One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

RJ,

Great post, articulate and to the point. As a relatively neutral observer, I greatly appreciate your input. I realise that you, Caz, Ike and others will never see eye to eye, but it's important that you continue to contribute, otherwise the whole debate becomes preaching to the converted.
And I may cause Lord O to have a trouser/defecation incident here, but I believe that a reasoned, sensible debate of the known facts is possible if we put aside our beliefs and discuss the many permutations in a reasonable way, accept that we disagree and above all respect the knowledge and acumen of our fellow Ripperologists. And in all fairness, despite some hot collars, that's generally what we see.

I'd like to see a truce, a new start, because the last thing we need is for knowledgeable contributers like RJ and Caz to refuse to debate, because, really, isn't that what Casebooks all about?

And I'm on record as praising Ike for his brilliant "Societies Pillar", so it's not like I'm that biased.

That's my rant/ tuppence.

Sat huddled behind the sofa, waiting for the knock at the door from the 'apostrophy' police. It's a possessive 's' you heathen!

Nice one, Al.

No need to worry on my part. I'm not planning on a refusal to debate and I haven't got hot under the collar since I put on a blouse with the iron still attached. [Yes, I'm no good at domestic duties either. I could burn cornflakes.]

As long as we can agree that we are discussing 'many permutations', of which only one interpretation can be correct, we should be fine.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

One final thing, Caz. A sort of parting gift.

We've been at this so long that I tend to know your answers before you post them---in this case the answer will be that 'Bonsey' found no evidence implicating anyone in the Maybrick fraud, that a police investigation exonerated the Barretts, etc. The standard party-line.

I, of course, have never seen it that way. Smith was exonerated--not Barrett. No complaint against Barrett for fraud was filed--there was no victim--so the CPS didn't wish to involve itself, even though the police knew which way the wind blew. We know that Scotland Yard told a Liverpool journalist in 1993 that their investigation showed that the Diary had been written in Liverpool 'in the past ten years', ie., 1982-1992.

So....what is my question? Only this. Does Feldman not let the cat out of the bag on page 136 of his book?

It sounds to me as if Feldy is admitting that Scotland Yard privately told him that they suspected Mike Barrett of knowing EXACTLY where the diary came from, and since they also believed it was written 'in the past 10 years,' we can put 2 + 2 together and see that it equals 4. They suspected (correctly) that it was Barrett and A. N. Other, but since Smith was happy with his one pound purchase, they let bygones be bygones. Whether an actual crime had been committed was very much a 'gray' area, thanks to Smith's fancy footwork.

How else can you interpret what Feldman wrote?

"From this I concluded that Mike Barrett knew the diary's provenance. I believed that he knew its entire history. I was mistaken, but was not to realise this until six months later. The same mistake was also made by Scotland Yard, understandable at the time, given the evidence and circumstances."

Paul Feldman, pg. 136. Of course it was not a 'mistake'--Mike DID know; Anne's 'in the family' story was rubbish.

Scotland Yard was giving Feldy the hint...he was just too much of a fanatic to accept it.

[c.d.]

Come for the argument stay for the trash talk. I swear this thread is becoming more and more like watching professional wrestling.

c.d.

[caz]

Others seem to have repeated variations of this story, and much of their testimony is along the lines of ‘I heard it from X who heard from Y that Z may have found something.” In other words, people gossiping. One version reported by Robert Smith has an electrician (whom he names) going into a shop and trying to sell a book and two rings that he had found in a biscuit tin. But it was later determined—evidently by Smith himself--that this shop didn’t open for business until November 1992—which makes it entirely irrelevant, because by that time Barrett had already brought the Maybrick hoax to London. Yet another version has Eddie Lyons finding something ‘’important” under the floorboards at Battlecrease in June 1992---which, again, is at least two months too late, since the diary came to London that April. For all I know, the “important” thing Eddie found under the floorboards was electrical wiring that was exposed or not up to code!

But, RJ, you fully admit that there are variations of this story, but you still think you have all the pieces you need to report and interpret this accurately, and throw it all out without waiting to learn if there was a baby in the bath water. I'm fully aware you do not have all the material at your fingertips, but so should you be by now. New information is coming in all the time, which adds another piece of the same puzzle.

Tim Martin-Wright was told about a diary by Jack the Ripper in December 1992. The electrician who knew about it had been off work for the previous six months following a nasty car accident in the June. He didn't have the diary – obviously – and he never did. When he went back to his source of information, he was told the diary had been sold in an Anfield pub. He didn't know it was then in the process of having a book written about it. Eddie had been made redundant while the other electrician was on sick leave.

