One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

As tight as a.....

gnat's ...

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

gnat's ...

Nuns....

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

gnat's ...

Fat birds shoe.....

[Iconoclast]

Chuff, allegedly ...

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Chuff, allegedly ...

I had a purse strings one, but I'd better keep it to myself

[caz]

Hi Caz,

That's interesting. Did Martin Earl confirm this? Or pertinently, does he have this? Reason I ask, a written description takes time in a pre email age, that's going to add to the timeline, which is tight as is.

We've got a gap between the 9th and around the 26th(?) for Mike recieving the red diary, based on the O+L auction. Add in postal correspondence between Earl and his supplier, that's a tight fit.

The late payment is neither here nor there, it just shows a late payment. But how long from the Ad appearing in Bookseller, being picked up by a seller, confirming in post, calling Barrett, agreeing the deal and posting it, before the auction date?

Hi Al,

The advert appeared on 19th March 1992, and the 1891 diary was sent to Mike exactly a week later, on 26th. Orsam's awesome auction was on 31st, and the Maybrick diary was seen in London on 13th April, so it's all a tight fit, not least the physical creation of the diary, if you believe it could have been done between the auction and London.

Martin Earl said he would get a 'written' description from the supplier of any items located, and he'd have told us if there was any chance that this one had survived. I presume it could all have been done instantly by fax rather than post in 1992, and faxes don't survive forever unless they are photocopied. There would presumably have been an exception if the supplier involved had no fax machine and the customer had made it clear the enquiry was urgent. There is no evidence that Mike told Martin he was in a flaming hurry to obtain a Victorian diary, 'dating from 1880-1890' which 'must have at least 20 blank pages', but I suppose that would have sounded a bit too suspicious!

More coming up later...

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The focus recently, from RJ Palmer in the main, has been on Mike wanting enough 'blank Victorian paper' to fashion a fake diary out of one he had prepared earlier, as if he was going for a Blue Peter badge.

I'm sure this is not a deliberate ploy to lead anyone up the garden path, but more a case of attempting to cut Mike's garment according to RJ's cloth. But we have to use Mike's cloth, the whole cloth and nothing but the cloth. And RJ doesn't want us to do that.

If Mike had simply asked for a suitable quantity of 'blank Victorian paper', that would have suited RJ down to the ground, because it would have been exactly what Mike could have used for the undated thought processes of his very seriously deranged 'Sir Jim', expressed over a one-year period from the Spring of 1888, when the Maybricks had just moved into their new home and Battlecrease was giving him the creeps, up to a week before his death, in May 1889. Remember, this was supposedly sitting there on the famous word prosser, over 29 sides of A4, waiting to be found the ideal home.

But no, that wasn't nearly enough for Mike. Firstly he didn't ask for 'blank Victorian paper'. He asked for an actual 'diary' [singular], which he needed like a hole in the head for what he supposedly had in mind. He also wasn't fussed if it was partly used, or what it had been used for, or even whether the unused pages ran consecutively - as long as there were at least 20 of them and the 'diary' dated from 1880-1890. A diary for any of the years before 1888? Useless. A diary for 1890? Chocolate fireguard. That's nine impossible years out of the eleven in his specified date range. A diary spanning some or all of those years? Highly unlikely to have existed, even less likely to produce the right stuff.

It gets worse. A diary for the year 1888? Front end of a pantomime horse. A diary for 1889? Back end of a pantomime cow. A diary spanning the two calendar years? He'll be lucky. Two diaries, one for 1888 and the other for 1889? Now that might have been a start, except that he only asked for a single diary. Back to the drawing board. And then there's the old quantity quandary. The diary has to have 'at least 20 blank pages', which could mean 20 sides or 40 sides, of any size.

Mrs Brown of Sidmouth : Oh bugger! I have a basket full of wet laundry and no washing line. Darling? I need to make a quick washing line out of any bits and pieces you can find for me in your man-shed.

Mr Brown of Sidmouth : Okay love, what do you need?

Mrs Brown of Sidmouth : At least 20 pieces of string.

Mr Brown of Sidmouth : How long do you want them?

Mrs Brown of Sidmouth : Silly boy, I want them until my washing is dry.

Love,

Caz
X

[Kattrup]

The focus recently, from RJ Palmer in the main, has been on Mike wanting enough 'blank Victorian paper' to fashion a fake diary out of one he had prepared earlier, as if he was going for a Blue Peter badge.

