One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Cheers, Yabs.

I have just added this info to my diary chronology.

While doing so, I was reminded of the following entry, from just nine days earlier, which was my summary of the article in question:

Saturday 27th November 1993
Article in Liverpool Daily Post:
'Scotland Yard challenged as Ripper diary row rages':
Scotland Yard was challenged last night to back up claims that diary is fake. In report being sent to CPS, a Met Police detective claims it was written after 1987 by an unknown hoaxer in L'Pool. But claim had angered diary supporters, who point out that the officer has never even seen the document. Police conclusion based on Rendell report. Writing does not match samples of Maybrick's; diary contains words and phrases not in use until after 1889; large sections appeared to have been written at one sitting. "The diary seems to have been cobbled together from three other books on the Ripper", said a police spokesman. "The only mystery is who wrote the thing."
Paul Feldman attacked the Yard's inquiry, saying he had ten facts disproving Rendell's findings. Scientific tests on ink had proved it was written before 1921. He said, "We suggested that they run the diary through their forensic department but they haven't taken up the offer. Why?"
The month-long Yard probe began after the Sunday Times complained they were misled by Robert Smith during negotiations over serialisation rights.
A detective interviewed the owner of the diary, Mike Barrett.
Mike Barrett said yesterday, "To suggest the diary was forged is clear nonsense. No one has been able to show it is a forgery."
Robert Smith said yesterday, "The impression I gained from talking to the police was that they have no new evidence to suggest the diary is a fake."
Negotiations have already begun on a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster.
Source: copy of article (KS master file 1992/3)

So within days of this article in the local paper, quoting Mike's latest claim for the diary, he is meant to have done a complete volte-face, according to his affidavit of 5th January 1995, and was trying instead, in December 1993, to expose the diary as a fraud, through the press, the publisher - Robert Smith, the author - Shirley Harrison, and his agent - Doreen Montgomery.

Was he worried that the greenhouses he could afford on the back of a Hollywood blockbuster wouldn't all fit in his back garden in Goldie Street?

Was a conviction for fraud really the better option? He was still trying in 1999, six years later, and four years after swearing that affidavit. But try as he might, he just couldn't pull it off.

Love,

Caz
X

For completeness and added context, I am reposting the above.

The police spokesman was quite clear in his statement that it was "a mystery" who wrote the diary.

And so it remains.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Hi Caz.

It is curious; one usually expects a certain amount of sectarian in-fighting when two conflicting theories exist, but the Maybrick Hoax is a clear exception to this universal rule.

All the best,

RP

Seriously RJ, you must think I'm stupid. Have you seen Caz's Facebook photo?



Ike
Not as Stupid as RJ Clearly Thinks

[Iconoclast]

One has to be so careful with Google Ngrams. Taken in isolation, individual words and phrases can seem to have suddenly exploded into common use. Taken in perspective, however, we might choose to be a little more circumspect in what we choose to believe about the data which gets graphed:







Ngrams gives us a perspective on phrase-use as determined by documents still in existence which have been loaded into the Viewer. We should be super-cautious before we start assigning truth to these data sets. They are unlikely to be complete. If they were, then no-one ever used the expression 'freshly picked carrots' before 1947.

Unlikely, dear readers, though I'm no grocer.

Ike

[MrBarnett]

One has to be so careful with Google Ngrams. Taken in isolation, individual words and phrases can seem to have suddenly exploded into common use. Taken in perspective, however, we might choose to be a little more circumspect in what we choose to believe about the data which gets graphed:







Ngrams gives us a perspective on phrase-use as determined by documents still in existence which have been loaded into the Viewer. We should be super-cautious before we start assigning truth to these data sets. They are unlikely to be complete. If they were, then no-one ever used the expression 'freshly picked carrots' before 1947.

Unlikely, dear readers, though I'm no grocer.

Ike

We have to ask ourselves might a Victorian have used a different vocabulary in a personal diary/journal or in private conversation than he/she would in something meant for publication? And then ask ourselves whether societal changes since then have led to a convergence of the two types of vocabulary.

[Iconoclast]

We have to ask ourselves might a Victorian have used a different vocabulary in a personal diary/journal or in private conversation than he/she would in something meant for publication? And then ask ourselves whether societal changes since then have led to a convergence of the two types of vocabulary.