Nobody claimed to find anything in June 1992. In the July, when the diary was still a closely guarded secret, and Mike had found a publisher for it, Eddie told another electrician that he had found a book while working in the house which he thought could be "important". He didn't say when he had found it, but it could only have been when he was helping out on the two-day wiring job in March 1992. Selling it on to Mike, not having a clue what he planned to do with it, it would only take on its "important" status when Eddie learned that Mike was going to secure a publishing deal. Before that, for all Eddie knew, Mike could have sold it on to a private collector for a few more quid than he paid for it.

Meanwhile, by the summer/autumn of 1992, the ‘Battlecrease’ rumor had made its way back to the electrical contractor hired by Dodd. Thus, Rhodes quizes his 9 employees about it. They denied finding the diary. He also asked if any of them drank in The Saddle, because by now it was known that this was Barrett’s watering hole. Only one of the 9 admits that he did: Eddie Lyons. But this tends to show that Eddie was an innocent lamb, does it not? If Eddy was up to evil deeds, why admit to being a patron at the Saddle? Why not just say no? But, living in the immediately neighborhood, Lyons admits that he went there on occasion. There is no law against having an occasional pint ‘down the boozer’ and there is no indication that he knew Barrett.

I think you meant 1993, RJ. See how easy it is to introduce misinformation unintentionally. It just doesn't help with anyone's individual interpretation of what really happened and when.

You also seem to be getting into a muddle over how the Saddle came into this. One of the electricians told Feldman that Eddie drank at the Saddle and lived round the corner. I don't remember this admission you say Eddie made to Colin Rhodes in 1993. I only know he admitted much more recently - not to Colin who is sadly no longer with us - that yes, he had popped in for the occasional pint when he lived within a stone's throw of the Saddle back in 1992. He denied, however, popping in to speak to Robert Smith in June 1993. Maybe he just didn't remember, or didn't know who Robert was, but just agreed to tell him his 'skip' story anyway.

Whatever Lyons’ drinking habits, this was also irrelevant because, once again, the timecards show that Eddies wasn’t present at Dodd’s job site until June. Yet, in order for the Battlecrease provenance to ‘work,’ Eddie was the necessarily link between Dodd’s electrical project and Barrett, since Eddie was the only one who frequented The Saddle. Thus, it was necessary to ‘fit up’ Eddie by backdating his presence at Dodd’s house to 9 March 1992—the day Barrett called a literary agent---even though the documentation shows that Eddy wasn’t there until the project resumed that summer.

This is intolerable, RJ, accusing Keith Skinner, among others, of needing to 'fit up' Eddie by putting him in the house knowing he was not there. Eddie himself freely admitted – in fact he insisted – that he had helped out on the two-day wiring job [on 9^th and 10^th March 1992], involving the lifting of floorboards. We have the moment on film. If anyone fitted him up, it was Eddie himself. And his boss had confirmed, years previously, that he would have sent Eddie to help out as there was no other work going on that week until the Friday, back at Skem. I'll leave you to work out why Eddie had absolutely no clue that he was fitting himself up.

But think about it. Why would Eddie need to ‘confess’ to having been there, if the documentation showed that he was?

See above. Eddie didn't need to say anything at all, or know anything about what the documentation did or did not show. For all he knew, no records had survived. He was simply recalling his brief time with Portus & Rhodes, and even briefer occasions when he worked at the old house. He didn't know the significance of any actual dates, or the fact that the work sheets had survived to show us what jobs were done on which dates.

In this context, it is worth remembering that the Diary researchers also obtained confessions from Anne Graham, admitting that she had given the Diary to her husband sometime before August 1991. How could she if it was under Dodd’s floorboards? And they further elicited a confession from Graham that for years the Diary had been safely hidden behind a cupboard at her house on Goldie Street. Further, Feldman’s team obtained an admission from Billy Graham that he had received the Diary from his stepmom clear back in 1950. Again, how could this have happened if the ledger was under Dodd’s floorboards?

