One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Observer]

Gone is Bongo's reason for ordering a tiny 1891 diary. [This one spawned Orsam's awesome auction.]

So why did he go ahead and buy it?

Gone is Bongos's auction ticket. [See above, although to be fair, there was never any evidence he had one.]

The thing is Barrett seems to delight in exaggerating the truth to prove a point, that's what I believe he's done here.

Gone is Bongo's Sphere Volume 2. [Lost or destroyed at best, but certainly not in his possession when it mattered.]

Ah, the Sphere Volumes, the fact is he had a set of said books. Consider this, even without volume 2 there is a possibility that Crashaw's "Oh Costly" was mentioned in one of the other volumes, in comparison to another poet as an example.

Gone is Bongo's TALES OF LIVERPOOL. [He didn't use it to create the diary.]

Gone? Another smoking gun you mean?

Gone is Ryan's book, as the only source Bongo would have needed, regarding what 'Sir Jim' was told by Dr Fuller.

You've lost me here, could you explain why this is a dent in Barrett's armour? That is, you explained above in this instance Barrett dodged a bullet.

Who is going to believe Bongo now, when he lied compulsively and wasn't able to support a single, solitary forgery claim?

Quite a few of us don't you know.

[Yabs]

Hello everyone.

Interesting comments with regards to Dr Fuller.

I read back on the transcript of the diary that mentions Fullers diagnosis during Maybricks visit to London and this paragraph follows shortly after..


“Tonight I will take my shinning knife and be rid of it. Throw it deep within the river. I shall return to Battlecrease with the Knowledge I can no longer continue my campaign”

Seems unlikely and risky, but, does the above paragraph suggest that Maybrick took his journal/written confession to London with him and that entry, plus the mention of Fuller and “I walk the streets until dawn I could not find it in my heart to strike” were written in London?

[Iconoclast]

The thing is Barrett seems to delight in exaggerating the truth to prove a point, that's what I believe he's done here.

The Truth: I never had an auction ticket because I didn't buy anything at an auction
Example of Truth Exaggerated: I had an auction ticket because I bought something at an auction
Point or Points Thereby Proven: One less than one ...

Exaggeration does not by necessity a truth preserve …

Ah, the Sphere Volumes, the fact is he had a set of said books. Consider this, even without volume 2 there is a possibility that Crashaw's "Oh Costly" was mentioned in one of the other volumes, in comparison to another poet as an example.

Even vindictive Nurse Ratched (first name Mildred, by the way - you didn't appear to realise last time I referred to her thus) would be able to see through the vacuousness of this line of reasoning. If you allow yourself this line of reasoning - quite without evidence - then you can apply it further. Perhaps Crashaw was referenced in Bongo's copy of Tales of Liverpool? Or perhaps he was quoted in Bongo's copy of Dostoevsky's The Idiot? Or perhaps he was quoted in Bongo's copy of the Sparky Annual 1969?

You know, if my auntie had balls …

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Hello everyone.

Interesting comments with regards to Dr Fuller.

I read back on the transcript of the diary that mentions Fullers diagnosis during Maybricks visit to London and this paragraph follows shortly after..


“Tonight I will take my shinning knife and be rid of it. Throw it deep within the river. I shall return to Battlecrease with the Knowledge I can no longer continue my campaign”

Seems unlikely and risky, but, does the above paragraph suggest that Maybrick took his journal/written confession to London with him and that entry, plus the mention of Fuller and “I walk the streets until dawn I could not find it in my heart to strike” were written in London?

Hi Yabs,

You will struggle to find much support for this line of reasoning on this site because it implies that James Maybrick actually was Jack the Ripper and those who - like me - accept that is so generally haven't got my auntie's balls to say so (see my previous post).

But - as the token Maybrickite willing to put it out there - there are good grounds for thinking that Maybrick took his scrapbook to London (there is at least one fairly explicit reference to it, but I don't think it is amongst those you quote above). If he threw his 'shinning' knife into the nearby River Mersey, he could have returned to Battlecrease from there having written the actual lines above in his office in Liverpool (not London).