A very good point, MrB.

I think it was Kenneth Tynan in 1965 who first used the word 'fcuk' [obviously swap the 'c' and the 'u'] on British TV. Half a century later, it's so common I'm expecting to see it in Dora the Explorer any day soon:

Dora: "Swiper no swiping!"
Swiper: "Aw, fcuk ..."

Would this imply in any way that the word 'fcuk' had not been used before 1965? Obviously not.

Why do we assume the same is true of extant Victorian documents for words and phrases which have over time become grounded in common use regardless of media? And why do we happily ignore all of those non-extant documents lost to history which are probably far greater in number than those which actually survived to the point where Ngrams could analyse them? Exactly how many examples of 'freshly picked carrots' have been tragically lost to posterity prior to 1947?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

A very good point, MrB.

I think it was Kenneth Tynan in 1965 who first used the word 'fcuk' [obviously swap the 'c' and the 'u'] on British TV.

Ike

My apologies to all of our Northern Irish friends, I obviously meant to say 'UK TV'.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

I see an argument made elsewhere that 'Diary-Defenders' (that's erobitha and me, then) and - by implication - 'Barrett-Deniers' (that's Caz, erobitha me, and others, then) use the Victorian scrapbook as evidence that certain words and phrases now in question must have been used in the LVP precisely because they appear in the scrapbook.

It's just a rephrasing of the traditional "The Holy Bible is the word of God", "Who says so?", "The Holy Bible" argument which wears down the spirit so perennially. Personally, I don't think I've ever made that spurious claim about the scrapbook and I don't think anyone else has.

Is it - in truth - a lazy poisoning of the well for those with a pathologically myopic view of the Maybrick document?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Oh - by the way - I've been off grid for the last day or so.

Anything interesting happen in my absence?

Ike

[caz]

I see an argument made elsewhere that 'Diary-Defenders' (that's erobitha and me, then) and - by implication - 'Barrett-Deniers' (that's Caz, erobitha me, and others, then) use the Victorian scrapbook as evidence that certain words and phrases now in question must have been used in the LVP precisely because they appear in the scrapbook.

It's just a rephrasing of the traditional "The Holy Bible is the word of God", "Who says so?", "The Holy Bible" argument which wears down the spirit so perennially. Personally, I don't think I've ever made that spurious claim about the scrapbook and I don't think anyone else has.

Is it - in truth - a lazy poisoning of the well for those with a pathologically myopic view of the Maybrick document?

Ike

I think it has to be, Ike, because the alternative is that the brains of those infected by Bongo Fever have ceased to function. I have never seen it argued by anyone that the language used in the disputed diary proves that it must have been in general use in the LVP.

There are so many other sociological factors to take into account, which I'm not sure Google Ngrams could have grappled with: the huge growth in the general population since the LVP; the improvement in the literacy and education of the common man/woman/cat; the increased universal accessibility to the written and spoken word through a far greater variety of media [not counting the internet age, obviously, of which our diarist had no perception]; and let's not forget the growing obsession from the mid-20th century with fame for fame's sake, which has seen people from every class, picking up on the verbal [written or spoken] language and catch phrases of those already in the public eye, from advertising slogans and jingles, to actors, comedians and master criminals - and any politicians or royals who don't naturally fall into any of those categories.

Some phrases quickly become popular and stay around forever; others never do. Phrases come into fashion and out again within a year or two, causing teenagers considerable embarrassment when their parents start using them too late. Others come back into favour after long periods in the wilderness. Language used within families can be very strange and incomprehensible to outsiders. I should know. My older brother had a language all his own when he began talking, using totally invented words for colours, foods, objects and names, which my mum would pick up on and repeat well into our teenage years. Had any of this language been recorded in a family diary, I dread to think how we would all have been analysed! My younger brother was told by a teacher that a word he had put in an essay, which he got from our parents while growing up, didn't exist, and he was mortified.

