One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

Yes, for numerical analyses. But the second you attempt to conduct imprecise historical analysis with, "what are the odds of this or that happening..." you're gonna get into trouble.

Indeed, and as anyone who wants to read this correctly will understand, mine was a strictly numerical analysis. It requires no interference from history unless that it you are desperately attempting to undermine it (I'm not referring to you there Scott, by the way).

[Iconoclast]

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

As I said, I think you were smart, Caz - as was everyone else who steered clear of that totally pointless debate about a straightforward numerical analysis.

I bored myself during most of it, for goodness sake ...

Ike

[rjpalmer]

"Sexual insanity" was used often as a reference to homosexuality.

No it wasn't, but feel free to move this discussion elsewhere. You are simply regurgitating a claim often made by "Ripperologists" to explain Macnaghten, but please notice that they don't cite specific sources.

In general, sexual insanity was an umbrella term to describe satyriasis and similar conditions. Nymphomaniacs were often described as sexually insane, for instance. It doesn't mean they were lesbians.

[rjpalmer]

For what it's worth, I'm guessing Eddie still lives within walking distance of Maybrick's grave.

Ah, okay. So it's under Christine M's name. Thanks.

[caz]

Post #2.

If Barrett had already known Eddie in Feb 1992 as Caz speculates (they both drank at The Saddle)...

I don't remember speculating recently that Mike knew Eddie by February 1992, or that they drank in the Saddle at the same times, although it is of course within the realm of possibility. Mike's routine was a weekday, term-time, lunchtime one, when he would have a pint there before picking up his daughter from school at 3.15. We know that Eddie was living with his girlfriend [later his wife] by this time, at her address in Fountains Road. IIRC the address Portus & Rhodes had for Eddie was his mum's, so I don't know if Feldy would have known more than what he was told by another electrician, that Eddie drank in the Saddle and lived round the corner. Feldy certainly had a phone number for Eddie, but it's far from clear that he could have told Mike where he could be found, if Mike didn't already know. Eddie was working full-time hours, from Monday to Saturday, from December 1991 to 7th March 1992, over in Skem, so opportunities to bump into Mike in the Saddle during that time would have been limited, unless they both drank there outside of Eddie's working hours, for example on Saturday nights. But the landlord, speaking to Feldy in 1993, only said he remembered Mike - and Tony - and occasionally Mike's father, coming in for lunchtime drinks.

I am happy to speculate that Eddie took the diary with him to the pub on Monday 9th March, and when Mike saw it he was instantly curious to take a look. The two men may or may not have seen or spoken to each other before.

...it is within the realm of possibility that Mike had learned from Eddy that some electrical work was slated to happen at Dodd’s house in the still undetermined future. Eddie mentioned it to Mike, knowing he had an interest in the Maybrick case, as Mike talked of little else, other than Liverpool football.

Hmmm, but that would depend on Eddie knowing in advance about such work being planned, and also knowing that the customer's house was once Maybrick's. I have seen no evidence for either being the case. IIRC, Mike was not bothered enough about Liverpool football to call himself a red or a blue. And of course, there is no evidence that he knew the first thing about Maybrick, let alone talked of little else, before March 1992 at the earliest. Tales of Liverpool wasn't even a Maybrick book, but just had two brief chapters on the case, tucked away towards the end, with the first called simply 'Motif in Fly-papers' and the second 'How Death Came to Florence Maybrick'. It doesn't follow that Mike would have read those chapters, or known about the case, or had any interest in it, before he saw the scrapbook for the first time. If he talked of little else in Eddie's presence, prior to 9th March, why just Eddie? It doesn't appear to have been common knowledge, before that date, that Mike would talk of little else, nor indeed that he ever mentioned Maybrick's name to anyone in his company. You'd think someone would have remembered him talking of little else, long before the news broke in the Liverpool Post, when Mike came into the Saddle with a cheque in his hand, claiming he had the diary of Jack the Ripper.

This naturally lit a fire under Mike’s backside. He had been working on his Maybrick theory for two years--since the Centenary--but after the death of his friend Tony Devereux, the project had been set aside.

But Mike now realizes it is time for action.

Not according to the sworn affidavit you set so much store by. In it, Mike claimed the physical diary was finished before Tony died. He didn't need to remember dates to know that this order of events couldn't be true, if Eddie's talk about future plans for the house had launched him into action as you speculate here. Tony died three months before Eddie even joined Portus & Rhodes, and another three before any work would be done in the house. If Mike got the order of events right concerning the red diary and the scrapbook, as you need to believe, he got it badly wrong with Tony's death coming after the creation of the diary, even more so if it was Eddie who triggered that creation.

