One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Henry Flower]

Do you know, even if it's got big words in it, I'm going to give it a go! I might not get it all, but I'm looking forward to the boasting and the sneering contempt.

Can you let me know who wrote it, though, please?

Cheers.

Ike

Jackie Collins. An early work.

[Sam Flynn]

Sammy, I think it will be obvious to everyone that you've rather wilfully flynnflowerised my question there.

If there's something I can't abide, it's being wrongly accused of something I didn't do; or people assuming that I did something bad, when I didn't. For the record, I did not wilfully misunderstand you; I may have done so accidentally, but I can assure you it wasn't deliberate.

And please drop the "flynnflower" now. I don't want any part of my username falsely associated with negativity; both the "Sam" and the "Flynn" part have a deep personal significance to me, and I don't want them sullied in any way.

Thank you.

[Iconoclast]

If there's something I can't abide, it's being wrongly accused of something I didn't do; or people assuming that I did something bad, when I didn't. For the record, I did not wilfully misunderstand you; I may have done so accidentally, but I can assure you it wasn't deliberate.

And please drop the "flynnflower" now. I don't want any part of my username falsely associated with negativity; both the "Sam" and the "Flynn" part have a deep personal significance to me, and I don't want them sullied in any way.

Thank you.

If 'Sam' and 'Flynn' have deep personal significance to you, Gareth, then I shall happily desist.

Not a problem.

PS I trust you realise I could not possibly have known this?

Ike

[Sam Flynn]

If 'Sam' and 'Flynn' have deep personal significance to you, Gareth, then I shall happily desist.

Thanks, Ike. Much appreciated.

I trust you realise I could not possibly have known this?

Of course. Hence the polite request... if I'd thought otherwise I'd have been a bit more tetchy about it

Cheers!

[Iconoclast]

Thanks, Ike. Much appreciated.Of course. Hence the polite request... if I'd thought otherwise I'd have been a bit more tetchy about it

Cheers!

[Henry Flower]

I mean, it's not as if they didn't actually look at the surroundings....

"The bed clothing at the right corner was saturated with blood, & on the floor beneath was a pool of blood covering about 2 feet square. The wall by the right side of the bed & in a line with the neck was marked by blood which had struck it in a number of separate splashes."

"Oh - and I forgot to mention, because I didn't consider it important, the killer had clearly written 'FM' in blood. Just a detail. Probably not important..."

But anyway, we know they didn't examine the arms in any great detail...

"The left arm was close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle & lying across the abdomen. the right arm was slightly abducted from the body & rested on the mattress, the elbow bent & the forearm supine with the fingers clenched [...] the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds & the face hacked beyond recognition of the features."

"Oh, did I say mutilated by several jagged wounds? No, let me clarify - what I meant was, (I'm so scatterbrained! Gaah!) a big capital F (much like the one written in blood on the wall, as it happens, the one I forgot to mention earlier) was deliberately carved by design into her arm. Sure, it happened to look more or less exactly the same as a jagged set of hacking and slashing wounds higher up on the same arm, but this one definitely was a deliberate F. - Huh? - Pareid - What the heck is pareidolia? No, no. Honestly guys, it was. Definitely. I just forgot to mention it at the time. But these mystery initials littering the scene are such minor details, what could it matter....? It's not like this was a major case, we weren't under pressure to find any damn clue we could..."

[caz]

Don't get me wrong, Caz; I think it far more likely that it was always meant to be a hoax, but I don't see why it couldn't have started out as a creative writing exercise.

Nor me, Gareth. Have we actually found something we could agree on?

The exercise in that case would still have been to portray the real Jim creatively - as a writer of little talent, whose claim to infamy was slaughtering Whitechapel whores.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

There is one MJK2. But the question is not how many photos MJK2 is, but how many interpretable marks are there in that one photo. Your comparison is entirely faulty and illogical. The Casebook copy of MJK2 is made up of over 6 million pixels.

Two of us on this thread have already demonstrated that we can look at these vague marks and honestly discern the presence of what look like letters or initials in those marks. There are more, but I stopped because I felt I'd made my point. Each of these letters is at least as discernible as the supposed F.

I honestly cannot see the F, though I can see how a criss-cross of vertical and diagonal blood marks can be interpreted by the willing as an M.

But hey, even with your faulty logic, welcome back Ike x

Afternoon, Henry.

The comparison between the words used in the diary and the mythical FM in that photo is both faulty and illogical. As you point out yourself, it's easy enough to see all kinds of marks that could be interpreted as letters, if you've a mind to do so, and it was inevitable that the diary's references to 'the whoring mother' and initials 'here' and 'there' would send its readers off in search of any such clues. So the nearest marks to anything resembling the letters F and M were bound to be seized upon regardless.