"I walk the streets at night I could not find it in my heart to strike" implies that he walked the streets of Whitechapel at night without finding it in his heart to strike but wrote about it later (naturally) and there is no evidence in the scrapbook to suggest that that particular line could not have waited to be written until he returned to Liverpool.

I don't recall the line which strongly suggests he took hs scrapbook to London but I'm pretty sure it's in there somewhere.

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by caz
Who is going to believe Bongo now, when he lied compulsively and wasn't able to support a single, solitary forgery claim?

Quite a few of us don't you know.

Even were I ever to dispense with my effective certainty that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, I would not then turn to Mike Barrett. Not ever. I would look for some other. If it was not written by James Maybrick, then it is actually a very clever hoax indeed (see my brilliant Society's Pillar if you are in any doubt) and the authorship of that hoax does not require the Barrett Factor - indeed such a factor would hinder rather than help the process. It puts me in mind of the day off work I took to help my aging father-in-law and his elderly mate George put heavy supports into our sagging and increasingly-dangerous back wall:

Ike: "I've taken the day off to help, George"
George: "Oh well we'll just try to work around that, then"

I foresee a similar unhelpful role for Bongo Barrett in the creation of the Victorian scrapbook. It wasn't he with the ink, and it certainly wasn't he who had the brains.

Nope, if it wasn't Maybrick then that's two people it wasn't, not one.

If it was a hoax, he or she was a genius, and I'd love to shake their hands (once there's a vaccine, naturally) and say "Well done".

On the subject of anecdotes, I love the one I am about to badly misparaphrase (yes, paraphrasing and doing so badly):

Paul Feldman: "So the diary is a hoax and you can prove it, yes?"
Mike Barrett: "I can. Get me a pen and some ink right now and I'll show you"
Paul Feldman: "Okay, we can get you a pen and some ink. Erm … now where did I put that Quink?" [Looks at researcher Keith Skinner]
Keith Skinner: "Well I haven't got any"
Paul Feldman: "Bollocks - this is the critical moment in this entire investigation when we are finally going to have the hoax revealed to us"
Keith Skinner: "Oh, okay, apparently it's quite easy to make a Victorian ink so I'll just nip off and get some sugar from the kitchen"
Paul Feldman: "Great - I'll get the pen and that bottle of Quink I used as a ten-year old at school. So you're going to replicate the writing in the diary, Mike?"
Mike Barrett: "Get me the pen and ink and I'll show you"
Keith Skinner: "Just before we go off on some potentially laboured journey to find pen, modern ink, and a bag of sugar in the kitchen, can I just check, you are saying that you wrote the diary, yes?"
Mike Barrett: "No, it was Anne who wrote the diary"
[Paul Feldman and Keith Skinner simultaneously bang their heads against Feldman's mock Tudor mansion wall]

Now, it didn't happen exactly like that, and I'm not even sure if the tale involved Mr Skinner, but it's close enough to the truth (however exaggerated): Mike Barrett said to Paul Feldman that all it would take to prove that he wrote the diary was a pen and some ink, and when asked if he wrote the diary he replied that it wasn't he but Anne.

Only in BongoWorld could you get such a moment, and only in CasebookWorld could you get people arguing vehemently that Bongo had anything to do with the creation of this marvellous document.

Cheers,

Ike

PS I must post the actual exchange one day ...

[caz]

It came out of a skip, right Caroline?

Morning Scotty,

I don't recall anyone claiming the diary came out of a skip, and Paul Dodd said he didn't have a skip, or indeed need one, for any of the electrical work done by Portus & Rhodes.

However, Eddie told Robert Smith in the Saddle, in June 1993, that he did find a book [not confirmed as the diary] but wasn't naughty enough to take it away with him. That would have been stealing. He just said he threw it in a skip. Now I don't see much difference, frankly, between stealing someone's property and chucking it in a skip, but that would be something to take up with Eddie. The problem is that he has denied ever meeting Robert Smith in the Saddle, at Bongo's request, and making any such claim. But he had to deny it, because he said he had only met Bongo the once, when Bongo came round his house in Fountains Road and threatened him with solicitors if he said he had found the diary.

Love,

Caz
X

[StevenOwl]

If it was a hoax, he or she was a genius, and I'd love to shake their hands (once there's a vaccine, naturally) and say "Well done".