His mind goes into overdrive. He realizes that he can somehow use the Battlecrease renovations to his advantage. He convinces Eddie to finagle his way onto the job at all costs—off the books if necessary—and Eddie will pretend to ‘discover’ the diary at Battlecrease. Mike will take care of the rest. Eddie will receive fifty quid and a 5% share of the profits...

The rest of your purely speculative scenario need detain us no longer. You don't believe it any more than I do. It's not even an exercise in wishful thinking. In fact, I wonder why you bothered with it at all, if you have no doubts about your preferred scenario, which doesn't feature Eddie at all. Yet you seem very interested in knowing more about him. Lord knows why.

[erobitha]

RJ thinks he will convince Eddie that some people are bad-mouthing him on an internet forum and ruining his "good name".

I suspect he thinks he can charm our kid Eddie into signing some kind of affidavit himself - thereby "rendering the Battlecrease provenance" theory dead.

RJ has massively overvalued his abilities as a charmer, but I'm interested to see the fruits of his labours.

Maybe he is the man that can finally put this whole thing to bed.

Another tip RJ. Don't mention Christine. It won't end well for you.

[caz]

Stay away from statistics, Ike. You don’t have the aptitude, and there is nothing more annoying than being rudely lectured by someone who doesn't have a firm grasp of the subject matter.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[caz]

P.S.

Ike...

...But my prediction is that you will keep crying foul and keep arguing about floorboards, because you have already concluded—even before your statistical analysis has started—that the diary DID come from underneath the floorboards. In a way, you have mentally "stacked the deck" before you have even begun.

Pot kettle.

My prediction is that you will keep crying foul and keep arguing about 'blank Victorian paper', because you have long since concluded, even before you were told that Mike knew he was ordering an 1891 pocket diary, that he DID order it to create Maybrick's thoughts from 1888-9. In a way, you mentally "stacked the deck" before you had all the cards. Your biggest mistake was to replace your missing cards with a joker - Michael 'Aldridge' Barrett - who would have seen you coming before you had time to shout "statistical analysis" at him.

Honestly, I think he could have sold you the Mersey Tunnel and laughed all the way to the Liffey.

[caz]

Thanks, Caz.

And if you want to believe that Caroline was confusing a man her father had a row with in July 1992--long after the diary had entered young Caroline's life--with a man who had died nearly a year earlier (August 1991), I wouldn't be surprised either--or even disappointed.

Eh? What row in July 1992? I didn't know about that, so I could hardly believe Caroline was confusing this with a bit of Maybrickian chit-chat you believe she heard, between her old man and another old man, the previous August. It would really help the readers if you could concentrate on what has actually been posted, so you don't bring your own false memories to the table to confuse everyone, including yourself.

At least I have Paul Feldman stating that it was Tony that was being discussed (and never did it dawn on Feldy that Caroline could have meant Eddie), as well as the circumstantial evidence that Tony did have Mike's booklet, whereas you cannot show that Mike 'pestered' Eddie until many months after the diary had already entered Caroline's emotional life, (though I understand that you are theorizing they entered her life at the same time). But if so, how could she have confused a man her father was screaming about (Eddie) with the benign figure down at the pub, who had been now dead for at least 7 months?

I don't know where to start...

Since when did you rely on Paul Feldman for anything?

Of course it didn't dawn on anyone that what Caroline remembered may have been her dad pestering/questioning/discussing or rowing with Eddie about the diary. This was before Feldy began investigating who did the electrical work at Battlecrease, which Paul Dodd talked about when Feldy, Paul Begg, Martin Howells and Mike Barrett turned up on his doorstep. What 'pestering' did you have in mind for 'many months after the diary had already entered Caroline's emotional life'? When was he meant to have been 'screaming' about Eddie in her presence, causing her to confuse this with the 'benign figure' that was the late Tony Devereux? Who ever suggested any such thing? When Mike went round to Eddie's girlfriend's place, in the late Spring of 1993, to threaten him with solicitors if he said anything about finding the diary, there is no reason to think Caroline was there, or knew anything about it. That's the only occasion I know of, when Mike and Eddie nearly came to blows.

What you are really suggesting is that Paul Begg and Martin Howells asked leading questions when quizzing young Caroline, and so, inadvertently, she confirmed their account of Mike pestering Tony, when she was really remembering Mike pestering Eddie.

