One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

What's more amazing, perhaps, is that the "diary" wasn't dismissed from the outset, on the basis of the handwriting alone.

Quite.

But by the same token, don't you find it amazing that the diary continues to attract so many commentators, with so many, often subjective views and arguments, who did dismiss it as Maybrick's work from the outset, on that very basis? I include myself among them, but I'm mainly here because those views and arguments, and the people who put them forward, continue to hook me in.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Maybe Sam.

It's just something that's always 'bothered' me. I don't lose sleep over it though. I guess that the strongest thing that I'd say about the diary is that, from day one, I've never agreed with the 'amateurish' forgery bit. Forgery possibly. Probably even. Definately, many would say. But 'amateurish' doesn't square with the facts that the debate continues 25+ years later.

Regards

Herlock

Hi HS,

I suspect it's because Mike Barrett would have had to be at the heart of it if it was created in the late 80s/early 90s, as so many still believe. Nothing else would seem to make much sense, but then why on earth would a more sophisticated hoaxer have let Mike take control from the outset? So the reasoning seems to be that it has to be 'amateurish', whether it was Mike's idea or handiwork, or anyone closely associated with him.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'm sure I will regret venturing into Diary Land but what exactly is the difference between an informal hand and a formal hand? Isn't the latter pretty much the same as the former but just a bit neater?

c.d.

Sounds reasonable to me, c.d.

My handwriting in my 'rough' books at school was so rough - practically illegible - that when my French teacher happened to walk past and look at it she commented that I ought to become a doctor. I replied that this was my rough book, not the exercise book I used for essays, which would demonstrate how neatly I could write. That said, any expert worth their salt would have known it was all my own work in both books.

There are [very rare] examples of troubled souls who appear to have more than one personality fighting to come through, and whose handwriting can change out of all recognition when a different one is in control. I would imagine that a professional handwriting examiner could still probably identify the same individual as the writer, but I have no evidence for that. However, I can't see Maybrick as an example of this phenomenon.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The weight of negatives by far outweigh any positives in this case, there's just simply too many inconsistencies to ignore, and nothing supporting the idea that Maybrick was ever a murderer. We can move the goalposts and make excuses for anything, but at the end of the day, it's all a pointless exercise in poor reasoning, the very apt definition of hammering a square peg into a round hole just to try and make it fit.

The weight of negatives by far outweigh any positives in this case, there's just simply too many inconsistencies to ignore, and nothing supporting the idea that Michael Barrett had a hand in the diary. We can move the goalposts and make excuses for anything, but at the end of the day, it's all a pointless exercise in poor reasoning, the very apt definition of hammering a square peg into a round hole just to try and make it fit.

There must be a round peg somewhere though, Mike, which fits that round hole with no hammering required. If we can eliminate Maybrick on the handwriting alone, we have to eliminate Mike, Anne and anyone else associated with them whose handwriting has been seen and compared with the diary. So what then?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Never underestimate the ability of us ripperologists to prolong an argument beyond its natural shelf-life, nor our propensity to clutch at straws.

That's a great nickname for Mike, Gareth.

"Straws".

I may use that in future.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi HS,

I suspect it's because Mike Barrett would have had to be at the heart of it if it was created in the late 80s/early 90s, as so many still believe. Nothing else would seem to make much sense, but then why on earth would a more sophisticated hoaxer have let Mike take control from the outset? So the reasoning seems to be that it has to be 'amateurish', whether it was Mike's idea or handiwork, or anyone closely associated with him.

Love,

Caz
X

A good point Caz. If I was perpetrating a forgery with the obvious motivation of making cash, the type of 'loose cannon' that Mike Barrett was would be the very last type of person that I'd want involved. Anne maybe, as she always gave the impression of being quite a grounded, level-headed type of person.

Caz, has Anne commented on the diary recently? What about the daughter? I seem to recall Mike saying that she was present when he and Anne where writing the diary?

Regards
Herlock

[caz]

We'd see some similarities in the way loops and curves were created, what position they began from, whether the weight on the pen was distributed correctly when compared with other pieces. There are so many little details contained within a person's handwriting that most of us wouldn't know about, but there are people who do. Has the handwriting ever been studied by anyone who actually has a clue?

You don't know, Mike?

If it's not Maybrick's - and no handwriting expert consulted to date has to my knowledge said it could be - it's not Mike's and it's not Anne's. Yet many modern hoax theorists still cling fondly to the possibility that Mike or Anne disguised their own handwriting so expertly over those 63 pages that no expert on the subject has to my knowledge been able to see through that disguise.

Ironic, wouldn't you say?

Again, to assume Maybrick wrote in a completely different hand is rather odd and is basically reaching beyond the natural realms of what is normal.

Again, to assume [or even consider it possible that] Mike or Anne wrote in a completely different hand is rather odd and is basically reaching beyond the natural realms of what is normal.

If I'm beginning to sound like a stuck record, there's a very sound reason for it.

Who penned the flaming thing? Anyone??

Thought not.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

A good point Caz. If I was perpetrating a forgery with the obvious motivation of making cash, the type of 'loose cannon' that Mike Barrett was would be the very last type of person that I'd want involved. Anne maybe, as she always gave the impression of being quite a grounded, level-headed type of person.

Cheers HS. But do 'grounded, level-headed' types get involved in stuff like this if they have a choice in the matter?

Caz, has Anne commented on the diary recently? What about the daughter? I seem to recall Mike saying that she was present when he and Anne where writing the diary?

Can't really help you there, HS. As far as I know, Anne and her daughter washed their hands of the whole affair many years ago. And anything Mike ever claimed with no visible means of support really ought to be treated with the utmost caution by anyone with an ounce of common sense or intelligence.