That's something I agree with you on 100% Ike. And I believe Oscar nominated screenwriter Bruce Robinson also agrees. All those who subscribe to the 'one wet Wednesday' view are entitled to their opinion. It's entirely wrong of course, but they are entitled to it.

Now then Ike - what do you make of Yabs' observation that a contemporaneous source puts several main players in a different place to where the Diary places them over the Xmas of 1888?

[caz]

So why did he go ahead and buy it?

You tell me, although it was Anne who eventually had to pay for it.

But what Bongo didn't do was to order a tiny 1891 diary from Martin Earl, priced at £25, hoping it would accommodate the 63-page memoirs of James Maybrick, for 1888-9. Martin Earl took the risk of ordering it from his supplier and getting it sent to Bongo, giving him the option of returning it if it didn't meet with his requirements, or paying for it if it did. Martin tells us he'd have described the diary in detail to Bongo before going ahead with the order. My hunch is that Bongo wanted a genuine Victorian diary from the 1880s, plus a bill showing the going rate for such an item, so he could use it as a bargaining tool, to prise the "old book" from Eddie's hands for a similar amount of hard cash.

Ah, the Sphere Volumes, the fact is he had a set of said books. Consider this, even without volume 2 there is a possibility that Crashaw's "Oh Costly" was mentioned in one of the other volumes, in comparison to another poet as an example.

You say it's a 'fact' that Bongo had a 'set' of said books [complete or not complete, that is the question], but no investigator has ever seen any of them to my knowledge. Melvin Harris had to admit that nobody - not even Bongo - was able to confirm that Jenny had a volume 2, or ever saw one.

Good luck with your suggestion that the Crashaw quote might possibly appear in one of the other volumes. You could always test it by trying to obtain a complete set.

Oddly enough, I have volume 6 - The Victorians - in paperback, and Crashaw does appear in the index. There is a brief reference to him on page 381, where the poet Francis Thompson's models are said to have been the Metaphysicals, 'particularly Crashaw'.

Gone? Another smoking gun you mean?

No, never a smoking gun either way. The little book, TALES OF LIVERPOOL, was held up as 'circumstantial evidence' of a Barrett hoax for the longest time, but RJ Palmer now believes it played no part in the diary's creation. Don't tell me you have given up reading RJ's posts.

You've lost me here, could you explain why this is a dent in Barrett's armour? That is, you explained above in this instance Barrett dodged a bullet.

I knew the Ryan/Fuller thing would be wasted on you, Observer, so you haven't let me down. If you know the difference between paraphrasing and a direct quote you're halfway there. But I'm not sure I can make the point any clearer than I have already.

Basically, Ryan's book doesn't quote Dr Fuller directly, so there is no way of knowing - without referring to an earlier source - what Fuller actually told James Maybrick. By pure chance, Ryan uses exactly the same five words, at just one point in his narrative, as Fuller himself used at Florie's trial: 'very little the matter with...'. And by pure chance, the diary author uses the same five words to record what Fuller told James Maybrick.

No modern hoaxer would have had the least reason to think that Ryan was taking those words - and only those words - straight out of Fuller's mouth, and would therefore have been safe to copy them into the diary. On checking back with the primary source, to learn what the good doctor actually said to his patient, they'd have been better off paraphrasing*, to avoid the accusation that they had copied verbatim from their modern source. That's why I don't believe the diary author ever read Ryan's words on the subject. They simply had a common source, and the most reliable there was: Dr Fuller himself.

*Ike's given one example, but here's another: 'Fuller thinks I was worrying over nothing. Quite cheered me up.'

Lastly, I asked: 'Who is going to believe Bongo now?'

And your response was:

Quite a few of us don't you know.

Did you mean to write: Quite a few of us do still believe Bongo's forgery claims - despite the fact he told such dreadful lies, it makes one gasp and stretch one's eyes?

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

You tell me, although it was Anne who eventually had to pay for it.