And because the diary's references cannot be compared neatly or directly with these specific marks, on the wall just above and behind the corpse, the explanation is that the hoaxer(s) a) forgot what they had found and were supposed to be describing, or b) made a complete hash of recording their remarkable discovery, or c) opted to keep things vague and cryptic instead of branding those initials onto the reader's eyeballs. If one explanation doesn't really convince, we are just invited to pick one of the others.

How about d) the references don't compare with those specific marks because maybe they were never meant to?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Initials which, I might add, are explicitly said to "tell of the whoring mother", namely Florence Maybrick. So, clearly, the diarist is telling us that he left an "FM" at the crime scene.

But even more clearly, Gareth, anyone searching for clues as to what the diarist might have been referring to [which they had to because it wasn't at all clear from the words used], would have been looking specifically for any letters in that photo that might fit the bill, and would inevitably point to whichever marks could - at a pinch - be interpreted as the desired initials. That doesn't mean the diarist ever had to see any. They knew the entire room was like a bloodbath and all the letters of the alphabet could have been represented by random smears or splashes if the will was there to see them.

It's the preconceptions being exercised as usual - as in Maybrick in 1888 or nest of forgers in 1988 - which can play havoc with the ability to see clearly.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Given the delight in cryptic clues and word-play throughout the diary, perhaps the crosswords might be an interesting place to look!

You don't seriously still think Mike could have had a hand in the diary's creation do you, Gareth?

He did once try his hand at writing a rather rude riddle, which was meant to spell out the word 'orgasm' from the near-the-knuckle clues in each line. But he made a fatal error. Instead of six sexy suggestions there were eight erotic efforts, which resulted in a distinctly disappointing climax when the word 'organism' was revealed.

It's not that surprising that when Mike's marriage collapsed and Paul Feldman was not making his life any easier, he found some solace in claiming he was a master forger whose cryptic clues and word-play can be seen in the diary. Not that much of a coincidence either, if you are open to the suggestion that Mike was chosen to manage the diary because he was known to have an interest in trying to get stuff published, regardless of what his actual talents were in that department.

However, it would be a big mistake to think the poor standard of English you see reflected in the diary is evidence of Mike's hand in it. If only it were that simple.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I didn't mean that to sound like an attack on Shirley Harrison btw. I rather like her. I don't think she's right, but that's not a problem, she seems like a decent and likeable person.

Shirley is decent and very likeable, Henry, but she's also human and I think she was wrong about the FM. I do find it instructive that so many from the opposite camps - genuine and Barrett - were eager to pick up that particular ball and have no desire to stop running with it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

One photo equals multiple hundreds of marks, multiple hundreds of opportunities to 'find' meaningful marks among random noise.

Indeed, Henry, which is my point entirely. We have to assume first that the diarist was looking at the same photo, even before we can assume he/she picked exactly the marks that Shirley and others would go on to interpret as FM, so they could in turn interpret the diarist's words to mean FM in blood on the wall.

With so many hundreds of marks and opportunities to 'find' meaningful ones, the diarist could have come up with virtually any kind of clue from their own imagination and one day something vaguely appearing to match it in a photo would have been heralded as either a genuine clue left by the murderer or an obvious bit of random noise that fooled a modern hoaxer.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

A forger looking for ways to lend his forgery credibility saw marks that he could use, in an old and not very good reproduction, incorporated the idea into the diary, and Ike is now seeing everything backwards.

I'm not sure Ike's the only one, Henry. Shirley and co saw marks that they could use to interpret the diary's words a certain way. Had the diarist referred to leaving anything else at the scene, I have no doubt the same people would have seen something else in that photo that did the trick and offered them a fitting interpretation.

This is what renders the discussion pointless.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The F is simply not there. The forger saw a bad reproduction and thought he saw an FM. He incorporated this into his account of the killing.

That's your take on it, Henry, but the diary says nothing about any blood marks on the wall, so it's down to what we choose as individuals to see or read into the diary that is not actually there in writing.

No FM in blood on any wall in the photo.

No FM in blood on any wall in the diary.

Nothing to see here at all.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Here is MJK2 unenhanced: the M is more likely splatter. There is no F

[ATTACH]18254[/ATTACH]

Here is MJK2 with the contrast levels boosted. There is no F

[ATTACH]18255[/ATTACH]

Here is MJK2 with contrast levels boosted and a burn tool applied over the area of the alleged initials to try to bring out darker tones. There. Is. No. F.

[ATTACH]18256[/ATTACH]

So why is it assumed that the diary author not only saw one, but saw this one and then chose not to refer to any letters on the wall, where this one would have been if it had actually been there?

There's a hole in your 'F in' argument, dear Henry, dear Henry. The hole is in the diary where the F on the wall should be, but isn't.

This is becoming more surreal by the day.

Love,

Caz
X