But surely, RJ, you are not suggesting you believe Anne's story, and as you say, both can't be true, so I'm not sure what your point is. Obviously you don't want either to be true, but you are stuck with one or t'other unless someone can prove – after all these years - that the Barretts really did create the diary themselves. It has been clear to me for years that Anne's story was mainly about damage limitation, after Mike's reckless attempt in June 1994 to claim he had created the diary. If you remember, it was Feldman who was the recipient of Anne's 'confession', and there was no great skill involved, when you consider what lengths he was going to at the time to bully everyone but the cat into submission. On page 210 of Ripper Diary, we give a snapshot of how Anne herself reacted at one point to the tremendous pressure exerted by Feldman around this time, and his insistent harassing of the Barretts and their families. The four-hour phone call Anne had with Feldman came hot on the heels of an angry call she had just received from Mike's sister, complaining furiously about Feldman's intrusion into their lives. After that long call, Anne called Lynn Barrett straight back to say [in Anne's own words]: "He's going to give me a million like if I tell him what he wants to know and I said I'll play him along for a bit just to get him off the Barretts' back basically, just didn't have a clue what I was going to do." When Anne told her father she would have to tell Feldman her story, he said "Do what you like", and reluctantly promised to confirm it. He was very ill by then and didn't care about the diary. He had never even read it.

All of which demonstrates the skill in which the Diary camp obtained confessions, has admissions, statements, etc., for events that directly contradict one another and for which there is no independent confirmation.

It only demonstrates your inability to see this so-called 'Diary camp' as many separate individuals with their own minds and ways of working, who have been investigating different aspects at different times, right from 1992 up to the present day, and have their own interpretations of events – just as you have – which is only right and healthy. I'd be seriously worried if, for instance, you and Lord Orsam were of one mind, interpreting everything you had read in an identical fashion, or using identical methods to examine it.

Feldman was working on his own unique theories back in 1994, using his own unique methods of making people talk, which could not be less relevant or comparable to the way others have been working ever since, to see what can or can't be substantiated about the diary's origins. Yet you insult your readers' intelligence by pretending there is, or has ever been a single entity - presumably now invoking the spirit of the long dead Feldman – singing from the same diary hymn sheet. If all the electricians, Colin Rhodes, Paul Dodd and Uncle Tom Cobley had told identical stories about each other and themselves, and we had nothing going back further than the day Feldman first went to Battlecrease, that would tell its own story. But it's very far from the reality, and when humans witness an actual event or conversation, they do so from their individual perspectives, and if they choose to open up about it later, it will be subject to their individual powers of recall, and what is motivating them, at the time. Giving precisely the same account in the same way would be more suspicious than each person having their own take on it.

In stark contrast, Mike Barrett was a man alone. Who do you turn to for 'independent confirmation' of anything he ever claimed about having a major or minor role in the diary's creation? He made an art form of making confessions, admissions and statements which contradicted one another, often in the space of a single conversation, interview or badly written letter. When did you ever let this get in the way of your belief in his unsupported word?

And now we know that the little red diary confirms nothing, except that for some reason, on 26th March 1992, Mike really wants that genuine Victorian diary for the year 1891, priced at £25. His meeting in London would be confirmed in a few days, so if Eddie and his "old book" are playing hard to get, Mike now has himself an 1891 sprat to catch an 1889 mackerel - a bargaining tool to put it another way.

And before anyone gets hot under the collar, this is my theory only - it is all mine - and being only human I admit it is subject to change.

Love,

Anne Elk
X

[caz]

One final thing, Caz. A sort of parting gift.

Not like you to be funny, RJ.

We've been at this so long that I tend to know your answers before you post them---in this case the answer will be that 'Bonsey' found no evidence implicating anyone in the Maybrick fraud, that a police investigation exonerated the Barretts, etc. The standard party-line.

That thought never entered my head. Sorry old chap, but I don't even know my answers until I'm posting them. There is no standard party-line either. But do go on enjoying this little fantasy.

I, of course, have never seen it that way. Smith was exonerated--not Barrett. No complaint against Barrett for fraud was filed--there was no victim--so the CPS didn't wish to involve itself, even though the police knew which way the wind blew. We know that Scotland Yard told a Liverpool journalist in 1993 that their investigation showed that the Diary had been written in Liverpool 'in the past ten years', ie., 1982-1992.

What has this to do with anything? You spoke about a good prosecutor not being able to make a case against Mike using his January 1995 affidavit, without hearing all the Barrett & Gray tapes, which Gray and Harris had control over at the time and could have handed to Bonesy. What did it matter whether Mike was charged with forgery as a result or not, as long as the diary was nailed beyond doubt as a modern one by his own evidence? Funny, I always thought that was Melvin's real goal - to kill off the diary, especially after Robert Smith was exonerated and there had been no complaint against Mike.

