One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

PS Many thanks for posting such good examples of the 'M' and 'F' (which appear in reverse order on Kelly's wall, obviously) - the only time you can't see it is when you post an almost blackened-out photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy!

Best wishes,

Ike

Hey, look, everyone - I typed 'it' instead of 'them'!

Maybe that's what Maybrick intended when he wrote "left it in front for all to see" and "placed it all over the room"?

Ike

[Iconoclast]

I should have added that we hear posters say this a lot too: "What I've got here is an 'original'". But what does it mean to 'have an 'original''? I assume it doesn't mean you literally possess an original so what 'original' are you referring to, and why are you so certain that your 'original' is somehow more original than everyone else's 'original'?

In reality, the Original Game is played whenever someone wants to top trump the versions which have - we are told - been 'enhanced'. So, you see where this leads? There are versions of MJK1 and MJK2 which have been 'enhanced'. There have certainly been versions which have been colourised, and there are certainly versions of differing light and shade. But that's not what you're to read into the word 'enhanced', dear readers. No, your brain is to read 'enhanced' and substitute with 'faked'. 'Faked' as in 'hoax'. Do you see what happened there? On the back of absolutely no evidence whatsoever, we've attempted to compromise the diary.

Again, it's all been done over and over again, and here we are with someone once again telling us (telling us no less - how arrogant can you get?) that what we can see perfectly clearly on 'originals' or otherwise are not actually there. Despite people saying it. Despite arch-diaryist himself Martin Fido having no problem finding the 'M' and seeing the outline of what for him may have been an 'F' ("if pushed", I think he said before someone leaps in with this as their sole response, as if that would compromise all remaining arguments), they come on here and tell us that what we can see they say they can't see therefore they are right and we are wrong. Such arrogance!

And I think that's what we've been dealing with all along here, dear readers. The arrogance of minds fixated on a solution and unable to open themselves to the possibility that these infamous old crimes were long ago solved.

As we hit the momentous milestone here on The Greatest Thread of All of 500 pages, it is perhaps timely and appropriate to remind ourselves that James Maybrick's reign of terror in Whitechapel in the Autumn of 1888 is now understood, evidenced, and finally consigned to history.

Your Humble Servant and Inspiration at All Times
Ike Iconoclast
A Light at the End of Every Tunnel (and Possibly Therefore a Train Hurtling Towards You)

[rjpalmer]

Yes, it is a non-starter in my opinion

You have to love Caz. She gives you a three paragraph bollocking before agreeing with you.

Ike—why, in typical Ike fashion, did you post a photograph of a defensive wound in post #7331[edit: #7418] that is the exact opposite of what we are looking at in the infamous Kelly photograph? Why do you always do these things, old boy? It’s a symptom of sloppy thinking, and a half-arsed way of going through life.

Ask yourself this. Where are the arteries and veins in your forearm? On the outer, back, boney side of your arm, or on the inner, palm side of your arm? And which side are you looking at in the Kelly photograph? Which side are you looking at in your photo? Isn’t it really enormously foolish of you to say there will be buckets and buckets of blood pouring from the back of Kelly’s arm?

Next question. How many times can you scream in 5 seconds? Don’t just guess. Try it. When you come up with a suitable answer add the following complications: panic, hyperventilation, adrenaline, a cut trachea.

Now lay down on a bed. Lift your left arm and place it on your right shoulder. Cup the shoulder. Lift your left elbow slightly and imagine someone is attacking you with a knife and wants to cut your throat—from your right to the your left as described by Dr. Bond. Notice that the right side of your throat is exposed. Remember that Bond describes arterial spray on the wall to your right from this exposed area.

Now sit still. Don’t move. Don’t move your arm. Think very very carefully.

Don’t clutter your mind with all of your preconceived notions about what you *think* the result would look like and sound like. Five seconds and one scream is all you get. Think.

[rjpalmer]

Ike- the post numbers are jumping around again. Your inappropriate photo might be #7418

[The Baron]

Since we are now celebrating achieving 500 pages, let us in this special occasion quote the author of this thread:

I think the game is up. The diary is dead in the water. This totally nails it. The forger did all that research on Maybrick (some truly obscure details indeed), and then blasts his own case apart with dodgy handwriting and plagiarising from Martin Fido!