Not at all. I don't know what Paul and Martin asked, nor if Feldy knew how they phrased their questions. I don't think the conversation was recorded. But you could always contact them to find out what they remember about it, if it bothers you that much. I'm not trying to convince you that Caroline wasn't remembering her dad asking Tony where he got the diary from. Neither of us believe she did!

I don't think it outlandish to think that Caroline could have remembered Mike discussing Tony and Maybrick during the same span that Mike lent Tony RWE's book (June or July 1991) and then wholeheartedly accepted the cover story eight months later when Mike first showed Caroline the physical specimen in April 1992. By the time Paul and Martin quizzed Caroline, nearly another year had passed, and her memory of the whole fiasco would have blended into one continual event.

Again, I'm not sure how much a child of that age would have taken in about any 'discussions' her dad may have had with a much older man, many months before she ever saw the old book about Jack the Ripper. Would her mother have let her read the diary? Would she have been told it was meant to be by someone called Maybrick, who had been poisoned to death by his wife? Would her dad only have discussed the Maybrick case with Tony, when Caroline was listening? How would she have made the connection between conversations she may not even have paid attention to, and the book she first saw when Tony had been dead for months? You may not be able to think like a ten year-old girl, tuning in and out to the chit-chat of two much older men, but I certainly can.

Unless, of course, she was simply coached.

I honestly think that's your best bet. Not looking good, is it?

By the way, between finding the diary under Dodd's floorboards, and rushing to The Saddle, why did Eddie swing by the stationary store, buy some brown paper, and wrap up the diary?

Why would he have done that?

Wasn't that another detail in the collective memories of Mike Barrett, Ann Graham, and young Caroline?

It is according to Shirley Harrison. Brown paper. And Shirley even saw the brown paper in April 1992.

You see, but you don't observe.

The old book was wrapped in old brown paper from the start. One of the electricians described this to Feldy, before this detail was in the public domain. If he didn't see it for himself, he must have got the information from one of the Barretts or from Eddie, indicating another connection back to Battlecrease.

Oh and I take it you meant a stationery store, and not the opposite of a mobile library.

[caz]

I think this opening salvo is probably going to set the tone for the rest of the post?

I received an email from one of our readers this afternoon and he said it better than I could: 'It is completely and utterly useless to continue arguing against these people!'. I think he might just be right.

Believe me, if you are going to ignore 1889-1991 and just focus on 1992 then no statistician could possibly take you seriously. Honestly, don't take my word for it (as it would appear that I don't understand what statistics are), please please please have some integrity and find a statistician you trust and ask them. The first thing they will say to you is "Why are you deliberately massaging the denominator down by reducing the number of possible days in your analysis?". The next question they will ask is "If you are that determined to produce a fake statistic to support your argument, why stop at 1992? Why not just focus on the month of March 1992? Or just that one week? Or maybe just that one day (March 9, 1992) - that would get you a certainty - a rip-roaring probability of 1!".

Having just pleaded with you to do the same, I'm probably going to have to decline.

I get it. I hope everyone else gets it. I thought you were bigger than this. But you clearly aren't. You have realised that someone has a better grasp of the argument than you do (which your ego can't stand, obviously) so you try bluff and bluster and honestly the most embarrassing obfuscation to try to petulantly 'win back' what you feel is a superior position.

I am comfortable with my analysis, even if you aren't.

It is completely and utterly useless to continue arguing against these people!

Hi Ike,

Last one for tonight.

If it is legitimate to include any date after 9th March 1992, when work could in theory have been done in Battlecrease House, is there any reason you can think of why Orsam didn't go the whole hog and include every working day from 10th March 1992 onwards, right up until the day he did his own statistical analysis? Why did he arbitrarily stop short at 31st December 1992, and do himself out of all those extra chances of someone talking to a literary agent about the former occupier's diary on any one of those days?

I can't claim to know the first thing about statistics, vital or otherwise, but is this how Orsam works his magic, by relying on the ignorance of his audience?

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike,

Last one for tonight.

If it is legitimate to include any date after 9th March 1992, when work could in theory have been done in Battlecrease House, is there any reason you can think of why Orsam didn't go the whole hog and include every working day from 10th March 1992 onwards, right up until the day he did his own statistical analysis? Why did he arbitrarily stop short at 31st December 1992, and do himself out of all those extra chances of someone talking to a literary agent about the former occupier's diary on any one of those days?