I'm sure this is not a deliberate ploy to lead anyone up the garden path, but more a case of attempting to cut Mike's garment according to RJ's cloth. But we have to use Mike's cloth, the whole cloth and nothing but the cloth. And RJ doesn't want us to do that.

If Mike had simply asked for a suitable quantity of 'blank Victorian paper', that would have suited RJ down to the ground, because it would have been exactly what Mike could have used for the undated thought processes of his very seriously deranged 'Sir Jim', expressed over a one-year period from the Spring of 1888, when the Maybricks had just moved into their new home and Battlecrease was giving him the creeps, up to a week before his death, in May 1889. Remember, this was supposedly sitting there on the famous word prosser, over 29 sides of A4, waiting to be found the ideal home.

But no, that wasn't nearly enough for Mike. Firstly he didn't ask for 'blank Victorian paper'. He asked for an actual 'diary' [singular], which he needed like a hole in the head for what he supposedly had in mind. He also wasn't fussed if it was partly used, or what it had been used for, or even whether the unused pages ran consecutively - as long as there were at least 20 of them and the 'diary' dated from 1880-1890. A diary for any of the years before 1888? Useless. A diary for 1890? Chocolate fireguard. That's nine impossible years out of the eleven in his specified date range. A diary spanning some or all of those years? Highly unlikely to have existed, even less likely to produce the right stuff.

It gets worse. A diary for the year 1888? Front end of a pantomime horse. A diary for 1889? Back end of a pantomime cow. A diary spanning the two calendar years? He'll be lucky. Two diaries, one for 1888 and the other for 1889? Now that might have been a start, except that he only asked for a single diary. Back to the drawing board. And then there's the old quantity quandary. The diary has to have 'at least 20 blank pages', which could mean 20 sides or 40 sides, of any size.

Mrs Brown of Sidmouth : Oh bugger! I have a basket full of wet laundry and no washing line. Darling? I need to make a quick washing line out of any bits and pieces you can find for me in your man-shed.

Mr Brown of Sidmouth : Okay love, what do you need?

Mrs Brown of Sidmouth : At least 20 pieces of string.

Mr Brown of Sidmouth : How long do you want them?

Mrs Brown of Sidmouth : Silly boy, I want them until my washing is dry.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks Caz. That makes so much sense because MB stated he wanted to write The Papers of Jack the Ripper.


No wait, sorry. I think it was The Diary of Jack the Ripper, actually. Could you check? Because it seems he might have needed an actual diary then.

[erobitha]

Thanks Caz. That makes so much sense because MB stated he wanted to write The Papers of Jack the Ripper.


No wait, sorry. I think it was The Diary of Jack the Ripper, actually. Could you check? Because it seems he might have needed an actual diary then.

If you can find me a genuine Victorian diary that covered both 1888 and 1889 in one neat book with 20 blank pages, I will personally pay you thousands of pounds for it. Why? Because it doesn’t exist and was never requested - yet this is what was needed.

[Kattrup]

If you can find me a genuine Victorian diary that covered both 1888 and 1889 in one neat book with 20 blank pages, I will personally pay you thousands of pounds for it. Why? Because it doesn’t exist and was never requested - yet this is what was needed.

I don’t think that’s correct.

first, I do not know that multi-year calendars were not published in Victorian times, which seems to be what you’re claiming. It rather seems probable that at least some calendars would span for instance April-March rather than the traditional January-December, for administrative purposes, e.g. fiscal years, school terms, roster rotations etc.


Also, it seems certain to me that some journals and ledgers would be sold with a preprinted blank date like ( / ) 18
To allow people to fill in the dates as they went along.
In my archive, we have many such ledgers, which are of course practical and good business, one can buy or sell them without producer or customer worrying about them being of the wrong year. I would venture to guess that similar practices were common in the UK.

secondly, you seem to be under the impression that what was needed was a diary with printed dates, or a book calendar, planner. That is not correct, since all that was needed (and what MB asked for) was a blank diary from the correct period.
As it turned out, one could not be located in time, and he made do with a photo album instead.
So saying that some specific year was needed is incorrect.

[caz]

Let's now look at this from the other end of the doo dah.

Mike is supping his extended lunchtime pint in the Saddle as usual, on double event day, Monday 9th March 1992.

He is shown the "old book" for just long enough to take in the missing pages cut from the front [48], followed by the old style writing over roughly 60 pages, divided into what appear like diary entries, although there are no dates. At the end there are roughly 20 blank pages. On the last page of writing, there is finally a date in May 1889, and the name Jack the Ripper leaps out at him. He has no idea who might have written this or where it has come from, or even if the date is genuine. There is no mention of the name Maybrick throughout the book. But Jack the Ripper? Surely someone's idea of a joke - isn't it?