But what Bongo didn't do was to order a tiny 1891 diary from Martin Earl, priced at £25, hoping it would accommodate the 63-page memoirs of James Maybrick, for 1888-9. Martin Earl took the risk of ordering it from his supplier and getting it sent to Bongo, giving him the option of returning it if it didn't meet with his requirements, or paying for it if it did. Martin tells us he'd have described the diary in detail to Bongo before going ahead with the order. My hunch is that Bongo wanted a genuine Victorian diary from the 1880s, plus a bill showing the going rate for such an item, so he could use it as a bargaining tool, to prise the "old book" from Eddie's hands for a similar amount of hard cash.



You say it's a 'fact' that Bongo had a 'set' of said books [complete or not complete, that is the question], but no investigator has ever seen any of them to my knowledge. Melvin Harris had to admit that nobody - not even Bongo - was able to confirm that Jenny had a volume 2, or ever saw one.

Good luck with your suggestion that the Crashaw quote might possibly appear in one of the other volumes. You could always test it by trying to obtain a complete set.



No, never a smoking gun either way. The little book, TALES OF LIVERPOOL, was held up as 'circumstantial evidence' of a Barrett hoax for the longest time, but RJ Palmer now believes it played no part in the diary's creation. Don't tell me you have given up reading RJ's posts.



I knew the Ryan/Fuller thing would be wasted on you, Observer, so you haven't let me down. If you know the difference between paraphrasing and a direct quote you're halfway there. But I'm not sure I can make the point any clearer than I have already.

Basically, Ryan's book doesn't quote Dr Fuller directly, so there is no way of knowing - without referring to an earlier source - what Fuller actually told James Maybrick. By pure chance, Ryan uses exactly the same five words, at just one point in his narrative, as Fuller himself used at Florie's trial: 'very little the matter with...'. And by pure chance, the diary author uses the same five words to record what Fuller told James Maybrick.

No modern hoaxer would have had the least reason to think that Ryan was taking those words - and only those words - straight out of Fuller's mouth. On checking back with the primary source, to learn what the good doctor actually said to his patient, they'd have been better off paraphrasing*, to avoid the accusation that they had copied verbatim from their modern source. That's why I don't believe the diary author ever read Ryan's words on the subject. They simply had a common source, and the most reliable there was: Dr Fuller himself.

*Ike's given one example, but here's another: 'Fuller thinks I was worrying over nothing. Quite cheered me up.'

Lastly, I asked: 'Who is going to believe Bongo now?'

And your response was:



Did you mean to write: Quite a few of us do still believe Bongo's forgery claims - despite the fact he told such dreadful lies, it makes one gasp and stretch one's eyes?

Love,

Caz
X

Matilda told such dreadful lies...

I was once told that the collected works of Hilaire Belloc were known as ‘a load of old Bellocs’ in secondhand book trade.

[Iconoclast]

Matilda told such dreadful lies...

I was once told that the collected works of Hilaire Belloc were known as ‘a load of old Bellocs’ in secondhand book trade.

Hey MrBarnett,

Am I not right in thinking that you are a doyen of that posh rag the JTR Forums? I'm personally fine with you nipping down the road occasionally to join us here at the chattering class end of the market, but we are a poorer bunch and so we have to conserve our resources. Parsimony in all things and what have you. And I emphasize that.

Your post above was the equivalent of using an entire toilet roll to clean your arse during a chronic dose of constipation. Capisce? We've got an established order 'round here - the Switchblade runs her Firm with a tight fist and this kind of flagrancy will get you cut.

By the way, I note that there is a much more civilised lady over on the Forums who may be running both sides here, only when she pulls her hand out of her pocket it tends to be holding a sharpened tiara. Surely it can't be one and the same … ?

Anyway, word to the wise - keep your quotations in proportion with your post or else the Orsam Twins might be paying you a visit.

Hey - badda bing, wise guys 'round here run with a Delete button in a holster. Suggest you copy.

PS Apologies for the rather eclectic mixed metaphors - if you're struggling with any of this just ask your valet or the boot boy (and I don't mean one of the Orsam Twins) ...

Mad Axe Ikey

[caz]

Now then Ike - what do you make of Yabs' observation that a contemporaneous source puts several main players in a different place to where the Diary places them over the Xmas of 1888?