I can't claim to know the first thing about statistics, vital or otherwise, but is this how Orsam works his magic, by relying on the ignorance of his audience?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

You can analyse any data any number of ways so - yes - it would be legitimate to include post-March 9, 1992 dates, but you'd have to change the question you were asking (i.e., the 'hypothesis').

We have been discussing the probability of A) the floorboards coming up in Maybrick's study (as a known fact) on the same day that B) a mooted diary of Jack the Spratt McVitie (by James Maybrick) was offered to a literary agent by March 9, 1992.

As A & B happened for the first time on March 9, 1992, then our calculation is easy (starting and including May 12, 1889): it's 1/37,618. If either event had happened before March 9, 1992, then we would have had to increase our numerator. So, if the floorboards in Maybrick's study had definitely come up on, say, October 21, 1921, our odds would halve immediately to 2/37,618 that these two events would happen on the same day by chance alone by March 9,1992. Each time the floorboards were definitely raised and each time a diary of Jack the Spratt McVitie (purportedly written by James Maybrick) was offered to a literary agent before March 9, 1992, the numerator would go up so that - by March 9, 1992 - it might have been 2/37,618, or 3/37,618, or 4/37,618. All of these odds would still have been extremely unlikely when the 'coincidence' finally happened on March 9, 1992. As it happens, we know of only the one day so the odds on March 8, 1992 (if we are accepting Sundays) was 1/37,617. The next day, the odds were 1/37,618 and then the magic happened and the 'coincidence' occurred.

By the way, RJ/LO are right when they state that other events could have been included. I think there are similar events we could include in our analysis (John Over's outhouse finally being pulled down, for example; the day Knowsley Buildings were demolished is another), but that calculation is a different probability to analyse. Ours was simply 'What was the probability of A) the floorboards coming up in Maybrick's study (as a known fact) on the same day that B) a mooted diary of Jack the Spratt McVitie (purportedly written by James Maybrick) was offered to a literary agent by March 9, 1992?'.

So, in answer to your question, you could ask different probability questions post-March 9, 1992, but you can't ask the same question as it was done and dusted on March 9, 1992 whether it happened or not. That's how statistics work: they tell you how likely certain agreed facts might occur by chance alone, but they do not imply that those facts will happen at all.

So the issue is always 'What question am I asking?', and 'Do I have sufficient data to use statistical analysis to give me a probability for it happening by chance alone?'.

RJ/LO are welcome to find a thousand events which they feel we would have accepted as an amazing coincidence had they occurred on the same day a literary agent was contacted regarding a mooted diary of Jack the Spratt (supposedly written by James Maybrick), and by March 9, 1992 the probability would be 1,000/37,618 and the odds of that happening by chance alone by March 9, 1992 would be a measly 1/37. It's all in what question you are asking. In RJ/LO's case, they will find far more examples than just Maybrick's floorboards coming-up (in order to drive the numerator up), and that's fine, but we all just have to remember that that is a different question they are addressing.

I don't know why LO stopped at December 31, 1992. Of greater confusion for me was why he started on January 1, 1992! It was utterly arbitrary and based solely on the fact that the 'double event' happened to occur in 1992. If you play tricks like that, you can generate any probability you want, but no-one who understands statistics will take you seriously. Obviously, what LO wanted to do was to convince those who don't understand statistics, not those who do. Believe me, Caz, the former are the lucky ones.

If the events of March 9, 1992 had not unfolded as they did then - by December 31, 1992 - the odds of the floorboards coming-up on the same day as Maybrick's diary emerging had dropped significantly to around 14/38,000 (or 1/2,714) - still pretty unlikely odds but not as eye-watering as 1/37,618 which is what they were when it did happen.

Hope this helps, Caz!

Should we stick to the football for a while???

Ikey

[rjpalmer]

You see, but you don't observe.

The old book was wrapped in old brown paper from the start.

No, Caz. The trouble is that I do observe, and what I now observe is that you are reduced to bending the truth every which way but straight.

The only thing that any of the electricians ever claimed was in a brown bag (or a pillow case, or a shopping bag) was dog vomit.

(I apologize, dear readers, but this is no joke! I wish it was!)

Dog vomit or perhaps dog excrement--which one is not clear.

The only electricians who claimed to have seen a discovery at Battlecrease described, not a brown paper parcel, but:

A book.

Or: two books.

Or: a book and a ring and a watch in a biscuit tin.

Not a peep about a brown paper parcel.

The only person who mentioned brown paper to Feldman was a bloke named Rigby.

