hoax and the resulting royalty cheques.)

There is no surprise here. Mike was harming his own financial interests with his claims, so his solicitor was duty bound to remind him of this.

Just in case anyone reads more into Palmer's words, there is no evidence that Mike's solicitor, Richard Bark-Jones, ever had any reason to believe that he had knowingly been making money from a hoax created by himself and his wife.

[caz]

The logical inference of Barrett's sworn affidavit of 5 January is that the photo album was obtained after Mike rejected the red diary as 'too small.'

Only if one believes Mike was honestly trying to make a clean breast of things, and not dishonestly trying to get revenge on his wife for leaving him and then undermining his initial 'confession', using his own original Devereux story against him, before finally divorcing him.

This is a credible explanation; yet, in your scenario, Barrett was given an intimate and detailed description of what he was going to receive from Earl yet still believed that a tiny, red, memorandum book from 1891, with pages stamped 1891 throughout, could serve as a 'doppelganger' or 'mirror image' (two terms you have used) for a large, blue/black, photograph album with cursive writing throughout, as described by a 'pursuer' who could also theoretically quote passages of said diary.

Maybe I missed where Ike suggested that when Mike ordered the 1891 diary, between 19th and 26th March 1992, he was still planning to use it as a substitute for the old book Doreen first saw in London on 13th April.

If he did so, then I would agree with Palmer that this explanation is not credible.

However, I find it no more credible that Mike could have still been hoping that this 1891 diary would prove suitable for what was supposedly sitting on his word processor, and that he only admitted defeat due to its size when he opened the package - and then, within just two or three days, he happened to attend an auction sale and found what he should have asked for in the first place: an undated old book with all the unused pages he could wish for.

If only Palmer had some evidence that this particular old book was put up for auction and sold on 31st March 1992, after Mike had received the 1891 diary, and could not instead have been seen in the Saddle on 9th March 1992, prompting his request to Martin Earl.

[rjpalmer]

Unlike Anne on that particular occasion, we are led to believe ...

Well said, Ike. Which admirably brushes aside Caz's admirably wholesome, if not entirely subtle, question:

Secondly, why on earth would Mike have handed over proof of his hoaxing intentions to Anne, at a time when Alan Gray was tearing his hair out

Because Gray wore trousers and not a skirt?


"It was about 1st week in December 1994 that my wife Anne Barrett visited me, she asked me to keep my mouth shut and that if I did so I could receive a payment of L20,000 before the end of the month. She was all over me and we even made love, it was all very odd because just as quickley (sic) as she made love to me she threatened me and returned to her old self."

Like Caesar, she came. She saw. She conquered. She left with a red diary.

Sometimes known in OSS circles as 'the honey trap.'

The pro-Diary narrative that I have come to look skeptically upon is that Barrett was wholeheartedly cooperating with Gray and giving Gray his best college try.

The tapes don't leave me with that impression. If Mike was desperate to prove the diary was a fake, then why is Mike so often lying to him? Why is Gray, at times recording Mike secretly? Does one need to secretly record a man who is supposedly desperate to give up the goods?

One can clearly hear Barrett saying in one recording that he wants to be PAID for his 'confession,' and has no intention of speaking to anyone--including Melvin Harris--unless he gets a payday.

This puts everything in a much-needed context. No money, no talkie the truth.

We know that, behind the scenes, Barrett's own solicitor was reminding him not to "strangle the Golden Goose" (Ie., the Maybrick Hoax and the resulting royalty cheques.)

The dynamics of what was going on in 1994-1995 are far more complex than what we have been led to believe.

Have a great afternoon.

[Iconoclast]

Secondly, why on earth would Mike have handed over proof of his hoaxing intentions to Anne, at a time when Alan Gray was tearing his hair out, failing to get any sense out of this hopeless liar and pleading for some - any - physical evidence he had to support his claims and accusations?

Let me make a prediction at this point, Caz. Your very telling question (above) is deeply awkward if you believe the man was telling the truth, the whole truth, and what have you so I suspect that your question will either be totally ignored or else someone will claim that he had the diary but he didn't give it to Gray because he wanted to keep him dangling so that he had a bit of company during the long, pissed-up days of the mid-nineteen nineties.

Watch this space ...

[Iconoclast]

No wonder Alan Gray was getting more and more frustrated at not getting a sausage out of the man!