So....what is my question? Only this. Does Feldman not let the cat out of the bag on page 136 of his book?

"From this I concluded that Mike Barrett knew the diary's provenance. I believed that he knew its entire history. I was mistaken, but was not to realise this until six months later. The same mistake was also made by Scotland Yard, understandable at the time, given the evidence and circumstances."

Paul Feldman, pg. 136. Of course it was not a 'mistake'--Mike DID know; Anne's 'in the family' story was rubbish.

Scotland Yard was giving Feldy the hint...he was just too much of a fanatic to accept it.

Not sure I follow your interpretation. When you read the whole page, it appears that Feldman is referring to Mike's refusal to accept a deal with Paul Dodd. Feldman - bless him - concludes that Mike could only have known the diary wasn't stolen from the house if he knew its entire history going back to 1889. His 'mistake' was later corrected by Anne when she told him she had given the diary to Devereux to give to Mike, so it was Anne who knew its history, not Mike. But the mistake began with Feldman's belief that it was the electrician who had given/sold the diary to Devereux, who had later passed it on to Mike. This was surely also the mistake Feldman thought Scotland Yard had made, when questioning the electricians and Paul Dodd - understandable to suspect theft at the time, given the evidence and circumstances.

Feldman was explaining why he gave up on the electricians to concentrate on Anne's story. He used the fact that Scotland Yard similarly gave up on the electricians to support his conclusion that they had been on the make. This had nothing to do with the fact that he and SY had very different ideas about where the diary really had come from. It was just gratifying for Feldy to believe he had been right about the electricians when SY concluded their own investigation into them.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Hi Caz. I only have the time--and patience--to make a quick response. But my cooperation here must really come to an end.

Yes, you're quite right that I misstated that it was Rhodes and not Feldman who quizzed the nine electricians, but it's the "same difference." Eddie was the only one who drank in The Saddle, so he became the necessary 'link' between Barrett and Dodd's remodeling job--even though he wasn't there in March 1992. It became necessary to 'back date' his presence at Battlecrease.

This is intolerable, RJ, accusing Keith Skinner, among others, of needing to 'fit up' Eddie by putting him in the house knowing he was not there. Eddie himself freely admitted – in fact he insisted – that he had helped out on the two-day wiring job [on 9^th and 10^th March 1992], involving the lifting of floorboards. We have the moment on film. If anyone fitted him up, it was Eddie himself.

No, I don't think so. Perhaps it would have been slightly more polite to suggest that you and Keith and Ike are trying to "shoe-horn" Eddie back to March 1992, but "fitting him up" is more appropriate, isn't it? When all is said and done, you are accusing Lyons of theft, but you can't place him at the scene of the alleged and (I believe) imaginary crime. That would amount to someone being "fitted up."

As for Eddie "admitting" he was there, the same interviewer also managed to get Billy Graham to "admit" that he had seen the Diary in 1950, so we would have to review the validity of the interviewing techniques. But this is besides the point.

Eddie is being quizzed nearly 25 years after-the-fact. Of course he "remembers" helping working on Dodd's house. The timecards show that he did---in June!

But why on earth would a historian give this obviously garbled memory preference over CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTATION that shows that he wasn't there in March? No one is disputing that Eddy was at Dodd's house that summer...it's just that it is irrelevant because by that time the Diary was already safe and sound in London.

It's kind of like someone accepting Donald Swanson's account, post 1910, that one Jewish witness indisputably saw the murderer, when contemporary documentation from the MEPO files of October 1888 shows that Swanson had grave doubts about both Schwartz and Lawende. The 'Kosminski dunnit' historians must, to some extent, ignore the contemporary documentation in preference for the 'oral tradition' of post-1910.

Wouldn't any historian (for instance, Sugden) have to conclude that contemporary documentation always takes precedence over memories made 25 years after-the-fact? Scientific study after study shows that memories are not static. They change, they warp.

I have no idea where I was in March 1992. I remember going to a Lyle Lovett concert sometime around that era, and I suppose a determined interviewer could get me to innocently admit that it was in March 1992. But if I found a ticket stub and it showed that it was actually June 1992, I'd be certain that he got it wrong, and that my admission, though made it good faith, was inaccurate.

[Iconoclast]

Eddie himself freely admitted – in fact he insisted – that he had helped out on the two-day wiring job [on 9^th and 10^th March 1992], involving the lifting of floorboards. We have the moment on film. If anyone fitted him up, it was Eddie himself. And his boss had confirmed, years previously, that he would have sent Eddie to help out as there was no other work going on that week until the Friday, back at Skem. I'll leave you to work out why Eddie had absolutely no clue that he was fitting himself up.