Enter James Johnston, who managed to get a statement out of Rigby's brother:

'My brother never actually witnessed the finding of anything whilst he worked there. It was only the odd behaviour of the other two who went quiet in his presence and he saw them quickly put something in a pillow case or shopping bag under the seat as he approached...He told him his mother's dog had been ill and he was taking a sample of something to be examined.'

If you are confused, Dear Reader, this is because Caz apparently wants you to be confused.

Questioned by Feldman, who had interview techniques so notorious that Shirley Harrison was worried he was polluting the investigation, Rigby was describing an entirely different event that had nothing to do with a book allegedly being found at Battlecrease.

A dog owned by the mother of one of his co-workers had become ill, so they were taking a sample from the poor canine to have analyzed at Liverpool University. Maybe they suspected poisoning; we aren't told. Whatever the case, when later hounded by Feldman, (sorry, I couldn't resist), this was the only incident that Rigby could remember that involved both his co-workers and a sack (or shopping bag, or pillow case).

A bag or pillow case containing dog excretions of some kind.

None of the electricians who actually claimed to have seen a discovery of a book mentioned brown paper, or any other covering at all, for that matter, other than some apparently mythical gigantic biscuit tin that was never produced.

Caz's claim that Rigby "described this to Feldy, before this detail was in the public domain" is, of course, misleading, because Feldman was well-aware that the Barretts had already claimed that the diary had been given to them by Tony Devereux wrapped in brown paper and string, and this is why, presumably, he had asked Rigby leading questions about a brown paper parcel. The conversation doesn't appear to have been recorded, but this is the obvious implication. The poor guy Rigby was trying to help, but the only thing he could remember is the incident of the poor pooch!

Orsam went over all of this before, and those interested can find all the gory details here:

Befuddle and Confuse - Orsam Books

As for me, I am now sorry that I, like the poor dog, brought it up.

[rjpalmer]

It was utterly arbitrary and based solely on the fact that the 'double event' happened to occur in 1992. If you play tricks like that, you can generate any probability you want...

Irony is obviously lost on you, Ike.

Orsam’s calculations were based on actual knowns, whereas your bogus calculations are based on assumptions, wishful beliefs, bad arithmetic, and "tricks."

Indeed, your blunder should be apparent to anyone who passed fifth grade math or basic high school logic.

This is harsh, but I'm getting a little tired of y'all claiming I'm wrong, when you can't even do a very simple analysis.

One final time, from the top.

The trouble, Ike, is that you are cooking the books without even realizing that you ARE cooking the books. That’s how bad it is.

You created an imaginary range of “possible dates” from May 12, 1889 to March 9, 1992, without actually knowing if those dates ARE possible, since you don’t know how old the diary is (or even where it came from), which, of course, would be a pre-requisite before making the sort of statistical analysis that you are attempting. Your odds of 37, 618 to 1, besides being an example of bad arithmetic, are junk statistics.

As Scott Nelson correctly commented, “garbage in/garbage out.”

I say bad arithmetic because you are so bad at math that you didn’t even punch the correct numbers into your date calculator! 37, 618 is the amount of days between March 12, 1889 and March 9, 1992!!! Are you suggesting that Maybrick predicted his own death in March, finished the diary and nailed it under his floorboards, and then laid down for two months before death overtook him??

Maybrick died in May 1889, and it wasn’t the 12th, but the 11th. (Are your calculations supposed to be parody?)

I mean, really, have some self-respect, man.

If you want to hoist junk statistics on the public, at least do the irrelevant arithmetic correctly. The bogus number should be 37, 557 to 1, not 37, 618 to 1. You even tried to fool the unwary further by tacking on an extra 61 days to an already bogus number!

But at this stage I am so fed-up with this nonsense that I would just as soon let the diary believers keep on believing their nonsensical and strictly imaginary odds. Smug people deserve to be self-deluded. So let Caz and Erobitha keep on lecturing me, and keep on believing that your odds are correct. They are not--but let them believe.

I’m afraid it is getting far too deep in here for me, Ike, and I don’t mean profound.

Ciao.

[rjpalmer]

Or: a book and a ring and a watch in a biscuit tin.

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure they mentioned a watch. I'll have to go back and check. I think it was just a ring and a book.

Either way, the whole thing is clearly a combination of urban folkore, bad interviewing techniques, and one bloke attempting to cash-in on Barrett's hoax. To their credit, Feldman and Harrison investigated the whole mess 25 odd years ago, saw the writing on the wall, and rejected the provenance as worthless.