What on earth was he thinking of?

Idiot!

The Baron

[rjpalmer]

Now, I unfortunately don't have Dr. Flint's actual commentary on 'gathering momentum' so I am having to take RJ's word that she argued it 'smelled' of a modern origin; and RJ was also sparing on whether or not he agreed with Dr. Flint regarding the term 'gathering momentum' being so modern that it pointed towards a modern origin for the diary.

What is this nonsense, Ike?

I have stated, more than once, that Dr. Flint was mistaken about the phrase 'gathering momentum' being modern.

I've even recently used this phrase in the n-gram thread as an example of why we need to conduct an objective analysis of language, rather than simply the 'feel' for language that Gary Barnett was extolling. But I suspect you actually know this, which is why your correspondent responded?

Dr. Flint, a lecturer in Victorian literature, does indeed have a 'feel' for what Victorian language should sound like, and she is right that the diary is an obvious modern hoax, complete with many examples of over-egging the custard. But she was mistaken about this particularly phrase, which is why I argued that we need tools to temper our subjective assumptions with empirical evidence. Empirical evidence such as any lack of evidence that the well-known phrases 'one off instance' and 'bumbling buffoon'--so readily available in magazines and newspapers and books in the 1980s and 90s-- are mysteriously lacking in vast databases of Victorian and Edwardian literature and journalism.

[rjpalmer]

Since we are now celebrating achieving 500 pages

Unfortunately for Ike, brevity is the soul of wit.

[The Baron]

He was inviting people to share their thoughts about the initials, and when some of them kindly come and post their opinions, which are not to his liking and not what he desperately wants to hear, they will be answered in such a manner:

>>wonder if you're just being wilfully myopic.



The Baron

[The Baron]

Or something like this:

>> your agenda was given away





The Baron

[Kattrup]

You have muddled up Mike's original request - as in the advert - with the item he went ahead and ordered, and it was either deliberate on your part or you were not firing on all cylinders at the time of posting.

Martin Earl was unable to locate anything matching Mike's exact specifications, but when he described, as he did with each and every item located, what had turned up instead, to ascertain if this might be a suitable alternative, Mike snapped it up, but with an agreement in place to see before buying.

Now you can quibble all you like over how detailed that description was, but Martin Earl confirmed that before the diary was sent to Mike, he would have been told what year it was for. No ifs, buts or maybes.

But believe who you want to believe, RJ, and put your trust in the liar who was Mike Barrett, rather than Martin Earl, who ran the damned business and had nothing to gain from lying about it, or to say anything at all if his memory had faded to that extent.

The fact remains that, even if you wish to speculate that Mike may not have been told it was for 1891 before it arrived in the post, despite Martin Earl's assurances to the contrary, then he'd have been able to return it at any time because he had specifically requested one for the preceding decade. The fact that it did not occur to Mike or Anne to return it and save themselves £25 - not to mention the permanent paper trail created by a payment by cheque - ought to give you pause, but we all know it won't.

Had the Barretts simply returned it because it failed to meet the specs regarding date, Martin Earl would have returned it to his supplier, and all record of the failed transaction might well have been lost and forgotten about by 1995, leaving only the 'offending' advert as evidence of the attempt. Remember, it was not Mike who was able to dig this up, so it's hard to imagine how it would ever have come to light as a result of what he claimed in the same affidavit you put so much faith in:

RJ Palmer's remark that the defense is still not acting in good faith is perfectly illustrated by this post.

[caz]

Changing the goalpost?! They claim the wounds were not defensive because there is no bleeding, that is not true, as I demonstated earlier and as I can see in those photos.

What you want to see, or what you don't want to see is not my concern.


The Baron

Well it ought at least be your concern to ascertain in which direction(s) the blood would have spurted from extensive and jagged 'defensive' wounds to Kelly's arm! If you think she would have been holding her arm up to protect her face when the knife struck and the blood started pouring from the limb, you must surely be able to reconcile this with what you think you are seeing in the images you posted.

I was simply trying to understand your claim, as I would have expected much of her arm to be saturated, as it fell back down limply from her face at the point of death.