Unlike Anne on that particular occasion, we are led to believe ...

[Iconoclast]

A reminder that the advertisement was not placed by Michael Barrett. It was placed by Martin Earl, and there is no evidence that Barrett was even aware of Earl's methods.

Mrs Iconoclast and I recently moved back home to Scotland and quickly realised that there is no garden waste collection. Fortunately, there is a company you can call up and they will dispose of your garden waste for you (for a charge, obviously). So Mrs I. gave them a ring and they have duly collected our garden waste on two occasions. Now, I have just asked her what the original conversation consisted of and she said she asked if they'd collect our garden waste and they said they could for a charge so she checked what the charge would be to which they said £7.50 per collection regardless of volume. She said okay and they asked if there was easy access to our garden to which she said there was. And that was that. She didn't know when they'd arrive, what they'd come in, how wide a doorway they would need, whether a garden waste bin was okay for collection purposes, whether (if it was) it would be returned. She just agreed to the service and the service took care of itself. I don't think Mike Barrett needed to know anything about Martin Earl's methods once he'd asked him to source a diary from 1880-1890 with a minimum of twenty blank pages in it. Why would he need to know anything about Earl's methods?

It's something of a paradox that you first imply that you know what Barrett had in mind, and then state that Barrett couldn't articulate what he had in mind, isn't it?

It's not a paradox - it's a clear indication that Mike Barrett was either an idiot (unable to mention to Earl that his potential 1889 or 1890 diary could not have dates in it) or else that dates in an 1889 or 1890 diary were quite irrelevant for what he had in mind for it.

Thanks to Jon Menges and Keith Skinner, a copy of the Barretts' typescript has been recently uploaded to this site. It is not 63 pages in length, but 29 pages. Some of the pages aren't even entirely filled and much of it is repetitive poetry that could be axed if the need arose.

You fail to mention that this was all retrospective knowledge. When Barrett ordered the 1880-1890 diary (with or without dates), he had not at that point actually composed the text of the scrapbook (according to his January 5, 1995 affidavit) so he pretty much needed just one page or ideally a few more - after all, as you've said yourself, he could just cut his cloth according to what he got, right? Surely you aren't hoping to have this argument both ways?

One cannot logically infer the size of an original manuscript based on what was eventually presented to a publisher in London; a hoaxer can always adapt his or her typescript depending on the amount of contemporary paper he or she was able to drum-up. Is that not the case?

Precisely my point, thank you. So why did he restrict his search to those examples of 1880-1890 diaries which had at least twenty blank pages? Under such pressure to produce his hoax that he deliberately made his task harder for himself despite the fact that he could "always adapt his or her typescript depending on the amount of contemporary paper he or she was able to drum-up".

The logical inference of Barrett's sworn affidavit of 5 January is that the photo album was obtained after Mike rejected the red diary as 'too small.'

I think, far more logically, in this parallel universe, Barrett 'obtained' (he didn't, by the way) the 'photo album' from 'Outhwaite & Litherland' (they denied his account was possible) because the 'red' (it was maroon) diary he had received from Martin Earl had more dates on each page than Barrett had Typp-Ex to eradicate. Remember, if the diary he got from Earl was too small (as he claimed in his iffydavit), he could "always adapt his or her typescript depending on the amount of contemporary paper he or she was able to drum-up". And yet - it seems - he didn't. That's either because it contained dates on every page or else it was because writing a hoax was not what Barrett was up to.

This is a credible explanation; yet, in your scenario, Barrett was given an intimate and detailed description of what he was going to receive from Earl yet still believed that a tiny, red, memorandum book from 1891, with pages stamped 1891 throughout, could serve as a 'doppelganger' or 'mirror image' (two terms you have used) for a large, blue/black, photograph album with cursive writing throughout, as described by a 'pursuer' who could also theoretically quote passages of said diary.

I think it was I - not ero b - who used the words 'doppelganger' and 'mirror image' as devices to convey a sense of what I later plumped for 'decoy' for. You can keep quoting those terms in order to 'counter' (ha ha) my suggestion that he sought out a decoy if you wish, but no-one's falling for it. It's - how can I put it? - muddying the waters to keep quoting those terms which I abandoned when I realised how literally certain people were taking them.

(And shouldn't that be persuer rather than pursuer if we are talking about Barrett?)