Later that afternoon, on impulse, he makes the phone call to Pan Books and gets passed on to Doreen Montgomery. We don't know how much he tells her about the physical book during their first conversation on 9th March, nor what Doreen asks 'Mr Williams' about this 'diary' which is supposedly in his possession.

But based on what Mike has seen and what Doreen has said, he gets Martin Earl's details and makes his enquiry using his real name. Without an identity for the author of this supposed 'diary' he was shown in the Saddle, he has no clue yet about the period covered up to that May 1889 date - could be weeks or months, a year or even a decade. No clue that the author was meant to be writing over the course of a single year, or that this would be his last. He settles on a broad date range of 1880-1890, for what he has seen in the Saddle, and fashions his enquiry accordingly.

Whatever he is thinking when phoning Martin Earl, if it has nothing to do with faking the Maybrick diary [because that already exists and he has seen it, but hasn't yet connected it with Maybrick], the actual size of any diary located is not likely to concern him, nor is the date if it's just a year or two outside his own guesstimated range. As for the obligatory 20+ blank pages, he draws a complete blank with that one, and yet he still wants to see what Martin has managed to locate for him, so he can't have been as bothered, by 26th March 1992, about the number of blank pages, as his initial enquiry implied.

The reason he wants the diary in the first place remains to be resolved, but there must be an explanation if the diary taken to London already exists on 9th March 1992.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Thanks Caz. That makes so much sense because MB stated he wanted to write The Papers of Jack the Ripper.


No wait, sorry. I think it was The Diary of Jack the Ripper, actually. Could you check? Because it seems he might have needed an actual diary then.

Are you a real historian?

Just wondering...

You have it arse about face, because it was RJ Palmer who said MB wanted blank sheets of Victorian paper to turn into The Diary of Jack the Ripper.

He didn't. He asked for an actual diary.

In case you hadn't noticed, the Maybrick 'diary' isn't written in an actual diary.

Ergo, if he was behind it, he didn't need an actual diary.

And in fact, as I have explained in some considerable detail, an actual diary would have been the last thing he'd have needed.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I don’t think that’s correct.

first, I do not know that multi-year calendars were not published in Victorian times, which seems to be what you’re claiming. It rather seems probable that at least some calendars would span for instance April-March rather than the traditional January-December, for administrative purposes, e.g. fiscal years, school terms, roster rotations etc.


Also, it seems certain to me that some journals and ledgers would be sold with a preprinted blank date like ( / ) 18
To allow people to fill in the dates as they went along.
In my archive, we have many such ledgers, which are of course practical and good business, one can buy or sell them without producer or customer worrying about them being of the wrong year. I would venture to guess that similar practices were common in the UK.

secondly, you seem to be under the impression that what was needed was a diary with printed dates, or a book calendar, planner. That is not correct, since all that was needed (and what MB asked for) was a blank diary from the correct period.
As it turned out, one could not be located in time, and he made do with a photo album instead.
So saying that some specific year was needed is incorrect.

Yeah, I think you really should stick to what Mike actually asked for, and not wander off into realms of fantasy about what he failed to ask for, and then ask yourself how likely he was to be offered what he'd have needed for creating the physical diary on the basis of the advert he placed.

And you think this man was capable of making anything but a mess of it?

Love,

Caz
X

[Kattrup]

Are you a real historian?

Just wondering...

You have it arse about face, because it was RJ Palmer who said MB wanted blank sheets of Victorian paper to turn into The Diary of Jack the Ripper.

He didn't. He asked for an actual diary.

In case you hadn't noticed, the Maybrick 'diary' isn't written in an actual diary.

Ergo, if he was behind it, he didn't need an actual diary.

And in fact, as I have explained in some considerable detail, an actual diary would have been the last thing he'd have needed.

Love,

Caz
X

Ah, yes, you're right - you were paraphrasing RJ supposed argument. I was reading too quickly and missed that, I do apologize for my sarcastic comment, which was uncalled for.
I'm not entirely certain where your paraphrase ends and your own argument starts, but I'll be sure to check up on RJs argument later tonight.

And you need wonder no more: yes, I am a real historian.

[The Baron]

He didn't. He asked for an actual diary.

Is that how you interpret

Unused or partly used Diary, must have at least 20 blank pages

?!

You never stop to amaze me Caz!

But I understand, it is difficult for you to admit, not after all this time.


The Baron