No big deal, and if you have already explained it in a more recent post I will get to it eventually.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Thank you Simon for yet another better picture!!


We can see here easily the bleeding (pink arrows) out of the main incisions (red)









Of course they are random incisions mostly defensive, and they have nothing to do with a hidden letters or icons.


Thanks again Simon!



The Baron

But that looks like she only began to bleed from those wounds after her arm was back in the position shown in the image. Where is all the blood that would have poured from them when knife first met flesh, if her arm was up covering her face and throat at the time? Still confused, but ready for the explanation.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The photograph doesn't tell you how deep those wounds are, and if they didn't hit a main blood vessel you will not expect a massive bleeding, adding to that the panic adrenaline shot while defending herself, their will be a vasoconstriction which in turn reduces the bleeding.



The Baron

I can tell you the panic adrenaline was flowing when I cut my leg on a rock seven years ago, Baron, because I was terrified about what damage I had just done to myself, and it looked like something out of Jaws. You couldn't see the flesh of my lower leg or foot for all the blood covering it, and yet I had only sustained a series of nasty grazes, so no main blood vessels were affected in the premature ending of my beach holiday that year.

I can't see any way that such distinct and savage cuts to Kelly's forearm would only have resulted in a trickle, after it had fallen back limply from her face.

Were you indulging in special pleading? Or should that be special bleeding?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Baron-- I see that Caz is asking you how old you are, and is showing clear irritation at your attempts to find various initials in the crime scene muck.

But there's an old post of hers that says exactly the same thing--that she could readily imagine people looking for all sorts of initials--and finding them--in the crime scene muck.

Meanwhile, this is another beauty:






And yet, in a feat of amazing disconnect, she sits idly by while Ike and Ero (and apparently Keith?) argue that any modern hoaxer would necessarily have to have been in on the conversation between Simon and Martin...

...even while elsewhere admitting that such need not have been the case, since Simon and Martin were only referring to alleged traces made in dirt on the back wall.

Clearly it is not true that the hoaxer needed to have been in cahoots with Simon or Martin, or RWE, nor does even Caz believe this herself. Yet, for some reason, the impression is being made that there is a greater need to explore a comment made by Martin Fido 25+ years ago, than there ever was to competently investigate Barrett's confession back in 1995 when the trail was still warm.

RP

I have no idea where you were attempting to go with this, RJ, but I find your tone offensive, accusing me of sitting 'idly by', while others post whatever observations and questions may be on their mind, and would suggest you start minding your own damned business instead of mine. You have no idea what is going on in my life right now, and I will continue to respond to posts as and when I see fit. Again you seem to expect me to be joined at the hip with others, including Ike, Ero and Keith, and cannot get your head round the idea that there may be no shared mindset between us, and no 'act' for us to get together. If my thinking has ever differed in any way from observations and questions from these individuals, so what? What is it to you?

I wouldn't dream of lumping you, Simon Wood, The Baron and Kattrup in together, but I can only think you must be becoming slightly embarrassed by association, and are trying to shift the focus anywhere but on the latest strange musings on the affair of the disappearing initials, and now the blood that never was.

I don't understand your 'greater need' comment. If others see a need to get to the bottom of why Simon Wood thinks - here and now, in 2021 - that the diary was somehow created on the back of remarks he once made at the City Darts, that's up to them. As nobody appears to have been made aware of what was in Mike's 1995 affidavit while 'the trail was still warm', you have your answer as to why it couldn't be competently - or even incompetently - investigated. We know Alan Gray was aware from the day it was sworn, because he typed it up for Mike. So there must have been a serious breakdown in communications between Gray and Melvin Harris, unless you are accusing them too of failing to 'competently investigate' Mike's claims when he first made them. Surely Harris would have done all he could to help Gray do this, if he was given the details when it mattered most. What was in that affidavit that only Shirley or Keith would have been in a position to investigate if they'd had the details? Why couldn't any other interested party with access to it have investigated? It was Harris after all who had invested more than anyone in the Barretts' guilt, yet you appear very protective towards his own apparent failure to establish which auction, if any, Mike could have attended to obtain the scrapbook. He was either prevented from investigating because, like Shirley and Keith, he didn't yet know what there was to investigate, or the inference is that he did so, but his own competence let him down.

