One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

RJ,

When you sit typing this stuff, do you actually stop to wonder if you are misrepresenting the person's comments or even just not trying hard enough to understand the point they are making?

The mocking tone does nothing for your argument. I assume that many of your readers pity you for lacking any sort of logical rigour.

So, let's try it again with what we actually know (for reasonably certain):

Mar 9, Eddie Lyons possibly finds the Victorian scrapbook in Battlecrease
Mar 9, With or without the actual scrapbook in his possession, Mike Barrett rings Rupert Crew to see if they are interested in the diary of Jack the Ripper

Now you'll notice that I have excluded all of your mocking "dashing over to the pub to give away the crown jewels in exchange for a toilet roll" comments because - of course - we don't know exactly how it panned-out.

We don't know if Mike didn't get the scrapbook until the Tuesday or the Wednesday of that week.
We don't know if Eddie received £25 from Mike Barret for the scrapbook (this is just a supposition).

What we do know - and it's crucial - is that Lyons didn't describe the scrapbook as "it might be important" for another four months (July 21 1992, IIRC) when speaking with colleague Brian Rawes as he collected the firm's van from Battlecrease House where Eddie was now definitely working (as he's in the timesheet) and very possibly bricking himself because by then it's common knowledge in the pub he favours along with Mike Barrett that the latter has taken an old book to Landarn and appears to be about to publish it. At this point, Lyons would undoubtedly have twigged-on that he had sold a potentially very valuable historical document, and that he had done so for a song, a fact which would not assuage in the slightest his fear of the consequences of his actions in Battlecrease on the morning of Monday, March 9, 1992.

So let's not stick the "it might be important" bit in out of context to try to mock even more than you were. Let's try our best to stick with the facts and theorise around those.

Cheers,

Ike

Good post, Ike.

A point that RJ seems unable to grasp - presumably because he has already convinced himself that Eddie could never have had the diary - is that anyone finding and removing this "old book" from a customer's house would have been unable to sell it on for big money because they couldn't admit how they got it. Without that explanation it was worth very little. Eddie simply wasn't in a position to get a high price for it at auction, for example, with no provenance, or any guarantee of age, never mind authenticity.

As we know, Mike had to interest people who could fund the kind of tests required, and for that he had to give an 'innocent' explanation for how he came by the diary, which could not be disproved. Naming his dead friend would have solved the immediate problem, taking Eddie out of the equation and legitimising Mike's ownership as a gift. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know where Tony [Eddie] got the diary from. God knows he had tried to get an answer. That was enough for Doreen and co to take it on and get the first tests organised.

A question that RJ would do well to address is why Mike phoned Portus & Rhodes, and followed this up with a solicitor's letter, in the wake of the first Battlecrease rumours to reach the local papers, to try - in vain - to get details of the electricians and the work done at the house.

Why did Mike want these details, if they could have had nothing to do with a diary created the year before? He surely didn't stagger backwards in surprise when he had visited Battlecrease with Feldy and co, just because Paul Dodd mentioned that some electrical work had been done there at some point. What old house wouldn't? His reaction was surely because he knew Eddie was an electrician by trade, and he contacted Portus & Rhodes, knowing this was the firm of electrical contractors who did the work. He wanted to know if Eddie had worked in the house. He didn't get any information out of Colin Rhodes in the April or May, but Eddie himself confirmed it to Robert Smith, in Mike's presence, that night in June in The Saddle, when he claimed to have thrown a book from the house into a skip - a skip that was never confirmed to be there, or necessary for the electrical work done.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

Didn't want to get into the statistical debate, eh Caz? Smart.

[Iconoclast]

Didn't want to get into the statistical debate, eh Caz? Smart.

I agree.

[Scott Nelson]

I could have if I wanted. As an Engineer I deal with numbers and probability almost every day. The problem, as RJ alluded to, is that it all starts with assumptions. If your assumptions are wrong, or even arbitrary, it's typically garbage in, garbage out.

[erobitha]

I could have if I wanted. As an Engineer I deal with numbers and probability almost every day. The problem, as RJ alluded to, is that it all starts with assumptions. If your assumptions are wrong, or even arbitrary, it's typically garbage in, garbage out.

Would help if people understood the assumptions. There seems to be assumptions of assumptions.

All getting a bit Donald Rumsfield around here.

[rjpalmer]

But I wasn't talking about a bandwagon hoax. That's your theory and of course it would be no coincidence if the emerging diary news in 1993 had indeed inspired someone to put the scratches in the watch. I was referring to documented events, which you have to believe were entirely coincidental: the watch itself being put on sale, with no known details of its previous owner [just a stranger off the street], at the same time Mike was trying to flog his diary

Understood. Do you have a ‘hard’ or specific date for when the watch was placed in the Murphys’ shop window? I’ve never seen it stated as anything other than ‘1992,’ and there are 67 days in 1992 that precede March 9th.