Hi Steven,

While I realise this is more of a problem for those who believe the diary is real, I would just make the observation that there are no actual dates in it apart from on the last page, and whenever I have gone visiting over Christmas, or received visitors, it has almost never been on Christmas Day itself, 25th December. I don't know how long 'Christmas' went on for in late Victorian times, but the definition is so loose these days, that it seems to extend from November, when the decorations start going up all over town, to the first week in January, when they finally come down again. So someone could say they plan to see Great Aunt Maud this Christmas, or they saw their Uncles Charlie and Jimmy at Christmas, without meaning on the day itself, but the broader Christmas season, or perhaps the weekend before or after the turkey and sprouts are done to death.

It reminds me of one time when my ex asked me what day Christmas was going to be that year, and I came back with "25th December". I must have caught him on an off day. He wasn't remotely amused.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

That's something I agree with you on 100% Ike. And I believe Oscar nominated screenwriter Bruce Robinson also agrees. All those who subscribe to the 'one wet Wednesday' view are entitled to their opinion. It's entirely wrong of course, but they are entitled to it.

Now then Ike - what do you make of Yabs' observation that a contemporaneous source puts several main players in a different place to where the Diary places them over the Xmas of 1888?

Well I did note Yabs' excellent observation, Owlly, and it was a good one but not particularly incisive enough. When I refer to Christmas, I think about the week before and the week after - it's all just one big 'time' of year. I've always assumed that Maybrick visited Thomas and his family just before Christmas and was home for Christmas Day (I mean, you would, would you not???). He even says that "the children enjoyed Christmas" which implies he was there on the big day to note it (despite his threat to cut out their tongues if they weren't quiet which doesn't seem to be quite in the usual spirit of Christmas, even for a seasoned serial killer like Maybrick).

So I figure there's more than enough days in 'Christmas' for James to visit Thomas and for familyless Michael to visit James. Not a biggee. It could be symptomatic of a mistake (therefore a hoax) but in and of itself it does not serve that purpose.

An excellent spot by The Yabster nevertheless!

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

I don't know how long 'Christmas' went on for in late Victorian times, but the definition is so loose these days, that it seems to extend from November, when the decorations start going up all over town, to the first week in January, when they finally come down again.

Bloody hell Switchy - it's like na-noo-na-noo time here on the Casebook today!

Sorry, Ms. Switchy ...

[caz]

Matilda told such dreadful lies...

I was once told that the collected works of Hilaire Belloc were known as ‘a load of old Bellocs’ in secondhand book trade.

Known to me as Hilarious Bollocks. Good name for Bongo Barrett too.

There's a rider in the Tour de France [sadly we are only getting repeats this year from 2018], whose name is Greg Van Avermaet, but whenever Gary Imlach says the name, it sounds to me like Great Banana Nuts. That's all we can hear now, whenever he gets a mention.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

When I refer to Christmas, I think about the week before and the week after - it's all just one big 'time' of year. I've always assumed that Maybrick visited Thomas and his family just before Christmas and was home for Christmas Day (I mean, you would, would you not???)

Funny, you seemed to have been singing a different tune in Society's Pillock, Ike, when you argued that Florie was 'left alone at Christmas'!!

How on earth did I guess that you'd resurface singing 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'?

But it wasn't merely just a matter of Maybrick not visiting Thomas as Christmas, it was also a matter of Maybrick and Thomas having very little contact at all in recent years, which certainly deflates any claim that the Diary shows sophisticated knowledge of Maybrick's private relationships. Barrett explains that he simply made up this Manchester gathering because "everyone visits everybody at Christmas."

And lo, and behold, the information supplied by Yabs DOES strongly suggest that the hoaxer just made it up, so we have yet another confirmation of the accuracy of Barrett's confession. Had you, Caz, or Keith been able to actually prove Maybrick was in Manchester, then Barrett would have been shot down in the flames. But he hasn't been. His observations still stands--and has been strengthened.

And on the 2nd day of Christmas Bongo ordered the following:




Question. I think it may be a repeater.

If a man tries to buy a suitcase of plastic explosives on the black market, and is sent a box of plastic bananas, should we conclude that he is just fond of fake fruit?

What damns the Barretts is not what they were sent in the mail, but what they tried to obtain. You can throw special pleaders at it all day long and it still smells to high heaven.