Have you any other explanation? The worst accusation you have levelled at Shirley and Keith, when they were finally in possession of Mike's affidavit, was that they didn't have sufficient will to find the evidence that would have supported it. But you can hardly level the same accusation at Harris, can you? So why, with all the will in the world, could he not find that evidence if you believe it was once there to be found? I'm not interested in lame excuses; what that man wanted, he was very good at getting - if it existed in the first place.

[caz]

Fair enough. When I see such errant nonsense being posted week after week, year after year, I feel the need to post, even though I know it's a waste of time.

The most galling of your claims is the on-going and repetitive taunt that there is no evidence that Barrett ever attended the O & L auction.

Of course there isn't. This lead was never competently investigated by Feldman's team until many years later...after the receipts were pulped!

And yet you use their own failure as evidence that the auction was a fantasy.

Even now you cling to the the 1990 date given by Barrett in his affidavit---what I prefer to call Mike's 'Korsakov' date--rather than the date that was actually documented---1992.

What was documented?

It was a documented FACT that the Barrett's had gone shopping for the red diary in March 1992, not 1990. Barrett explicitly states that it was ''too small' and thus he went looking for a better diary at an auction house.

No, this won't do, RJ. It is very much NOT a fact that the Barretts [no apostrophe but definitely plural] went 'shopping' for the red diary. You can't use Mike Barrett's word - explicitly stated or not - as a 'fact'. He made a previous affidavit in April 1993, where he stated in even more explicit terms that Tony Devereux gave him the diary in 1991, months before he supposedly made his first attempt to obtain one! You and I both believe he lied in that earlier affidavit, so you can't use the later one as evidence that he ever 'went looking for a better diary at an auction house', or that this was after he and Anne had shopped for one that turned out to be too small - but the FACT that it was for the year 1891 seemed to slip his mind.

Yet, instead of checking the records for 1992, the only person who actually bothered to check with O & L used the 'Korsakov' date of 1990, even though it should have been obvious from the existing documentation--Anne's receipt-- that this was wrong.

Yes, this is particularly galling. The exposure of this obvious hoax could have been wrapped up in 1995, but Anne Graham successfully misdirected Feldman's team, convincing them that she had ownership of the diary since the 1960s. And because of this, they wrongly believed Mike's confessions were a non-starter and didn't even bother to make a comprehensive investigation until the records were pulped.

And I'm also supposed to believe that since you have personally met Anne Graham that you know all about her, even though you wrote an entire book defending her account of having seen the diary since the 1960s--even producing a photo of where she supposedly had hid the diary in Goldie Street---all of which you now admit was a string of lies that you believed for years. So tell me again, why should I believe that your opinions about Anne Graham are now accurate?

I don't understand what you are accusing me of here, RJ. Our book told the story of what had been claimed about the diary - and watch - by others. It wasn't for the authors, whose personal views were/are in any case different from one another's, to express our own opinions about the truthfulness or otherwise of the various accounts of how Mike ended up with the diary, which by definition could not all have been true, but may all have been false. We did not set out to 'defend' anyone's account, merely by sharing those accounts with the readers. What would you have preferred to see? Only accounts from those who could be trusted 100% to have told the truth, with the accompanying evidence? We could have used Anne's little red diary for that - and left it in its 99.9% unused condition.

I don't claim to 'know all about' Anne, or why she said what she did about the diary at various points in time. But my opinion about her has now been broadly the same as yours for the last eighteen years: neither of us believes she has yet told the truth about where Mike got the old book from. We differ as to what she knew about this, but neither of us can currently prove it, and at least one of us is completely and utterly wrong. The difference between us is that my evidence is not based on anything claimed for the diary's origins by Anne or Mike themselves. You are still trusting the worst possible person for the truth, and I have no idea why anyone would do that. I'd advise you not to write THAT book. A thousand pages of 'The Truth According to Michael Barrett' won't make it any more believable.

So spare me the self-righteous posturing until you can prove the 1891 diary was ordered before Mike first saw the scrapbook, and establish that he obtained the latter from an auction sale between late March and early April 1992.