To continue with our statistical analysis, given that Johnson bought the watch in July, that would mean that there is a 1 in 3 chance that its appearance in the store window preceded March 9th, and the odds are is actually worse than that (from your perspective) considering that Johnson stated that he hesitated for a considerable time before making the plunge.

Of course, all of this is entirely irrelevant if we accept the Murphys’ account of owning the watch for years, but I am a new convert to Ike’s methodology of analyzing what we theorize is true, rather than what is actually in evidence. Goblins dancing on the head of a pin, and all that.

It seems to me that if you can narrow the date down, Ike could favor us with another one of his unimpeachable forays into probability theory.

best wishes.

[rjpalmer]

Actually, 1992 was a leap year, so there were 68 days preceding March 9th, and really, out of general principles I should count March 9th, since the Murphys might have been as eager to place stolen goods in their window as Eddie was to sell them down the boozer.

I won’t bother with Dundas as not to overtax Ike’s brain.

[rjpalmer]

Edit. I see I left out a word in the above. “The Murphys might NOT have been as eager to have place the watch in their window as Eddie &tc.” I have Albert’s purchase date.

[Kattrup]

A point that RJ seems unable to grasp - presumably because he has already convinced himself that Eddie could never have had the diary - is that anyone finding and removing this "old book" from a customer's house would have been unable to sell it on for big money because they couldn't admit how they got it. Without that explanation it was worth very little. Eddie simply wasn't in a position to get a high price for it at auction, for example, with no provenance, or any guarantee of age, never mind authenticity.

I see, Eddie Lyons could never have sold the diary like MB did. The diary was worth very little to him. But thousands and thousands of pounds to anyone else. Of course, MB had no "provenance, or any guarantee of age, never mind authenticity", which is why the diary was suspected of being a hoax from the start. It still sold for a lot of money, though.
I think the reason RJ - and everybody else - seems unable to grasp that argument is because it's completely worthless.

[caz]

Didn't want to get into the statistical debate, eh Caz? Smart.

Not smart at all, Scotty. I'm a little behind everyone else.

I just happened to catch your one-liner above from yesterday, but other than that I haven't read any posts more recent than #6425, several pages back. So I haven't reached the latest statistical debate yet.

Contrary to what some may think, there are not enough hours in my day to keep up with all the latest diary posts on a daily basis. I can't be accused this time of keeping the debate alive [although I probably will be ]. It's currently alive and kicking thanks to others.

In case anyone cares, I'm just off to do some more household chores and then I'll start reading again from post #6426. See ya later.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

P.S.

By the way, why do you call Eddie 'an electrician'? Was he not a day laborer working 'off the books' (hence no evidence that he was anywhere near Dodd's house on March 9th). My understanding is that Eddie was a jack-of-all-trades, who later worked for a Jaguar dealership. Are you suggesting he worked there as an electrician?

Or do you even know who you are accusing of theft?

This was addressed to Ike, but if I may...

Eddie was a qualified electrician, who was very much 'on the books' of Portus & Rhodes Electrical Contractors, from late November 1991 to July 1992, when the work dried up. He was initially taken on with Jim Bowling for a large contract at Skelmersdale, where they both worked full-time, Mondays to Saturdays, with help at various times from other electricians at P&R, right through December, January and February, and up to Saturday 7th March 1992, when there was a four-day break in the contract, which left Eddie and Jim kicking their heels from Monday 9th to Thursday 12th, before the Skem job resumed - without Eddie - on Friday 13th, and was completed a couple of weeks later in Eddie's continued absence. Two other electricians had been allocated the first-floor wiring job for Paul Dodd on the Monday and Tuesday, during the Skem break, but Colin Rhodes explained that he would have sent Eddie and Jim to help out so they weren't hanging around the office being paid by him for doing nothing. Paul Dodd was only invoiced for the hours done by the two men originally allocated to the job. Eddie volunteered information that independently confirmed his own presence at the house for this two-man, two-day job - the only work done by P&R, which involved lifting floorboards on the first floor. Understandably, after so many years, Eddie was unable to recall the actual date, but clearly remembered being there for that job. He saw no reason to deny it, because as far as he knew nobody could connect this to a diary, which Mike had insisted he got from Tony Devereux - supported later by his wife's 'in the family' story - before claiming that he and Anne had written it. While Colin Rhodes was able to explain why Eddie and Jim would not have been on the timesheet used to invoice Paul Dodd on that occasion, he didn't know why Eddie never returned to see out the completion of the Skem contract with Jim. Colin didn't think it likely that Eddie would have taken leave in March, with the Skem job still going on, but had no other explanation.