Love,
Anne Elk
X

Dear Ms. Elk,

Are we to understand that you and your Cervus canadensis compadres actually have celluloid of said Eddie Lyons 'fessing-up that he was at Battlecrease House on the same day that Bongos barrettensis (with whom he technically shared a pub, the latter's natural habitat, of course) was gobbing-off to Monty Montgomery in Landan that he had a rather unlikely candidate for Jack the Spratt McVitie in his grubby little hands?

This seems extraordinary to me - not least because I fail to see how His Master's Voice (and - by implication - his poor wee dog Nipper whose partings are even less believable than Sir Bobby Charlton's) is going to untangle himself from his own twisted fury at such a damaging admission. Surely HMV can't claim that EL must have lied because lying has no significance in his world view and in that of his token acolytes and small pet - old Bongo did it every time he breathed and that was perfectly acceptable to those who slavishly follow on his every word. Somehow, I suspect such licence will not be afforded to our erstwhile Sparky from Riversdale Road.

And - en passant and no more - would this mean that Eddie Lyons stripping the wires at James' old gaff on the same day his mootable drinking bud El Bongo was debating whether to dial the old 071 or 081 prefix for Landan to tell Monty of the most implausible of hauls is probably the most amazingly - little short of impossible - coincidence to have ever hit the planet?

Perhaps HMV and Nipper - when the former finally understands statistics ("1 in 18 chance" my arse) - will take a moment's pause and consider just which side of this bloodied, battered canvas the losers will be found lying, perhaps sooner than they could ever think?

Best wishes,

An Ike

[rjpalmer]

P.S. Caz, if I were you, Keith, and Ike, I'd go back and carefully read Paul Feldman's account, page 135-136. And also chase down Shirley Harrison's accounts of the "Battlecrease" provenance.

You will think this task is beneath you, because you have far more info in your war chest, but the accounts by Feldman and Harrison do demonstrate the insurmountable hurdle that you are up against.

Feldman and Harrison are not diary doubters. They aren't the rude vicious army of Melvin Harris, Kenneth Rendell, and Lord Orsam. They are believers in the document, but even they had to admit that the Dodd provenance was bunk. The dates didn't work, and they had fully researched this while the iron was still hot...

Feldman even concludes (p 136) that the electricians "would lie for the right price."

He also concluded --accurately, in my estimation--that Barrett's behavior amply demonstrated that he knew the electrician folklore was b.s., because Barrett knew the truth about the diary's origins. It is rare for me to admit this about Feldman, but I see nothing wrong with his logic on this specific point.

[Iconoclast]

Oh I see, Bongo got the year wrong in his 'affy David' and Eddie got the month wrong in his memoirs. I see, I see - I get the picture!

You know what, why stop at reshaping the memories of Bongo and his drinking bud? Let's take this game a little further - maybe the coroner got James Maybrick's death wrong. Maybe he actually died on November 8, 1888, the day before Benjamin Disraeli murdered Mary Jane Kelly despite having himself died seven and a half years beforehand? That would be as handy as shifting Bongo's and Eddie's dates and - if that's so permissable - then so is all date-shifting.

It is perfectly acceptable for Eddie Lyons to have remembered being at Battlecrease House on March 9, 1992 (especially if he recalled it because it was the day he came into possession - or at least knowledge - of the Victorian scrapbook) and perfectly acceptable for his boss to have sent him there because the Skem job was delayed. They are the facts, peeps: Eddie remembered being there on March 9, 1992, and Colin Rhodes said such a non-timesheeted event was perfectly common, so how dare anyone seek to date-shift in this cack-handed way in order to protect their agonisingly-implausible version of events?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

I have no idea where I was in March 1992. I remember going to a Lyle Lovett concert sometime around that era, and I suppose a determined interviewer could get me to innocently admit that it was in March 1992.

If you'd bothered to get your arse down to Riversdale Road to strip some wires at Doddsy's gaff instead of fannying around at a Tate & Lyle concert, and you'd nabbed the scrapbook instead of Eddie Lyons, I think you'd have remembered the date as clearly as Eddie did.

Hold on - Chigwell, that would be "bothered to get your arse up to Riversdale Road" ...