[Iconoclast]

Irony is obviously lost on you, Ike.

Orsam’s calculations were based on actual knowns, whereas your bogus calculations are based on assumptions, wishful beliefs, bad arithmetic, and "tricks."

Indeed, your blunder should be apparent to anyone who passed fifth grade math or basic high school logic.

Well, how about you skip all of those people and find a lecturer in research methods and statistics? I'd be very happy with their input.

This is harsh, but I'm getting a little tired of y'all claiming I'm wrong, when you can't even do a very simple analysis.

One final time, from the top.

Oh, if only ...

The trouble, Ike, is that you are cooking the books without even realizing that you ARE cooking the books. That’s how bad it is.

You created an imaginary range of “possible dates” from May 12, 1889 to March 9, 1992, without actually knowing if those dates ARE possible, since you don’t know how old the diary is (or even where it came from), which, of course, would be a pre-requisite before making the sort of statistical analysis that you are attempting. Your odds of 37, 618 to 1, besides being an example of bad arithmetic, are junk statistics.

As Scott Nelson correctly commented, “garbage in/garbage out.”

Never has a truer word been spoken - you've chucked-in all manner of details which are Roger Irrelevant to the very simple sums we were doing.

I say bad arithmetic because you are so bad at math that you didn’t even punch the correct numbers into your date calculator! 37, 618 is the amount of days between March 12, 1889 and March 9, 1992!!! Are you suggesting that Maybrick predicted his own death in March, finished the diary and nailed it under his floorboards, and then laid down for two months before death overtook him??

I think I said in an earlier post - in order to pre-empt this possibility - that I used Excel. As anyone who is familiar with Excel will know, you cannot use it to count back before January 1, 1900. For the remaining eleven years back to May 12, 1889, I don't recall how I calculated the 37,618 but - I admit - I had not noticed that this wasn't the exact number. I hadn't noticed because the p value could only chnage a fraction in the recalculating: Bearing in mind that statisticians use any value lower than 0.01 (and often as high as 0.05) to infer differences between groups which were not caused by chance alone, my 1/37,618 statistic produces an eye-watering p value of 0.0000265. Your 'correct' number of days (I will never arse myself to check for this very reason) is an equalling eye-watering 0.0000266. For the uninitiated, I inadvertantly improved my p value by 0.0000001. And you wonder why everyone thinks you two are a pair of pedants?

For anyone who doesn't understand statistics (I can think of two off the top of my head), if a number like 1/37,618 is not exact, it makes very likes odds (pardon the pun) if the correct number is plus or minus a few hundred here and there. I see that I was out by 61 which is not going to change the significance of the implausibility enough to register on any scale any time soon. Only a mealy-mouthed pedant would bother to check such a large number in order to make a cheap joke. Most of us would understand the point. You mentioned a different figure many posts ago and I stuck with my 37,618 for precisely this reason, the difference was never going to make a meaningful difference.

Maybrick died in May 1889, and it wasn’t the 12th, but the 11th. (Are your calculations supposed to be parody?)

This is the cheap joke I was referring to. (No it wasn't - it was the one above about 'laid down for two months before death overtook him'.)

If you want to hoist junk statistics on the public, at least do the irrelevant arithmetic correctly. The bogus number should be 37, 557 to 1, not 37, 618 to 1. You even tried to fool the unwary further by tacking on an extra 61 days to an already bogus number!

My irrelevant heuristic, I now note, brought out the very worst in both of you which is unfortunate because it allowed you both to wet yourself with silly boyish humour in an attempt to undermine the essence of the argument. I didn't check my own figure - in much the same way that I didn't check your 1/700,000 odds - because the difference makes no discernible difference (unless you are a pedant who wishes to confuse at every turn).

But at this stage I am so fed-up with this nonsense that I would just as soon let the diary believers keep on believing their nonsensical and strictly imaginary odds.

Thank you, that would be wonderful if you could as your inept attempts to influence the debate through pointless pedantry adds nothing of value to the debate.

Smug people deserve to be self-deluded. So let Caz and Erobitha keep on lecturing me, and keep on believing that your odds are correct. They are not--but let them believe.

They are as correct as they needed to be on this occasion, but I understand if you have a slender grasp of sums that you'd try to 'triumph' over the point with such cheap pedantry.

I’m afraid it is getting far too deep in here for me, Ike, and I don’t mean profound.

Well you're the one who's smelling it, RJ.

Ike