At the same time that Eddie absented himself from the Skem job, Mike had told Doreen he would be away in York, and would contact her again on his return. Nobody questioned why the Barretts would be going off to York - where they had been on holiday the previous summer when Tony died - in March, in term time, a month before Caroline's Easter holidays began. But he couldn't be questioned about the diary either, while Doreen believed he was away from home. Another curious coincidence, connecting Eddie and Mike - two absentees in the same week as the 9th March double event.

I'm pretty sure all this has been posted before, so I have no explanation for RJ's ducking, diving, distorting and denying, unless he just wishes it would all go away and can see no way of achieving it by fairer methods.

[caz]

P.S.

Oh, and let's make one point explicit, shall we? The only reason you don't want Tony Devereux to have been discussing the Diary with Mike in 1991 is because it is a kick in the pants to the 'March 9th 1992' provenance. It's not that the circumstances aren't reasonable in and of themselves.

Before the 'new' provenance emerged, Diary supporters were happy to accept it, because it seemed to support Anne Graham's tale of having given the diary to Tony, and Mike pestering him. Indeed, I don't think I exaggerate when I say that your mentor, Paul Feldman, was overjoyed to learn that Mike and Tony had discussed the diary as far back as the Summer of 1991.

Now it's necessary to not only sweep it under the floorboards like a hideous, vulgar, and unwanted object, but to argue with tooth & nail if someone suggests it may have occurred.

My how times have changed, Ike!

Pot kettle.

The only reason you need Tony Devereux to have been discussing 'the Diary' with Mike in 1991, is because you need the two Maybrick related events of March 9th 1992 to be entirely unconnected, or that would be a kick in the pants for anyone's theory that the Maybrick diary did not exist in its physical form until the April.

It has been necessary for you to sweep the scrapbook under the floorboards like a hideous, vulgar and unwanted object, for some time now, so you can argue tooth and nail for it to have been sitting in Orsam's awesome auction room on March 31st, waiting for a Mr Williams, or a Mr Barrett, or even a Mrs Williams or Mrs Barrett - depending on which of Mike's conflicting claims you have ditched as a bare-faced lie - to make a successful bid and take it home, where Caroline first saw it and then witnessed a row her parents had over it.

I still wonder how Caroline is expected to have known that any 'discussions' or 'chit-chat' she may have heard between her dad and Tony in 1991, were related to the diary her dad brought home the following March. If she remembered that Tony had died while they were on holiday last summer, who did she think her dad got it from? If she wasn't told that Tony had died, because she was only a child and didn't really need to know, she may have assumed that her dad got it from him, just like he told everyone who would listen. Tony could have moved house or gone into hospital for all she may have known. My daughter had a friend at primary school, whose parents couldn't bear to upset her when the family dog died, so they said he was poorly and the vet was looking after him. I think she must have guessed as the days turned to weeks and then months. They even put off telling her when a grandparent died, until they had no choice.

[caz]

Fair enough Caz. I'd agree the truth matters. I also agree that Bury is fair game as he killed his wife. Another thing I'm aware of is that Mike was a liar.

Cheers John

That's very gracious of you, John.

I would actually put Bury, in terms of suspect status, above any man alive in 1888 who is not known to have killed or been violent towards any woman.

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

That's very gracious of you, John.

I would actually put Bury, in terms of suspect status, above any man alive in 1888 who is not known to have killed or been violent towards any woman.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz

Thanks. I think you are being eminently sensible. Bury is one of the few Ripper suspects who is a proven violent murderer. And as such as you say is fair game. I'm uncomfortable myself accusing people of the C5 murders where they have no history of not only violent murder but also no history of violence towards any woman. The fact that the C5 murders occurred in 1888 in my opinion shouldn't matter. Others I'm sure will disagree with my stance.

Cheers John

[Iconoclast]

I could have if I wanted. As an Engineer I deal with numbers and probability almost every day. The problem, as RJ alluded to, is that it all starts with assumptions. If your assumptions are wrong, or even arbitrary, it's typically garbage in, garbage out.

Hi Scott,

Then you will know that statistical analysis does not require assumptions - and the fewer you have to make, the purer the predicted probability.

Bad statistics would start with bad assumptions and produce bad probability analysis.

The issue we are confronting here is the probability of the first stage of the 'double event' occurring on the same day; and that's obviously the final day it could have occurred minus the the last day it could not have occurred (therefore ensuring that you remember to count the first day it could have occurred) - all of it under the number of times it did happen, which gives us (in this example) our 1/37,618.

No need for anyone to worry themselves about mythical 'assumptions' in this example!

Cheers,

Ike