I just searched 'mole bonnet' and was directed to a French company called 'MON BONNET MOLE', and searching 'moleskin bonnet' brings up a few results too, but who knows what the diary author had in mind when writing about 'the whores mole bonnett' [sic], whenever that was? If it was made up from whole cloth - or whole mole - and unique to the diary at that time, it wouldn't tell us whether it was thought up while Victoria was on the throne or Elizabeth II.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I meant to add that less well known or popular phrases could surely have been around and used in private letters, diaries and conversations for many years or decades before their earliest surviving appearance on the record. As time went by, far more of the written and spoken word began to be recorded and preserved as a matter of course, producing an explosion of examples, while so much of what had existed previously must now be lost to us.

Can anyone born in the 20th century be dogmatic about what our great grandparents could not possibly have said or understood?

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

I watched a TV programme the other day where an old Caribbean lady described her experiences of being in care after arriving in England just after the war. She had surprisingly good memories of her time at various homes and with various foster caterers - all of whom she referred to as uncles and aunties.

Of course, 50-odd years prior to that only the siblings of one’s parents were ever referred to as uncles and aunts. I think there was a law forbidding the misuse of those terms at the time. It had certainly been repealed by the time my parents were born (1926) because they had non-familial aunts.

[Iconoclast]

I just searched 'mole bonnet' and was directed to a French company called 'MON BONNET MOLE', and searching 'moleskin bonnet' brings up a few results too, but who knows what the diary author had in mind when writing about 'the whores mole bonnett' [sic], whenever that was? If it was made up from whole cloth - or whole mole - and unique to the diary at that time, it wouldn't tell us whether it was thought up while Victoria was on the throne or Elizabeth II.

Love,

Caz
X

MrB this year or last posted here or on the Posh Site a clipping from about 190X mentioning a woman wearing a 'mole bonnet'. It was such a magnificent spot that I stole it and put it into the latest incarnation of my brilliant Society's Pillar which probably won't get published until Amanda Staveley personally lifts the FA Cup at Wemberley in about 2025. I'll see if I can find it.

Cheers,

Ike

Easier than I thought ...

On August 20, 2020, Casebook: Jack the Ripper contributor MrBarnett posted an image of an article from 1904 in which a Mrs. Redfern was described as wearing a ‘mole bonnet’:

[caz]

Ah, well Mike Barrett probably read that article and copied the mole bonnet detail into his DAiRy, taking care to add an extra t to the titfer, so he could prove it was him if he later wanted to confess to fraud.

He may not have remembered doing it by the time he was singing like a canary to Alan Gray, but he did confess to Gray, just three weeks after his affidavit of 5th January 1995, that he had also scratched the engravings in the watch, after buying it in 1990 from a shop in Lime Street. At least he kept the year consistent with when all the raw materials for the diary were supposedly obtained. He told Gray that a mate of his then planted the watch in a shop in Wallasey, but he wouldn't name this mate because he didn't want to grass him up. [My hunch is that the mate's initials were EL, and the story was based on something he had let slip about taking a watch across the Mersey.]

Mike also claimed to have the receipt for the watch in his back pocket [sound familiar?] but then remembered it was hidden in Tony Devereux's house, which he said was boarded up and had been on sale for the three and a half years following Tony's death [which he calculated correctly this time, taking us back to the summer of 1991 - unlike the affidavit, where he got terribly muddled and dated his friend's death back to 1990].

All perfectly believable - to anyone with Bongo Fever.

But the best bit was when Gray went off to Fountains Road to look for Tony's house and found the number Mike had given him didn't exist.

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

MrB this year or last posted here or on the Posh Site a clipping from about 190X mentioning a woman wearing a 'mole bonnet'. It was such a magnificent spot that I stole it and put it into the latest incarnation of my brilliant Society's Pillar which probably won't get published until Amanda Staveley personally lifts the FA Cup at Wemberley in about 2025. I'll see if I can find it.

Cheers,

Ike

Easier than I thought ...

On August 20, 2020, Casebook: Jack the Ripper contributor MrBarnett posted an image of an article from 1904 in which a Mrs. Redfern was described as wearing a ‘mole bonnet’:

Computer says no.

[erobitha]

This seems a good place as any to remind people of this article I have posted before. One for the Ngrammers out there.

Wired is a leading tech magazine.

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/pitfal...-google-ngram/