By chance, out of ignorance, I actually typed 'persuer' and my faithful Apple Mac saved me from humiliation by correcting it for me, but it did occur to me then to change it back to 'persuer', just for jolly, but I didn't because there are far too many highly literal (rather than necessarily highly literate) people reading this glorious thread and I didn't want to proactively make myself look like a big tit by by attempting a wee Barrett-related gag.

I can't for the life of me understand how this makes sense, which is why I prefer Barrett's explanation to your own.

I think whether something makes sense to you or not is quite irrelevant here as your track record shows that you would favour Barrett's explanation even if it included the claim that he was Banksy as well as the greatest forger in history.

I hope that will be my final world on the subject.

And - oh - what a party I would throw if I thought for even the briefest moment that you meant it ...

With all the best wishes

And mine to you ...

[caz]

"When this Diary arrived in the post I decided it was of no use, it was very small. My wife is now in possession of this Diary in fact she asked for it specifically recently when I saw her at her home address XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX."

Clearly, Barrett's explanation is credible. Ike's isn't.

Credible? Blimey, how much does one want to be fooled by this liar?

Firstly, Martin Earl would have described the tiny red 1891 diary to Mike, with its printed dates throughout, to get confirmation that he would like it sent to him before taking his order and passing it on to the supplier. The very fact that it was for a year later than Mike's specified 1880-1890 could have resulted in him saying no thanks, but there was no obligation to order anything in any case, even if it had been exactly what had been requested. If Martin had asked Mike to pay £25 for it up front, I rather doubt we'd know anything about it today.

Secondly, why on earth would Mike have handed over proof of his hoaxing intentions to Anne, at a time when Alan Gray was tearing his hair out, failing to get any sense out of this hopeless liar and pleading for some - any - physical evidence he had to support his claims and accusations? Mike was accusing Anne - the wife who had just divorced him - of handwriting the diary, for God's sake! If that little red diary could have helped him to prove it, he'd have made sure Anne was the last person on the planet to get her hands on it. Anne left him in early January 1994 as a direct result of his physical and emotional abuse, which nobody has disputed. Yet we are asked to believe that when Mike went to her new home address nearly a year later - presumably with the red diary in his pocket - she specifically asked him for it and he pulled out his 'proof' and handed it over, just like that? No wonder Alan Gray was getting more and more frustrated at not getting a sausage out of the man!

The truth is almost certainly much simpler and a hundred times more logical: Mike couldn't have given the red diary to Alan Gray as evidence against Anne, because she had kept it after having to pay for it.

[rjpalmer]

The man was not even capable of articulating a simple advert. That should ring alarm bells, and not the ones the pro Barrett hoaxers are ringing away.

A reminder that the advertisement was not placed by Michael Barrett. It was placed by Martin Earl, and there is no evidence that Barrett was even aware of Earl's methods.

It's something of a paradox that you first imply that you know what Barrett had in mind, and then state that Barrett couldn't articulate what he had in mind, isn't it?

As I see it, based on the advertisement placed on Mike's behalf by Martin Earl, there is no doubt what Barrett had in mind: a diary with twenty blank pages of Victorian paper. At a minimum.

Which brings us to:

Mike thought he could squeeze the 63 pages of text 'on his PC' into a diary the size of one you could buy from your local post office for less than a pound.

Thanks to Jon Menges and Keith Skinner, a copy of the Barretts' typescript has been recently uploaded to this site. It is not 63 pages in length, but 29 pages. Some of the pages aren't even entirely filled and much of it is repetitive poetry that could be axed if the need arose.

One cannot logically infer the size of an original manuscript based on what was eventually presented to a publisher in London; a hoaxer can always adapt his or her typescript depending on the amount of contemporary paper he or she was able to drum-up. Is that not the case?

The logical inference of Barrett's sworn affidavit of 5 January is that the photo album was obtained after Mike rejected the red diary as 'too small.'

This is a credible explanation; yet, in your scenario, Barrett was given an intimate and detailed description of what he was going to receive from Earl yet still believed that a tiny, red, memorandum book from 1891, with pages stamped 1891 throughout, could serve as a 'doppelganger' or 'mirror image' (two terms you have used) for a large, blue/black, photograph album with cursive writing throughout, as described by a 'pursuer' who could also theoretically quote passages of said diary.

(And shouldn't that be persuer rather than pursuer if we are talking about Barrett?)