Having said that, one would hardly expect either Anne or her daughter to confirm it if they witnessed the creation of the diary. But does anyone seriously believe they would have let their child see what they were up to, if the plan was to try and pass off the finished article as genuine and make sh.. loads of dosh?

At school :

Little Miss Barrett : "Guess wor I saw me Mam and Da' doing this wet weekend just gone?"

Best friend : "I don't want to know if it's mucky."

Little Miss Barrettt : "Oh no, I don't mean that [giggles]. Da' was reading out loud to me Mam and she was writing it all down in an old book, using a funny little pointed stick she kept dipping in a pot of ink. They kept laughing about how we were all going to get rich when it was finished and how easy it was."

Best friend : "Are you having a giraffe?"

Little Miss Barrett : "No I was just watching. Me Mam and Da' were having the giraffe. But don't you ever tell anyone, will you, or I'll gerra belt from me Da'."

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'm no handwriting expert, but I don't have to be to understand that a person will give away many details within their writing without ever realizing they're doing it.

Anyone in the required field could evaluate the diary's writing and compare it with the known examples of Maybrick and discover whether or not the small details match. My guess is that they don't match at all.

I'm no handwriting expert, but I don't have to be to understand that a person will give away many details within their writing without ever realising they're doing it.

Those in the required field who have thus far evaluated the diary's writing and compared it with the known examples of Mike and Anne's handwriting have discovered that, as with Maybrick's, the small details don't match.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

But everyone who has a hand and a pen gives away their identity by merely looping their letters in a certain way, at a certain angle, etc. What of this in terms of the diary versus Maybrick's documented writing?

Cue the tumbleweed and the lonely, ominous church bell.

But everyone who has a hand and a pen gives away their identity by merely looping their letters in a certain way, at a certain angle, etc. What of this in terms of the diary versus Mike or Anne's documented writing?

Cue the tumbleweed and the lonely, ominous church bell.

And yet the believers are still with us, despite their silence on the matter.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hoaxes are something I'm very interested in. One thing that we tend to see, is that even when the weight is stacked against these hoaxes, there will always be a get-out clause for believers. There will always be those to bat away inconsistencies and repeat overly tired points in attempt to make the pieces fit, like snapping the corner from a jigsaw puzzle piece.

This is a human puzzle, Mike, and a real human being wrote the diary in handwriting that has yet to be identified, or even favourably compared to another individual, living, recently deceased or long dead.

People still argue over the moon landings, so that tells you how strongly and persistently some conspiracies and hoaxes latch onto our culture.

Funny, because that's how I see our own modern hoax conspiracy theorists. They strongly and persistently latched on to Mike Barrett's "confessions" and now find it almost impossible to let go, or even to concede that the handwriting no more indicates that the Barretts of Goldie Street did it for a giraffe over a wet weekend than "Sir Jim" did it while slaughtering his way round that Whitechapel in London. Proof of either absurdity is entirely lacking, but there are more believers in the former.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

As I've said before, I'm not saying that the diary is genuine but what I will say is this; I'm more likely to produce a previously unpublished Mozart concerto than Mike Barrett was to forge the diary.

Regards
Herlock

Agreed, HS. But we won't convince the Barrettians who rely on blind faith. And they appear to outnumber the Maybrickians by about a hundred to one.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi All,

Good to see that the argument is slowly moving on from "Is the diary genuine?" to "when and by whom was it fabricated?"

The Times, 9th September 1993, reported that "25 experts have examined the diary and found no substantial reason for rejecting it."

Who were the 25 experts?

Regards,

Simon

Have you asked anyone at The Times, Simon?

Love,

Caz
X

[ohrocky]

But doesn't everyone use nicknames for their local in conversation or personal jottings, Mike? I refer to mine as 'the Rise', or 'the Rising', but its proper name is The Rising Sun. In 1888, the post house would only have been a generic term for former taverns that had once served as post houses. One wouldn't expect to find these in a directory as 'the Post House', any more than one would see 'the Pub' or 'the Boozer' in the Yellow Pages. The individual tavern was identified by the name over the door at the time, be it the White Hart, the Pig & Whistle, the Post Office Tavern or the Old Post Office. Any former post house under any other name could have been called 'the Post House' by its regulars. And given the misspelling in the diary of 'post haste' as 'poste haste', this one could have been written down as 'the Poste House'.

Absolutely. There is a pub in my home town where, according to local legend, the severed head of a murder victim was once left on the bar. I have no recollection of the actual name of the pub. It has always been known as "The Severed Head".

I know of other examples too.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Cheers HS. But do 'grounded, level-headed' types get involved in stuff like this if they have a choice in the matter?



Can't really help you there, HS. As far as I know, Anne and her daughter washed their hands of the whole affair many years ago. And anything Mike ever claimed with no visible means of support really ought to be treated with the utmost caution by anyone with an ounce of common sense or intelligence.

Having said that, one would hardly expect either Anne or her daughter to confirm it if they witnessed the creation of the diary. But does anyone seriously believe they would have let their child see what they were up to, if the plan was to try and pass off the finished article as genuine and make sh.. loads of dosh?

At school :

Little Miss Barrett : "Guess wor I saw me Mam and Da' doing this wet weekend just gone?"

Best friend : "I don't want to know if it's mucky."

Little Miss Barrettt : "Oh no, I don't mean that [giggles]. Da' was reading out loud to me Mam and she was writing it all down in an old book, using a funny little pointed stick she kept dipping in a pot of ink. They kept laughing about how we were all going to get rich when it was finished and how easy it was."

Best friend : "Are you having a giraffe?"

Little Miss Barrett : "No I was just watching. Me Mam and Da' were having the giraffe. But don't you ever tell anyone, will you, or I'll gerra belt from me Da'."

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks for that Caz

Regards
Herlock