[Yabs]

I’ve not discussed the release of the tapes recently either. I asked Keith if I could release them last September. Rather than slamming the door on the idea, I was told they are of very poor quality and an effort then was being taken to clean them up.
So I’m hopeful, like Caz, that they will be released eventually.

JM

Hi JM.

In my time I have been known to edit and clean audio.
I would happily attempt to do this with the tapes for Keith.
if the voices are too quiet or have hiss with a higher floor level than the vocal I can (depending on severity) deal with that.

I know I’m not a regular poster on here and there might be concern about sending them on just because I say I can clean them.
I would happily work on a short clip just to see if it is worth doing, and you/he can judge for yourselves.


The offer’s there anyway

[jmenges]

Hi JM.

In my time I have been known to edit and clean audio.
I would happily attempt to do this with the tapes for Keith.
if the voices are too quiet or have hiss with a higher floor level than the vocal I can (depending on severity) deal with that.

I know I’m not a regular poster on here and there might be concern about sending them on just because I say I can clean them.
I would happily work on a short clip just to see if it is worth doing, and you/he can judge for yourselves.


The offer’s there anyway

Keith has someone working with the tapes already, but I appreciate your offer and I’ll keep you in mind for any future recordings of mine that may need help.



JM

[caz]

It amuses me to no end that you would say that, Caz, for that is exactly how I've long envisioned 'Ike' and similar proponents of the Maybrick Diary. In fact, I nearly posted the image below a month or so ago, but then relented, thinking it would be too unkind--even if entirely appropriate...

...Enjoy the good fight, oh mighty Knights of Feldman. I'll see you in Camelot...

Hi RJ,

I see you at the other end of the spectrum from Ike, and I suspect others do too, although I doubt you'll ever see yourself as that endless knight, whose bits are being lopped off one by one but keeps coming back for more. I just wonder who is in the wings wielding a battle axe to prevent you from chickening out.

The vast difference between you and Ike is that he is his own man, fighting his own lonely battle and he does it with self-deprecating good humour, which harms no-one. You will never catch him aiming personal darts at the integrity, honesty and motivation of we non believers. He doesn't need to aim below the belt, and he takes it in his stride when others do. But personal attack seems to be the Bongo Bashers' essential stock in trade and it's not a good look. It makes you all look - impotent.

Ike does his thing with style.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Oh I see, Bongo got the year wrong in his 'affy David' and Eddie got the month wrong in his memoirs. I see, I see - I get the picture!

You know what, why stop at reshaping the memories of Bongo and his drinking bud? Let's take this game a little further - maybe the coroner got James Maybrick's death wrong. Maybe he actually died on November 8, 1888, the day before Benjamin Disraeli murdered Mary Jane Kelly despite having himself died seven and a half years beforehand? That would be as handy as shifting Bongo's and Eddie's dates and - if that's so permissable - then so is all date-shifting.

It is perfectly acceptable for Eddie Lyons to have remembered being at Battlecrease House on March 9, 1992 (especially if he recalled it because it was the day he came into possession - or at least knowledge - of the Victorian scrapbook) and perfectly acceptable for his boss to have sent him there because the Skem job was delayed. They are the facts, peeps: Eddie remembered being there on March 9, 1992, and Colin Rhodes said such a non-timesheeted event was perfectly common, so how dare anyone seek to date-shift in this cack-handed way in order to protect their agonisingly-implausible version of events?

Ike

The funny thing is, Ike, Eddie was saying he was there for the floorboard job [9th - 10th March 1992] and Keith insisted he wasn't [giving Eddie the perfect get out of jail free card] but Eddie was having none of it and insisted he was.

Eddie didn't play his ace - he didn't ask why any of this was relevant to anything considering this Barrett fellow had admitted to forging the diary.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If you'd bothered to get your arse down to Riversdale Road to strip some wires at Doddsy's gaff instead of fannying around at a Tate & Lyle concert, and you'd nabbed the scrapbook instead of Eddie Lyons, I think you'd have remembered the date as clearly as Eddie did.

Hold on - Chigwell, that would be "bothered to get your arse up to Riversdale Road" ...

I think the point is that Eddie wasn't given the date of 9th March 1992 and he didn't mention it himself. If he'd been asked what he was doing on that date, I very much doubt he'd have been able to remember. It was the job he remembered, and in enough detail for us to match it to the work done on that date and no other date.

Eddie had no idea that the date would be of any particular relevance or significance. He thought he was just being asked about the work he did during his time with Portus & Rhodes.

Love,

Caz
X