I can't for the life of me understand how this makes sense, which is why I prefer Barrett's explanation to your own.

I hope that will be my final world on the subject.

With all the best wishes,

RP

[caz]

Why would he have to show anything at all then?

Hi Kattrup,

Well, he didn't in the end, did he?

If his 'unusual' request had been an attempt to obtain a book he could use to fake Maybrick's diary, he was never going to get anything he could show Doreen in London, was he?

Another question along similar lines would be:

Why would the Barretts have had to show Doreen anything at all apart from the actual scrapbook? Why print off 29 typed pages representing anything at all, when there was no pressure or obligation to do so, if they had created both documents and the typed version could reveal evidence of this?

I still think a literary hoaxer would have to possess the brain of a backward earwig to go to the trouble to do this when there was absolutely no need, and yet this is what we are asked to believe of the Barretts. No plausible or logical explanation has been offered by anyone for their actions, but it's okay for the same people to demand a plausible and logical explanation for Mike to have wanted some kind of substitute for a diary, which he has just offered to show a London literary agent, but which is not rightfully his.

Mike's request to Martin Earl, and what he went on to order and receive, does not amount to proof that he was seeking one of the raw materials for a literary hoax.

Love,

Caz
X

[erobitha]

A flat denial would have been tricky if anyone else in the Saddle could have seen or heard something about it.

Mike made a big mistake no matter what he had in mind, by asking for an 1880s "diary" but not specifying a minimum size for it. What he certainly didn't need or want was the tiny specimen he got. I think he just assumed it would be a lot larger.

Love,

Caz
X

Let’s not forget, it also had dates in it. Really not what he had in mind at all. That is at least one thing the pro Barrett hoaxers and the non Barrett believers can agree upon.

The man was not even capable of articulating a simple advert. That should ring alarm bells, and not the ones the pro Barrett hoaxers are ringing away.

[caz]

Mike would have to produce something if anyone came knocking for it. Or else he'd have to completely deny the exchange with Eddie took place. I can see why he would prefer the former.

A flat denial would have been tricky if anyone else in the Saddle could have seen or heard something about it.

Mike made a big mistake no matter what he had in mind, by asking for an 1880s "diary" but not specifying a minimum size for it. What he certainly didn't need or want was the tiny specimen he got. I think he just assumed it would be a lot larger.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

But if Eddie found the scrapbook and removed it without showing anybody, and then sold it to Mike without anybody else seeing it, it would be Eddie's word against Mike's that the little red diary wasn't the item in question. It seems perfectly plausible to me.

Morning Owly,

It's my belief that when Mike claimed that Tony Devereux had reassured him in 1991 that "no effing bugger alive" knew about the diary, he was telling another of his many half-truths, and it was Eddie Lyons who had said this in 1992.

We know that one of the same crew of electricians found a Victorian newspaper in Paul Dodd's house, and the worksheet evidence strongly indicates that this would have been in 1992. Paul didn't know it was there, but gave permission via Colin Rhodes for the electrician to keep it. If the "old book" was found with this newspaper, it would have reassured Eddie that Paul Dodd knew nothing about either, and he could have passed on that reassurance to Mike.

Mike, however, would have been left to trust Eddie on this point, and in any case the reassurance may have come after he had put in his 'unusual' request to Martin Earl.

It also depends on whether Mike's plan was to pay Eddie for the book or to con him out of it. Mike would have been in the driving seat if Eddie had nicked it and passed it on to him to find a buyer. How could Eddie then demand that Mike give it back, or even prove that it had been a book signed by Jack the Ripper? Once Mike has claimed he got it from Tony Devereux the previous year, what can Eddie do about it? If he kicks up a fuss, give him the 1880s diary he hopes to obtain from Martin Earl and say: "Here you are, lad. Prove that what you gave me had Jack the Ripper's diary in it."

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Florence Maybrick's initials are very VERY VERY VERY clearly seen in the Mary Kelly death scene photos.

I think one more VERY in caps (and I would go with 72 Point Bodoni Bold) in sort of an off puce would really have cemented your argument.

c.d.

I wanted to keep it brief ...

[c.d.]

Florence Maybrick's initials are very VERY VERY VERY clearly seen in the Mary Kelly death scene photos.

I think one more VERY in caps (and I would go with 72 Point Bodoni Bold) in sort of an off puce would really have cemented your argument.

c.d.