One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Hi Keith.

I just read with great interest 'Lord Orsam's' article addressing your above analysis, now available on his website, Orsam Books.

Alas, you appear to be in error.

The transcript of this conversation between Paul Begg & Martin Fido, etc. that you quote is dated 19 January 1993.

Paul Feldman joined the team in December 1992. (This is Feldman's own admission, but it is confirmed elsewhere, see below). Thus, it is not accurate to state that these observations were "compiled before Feldman joined the project."

More astounding yet, Paul Feldman's theories about the alleged writings on the wall are actually referenced in this same transcript:

From Paul Begg's footnotes:

'There is also Paul Feldman's suggestion that the heart was used to write with and that minced heart was then splattered on the walls'.

This is important. It shows that previous suggestions made by Paul Feldman DID hang over this discussion.

Thus, we must dismiss the claim that Martin Fido and Paul Begg noticed the 'FM' on the wall, independently of Paul Feldman, as not proven. Rather, MF and PB seem to be directly responding to theories already put into motion by Feldy, who came up with the bizarre notion (or at least it is bizarre to me) that Maybrick used Kelly's heart as a sort of giant felt pen, writing large initials on the back wall. It is sometime during these musings that Martin recalls a previous conversation with Simon Wood.

To me, Martin's comment about 'if pushed' now becomes clear: he was thinking about what he might say about the initials 'FM' if Paul Feldman grabbed him by the throat and threatened to throw him off the balcony!

Finally, Simon Wood has already told us that Martin couldn't discern what the alleged writing was supposed to represent back in 1989.

Thus, Ike's ongoing claim that several people independently notice the initials "FM" does not appear to be accurate, and there is no "essential point" for me to understand.

Thanks for listening,

RP

P.S. I strongly recommend that you bite the bullet and read his articles, if you haven't already.

Oh dear, RJ. I do hope you are not allowing a Barrat - as well as a Barrett - to manipulate and mislead you.

Keith received a copy of Martin Fido's 17 page report on the diary in November 1992 which was made independently of Paul Begg and without consultation with him.

It could have had nothing to do with any suggestions made by Paul Feldman to do with 'writings on the wall' because Feldman did not see the diary until December 1992.

This completely invalidates your conclusion that Martin's 'if pushed' comment, from his November 1992 report, was in any way, shape or form linked to Paul Feldman's thinking, which at the time would still have had its focus on Monty Druitt.

Keith informs me that the only person who had any consultancy contract with Paul Feldman in January 1993 was Paul Begg, who was working exclusively with Martin Howells, and that there is no transcript of a conversation between Martin Fido and Paul Begg dated January 19th 1993. There is, however, an extremely detailed 77 page annotated transcript of the diary prepared by Paul Begg dated January 19th 1993, where he [Paul Begg] has incorporated and commented on Martin's report of November 1992 - which is where Martin recalled Simon Wood pointing to initials on the wall in 1989.

I must say it's a quaint notion that Martin Fido of all people would ever have been influenced by Feldy's thinking. But back in the real world, I can certainly see why Feldy would have picked up Simon's ball and run with it, after Martin had a squeeze.

[caz]

Martin Fido:

"I have to say I doubt whether the forger had any awareness of the supposed initials on the wall at all. They were first pointed out to me before the emergence of the diary by Simon Wood, who saw completely different letters and thought a completely different name was being started. (I don't say what, in case Simon ever wishes to publish). In the earlyish days of my acting as 'advisor' to Shirley, I mentioned Simon's observation to her, since I knew that 'an initial here an initial there' and such things were proving puzzling. I also remarked that I couldn't myself detect the letters Simon saw (which may have been in a different position) but I did think I could see an M and an E. Before long the E was an F - and whaddya know: even John Omlor missed the fact that I'd doctored the photo to identify myself before embarking on forgery. 'Dayspring Mishandled' always was one of my favourite Kipling stories.

MF"

The Baron

Any clues where you found this, Baron, and when Martin wrote it? Was it a casebook post saved by someone from before the crash? Parts of it sound vaguely familiar, but I can't place it in my memory banks.

It certainly supports what Martin wrote in his November 1992 report for Shirley Harrison. He had been advising her since July 1992, five months before Feldy came on the scene. It appears from what you quoted that Martin wasn't aware, or had completely forgotten, that Simon had decided almost immediately that he was mistaken about seeing any letters at all, or he would not have kept the name to himself in case Simon ever wished to publish on the subject.

Simon says that as soon as he saw that the diary referenced initials, he knew it was a modern hoax. But here we have Martin doubting that the hoaxer had any awareness of these supposed initials on the wall, presumably because there is no reference in the diary to them being on the wall.

And Simon says there were never any initials on the wall to begin with, for the diary to have referenced - if only it had done.

In short, what Simon says is off the wall.

I thank you.

Carry on Baron. You're doing awfully well.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Keith informs me that the only person who had any consultancy contract with Paul Feldman in January 1993 was Paul Begg, who was working exclusively with Martin Howells, and that there is no transcript of a conversation between Martin Fido and Paul Begg dated January 19th 1993. There is, however, an extremely detailed 77 page annotated transcript of the diary prepared by Paul Begg dated January 19th 1993, where he [Paul Begg] has incorporated and commented on Martin's report of November 1992 - which is where Martin recalled Simon Wood pointing to initials on the wall in 1989.

Thanks for the clarification, Caz--and thank Keith as well, but some of the confusion was caused by Keith's own initial statement, which can now be shown not to have been true:

"Paul and Martin's detailed internal reports, compiled before Paul Feldman joined the project, make it quite clear they are referring to and discussing initials on the wall of Kelly's room. Martin makes an annotated footnote (124) after An initial here and an initial there..."

I certainly don't think this was intentional, but it is only true that Martin's 'detailed internal report' was written before Paul Feldman joined the team. It wasn't true that Paul Begg's was.

So this is where the confusion lies. Martin's initial report to Shirley was in November--just as Keith stated--but Paul's commentary, which is what Lord Orsam quotes wasn't written until 19 January 1993--that is, after Paul Feldman had joined the team.

So, at best, Keith was only half right when he wrote to me:

"The essential point for Roger Palmer to understand is that if he is correct and Barrett [or whoever wrote the scrapbook] wasn't referring to non existent marks on the back wall of Kelly's room, then not only did Paul Feldman incorrectly assume he was but so too did Martin Fido and Paul Begg."


Yes, Martin Fido, certainly, but how can Keith say that Paul did too? Paul is specifically commenting on Martin's observation--and he even specifically refers to Paul Feldman's theories--so it can hardly be shown that Paul noticed the 'FM' independent of Martin, or even of Feldman, since he is aware of their views on 19 January.

Thus, I don't think either Keith or Lord Orsam can claim the higher ground. Neither position appears to be entirely accurate, but we're getting there in the end, aren't we?

Enough said.

The important thing, though, in thinking it over last night, is that it appears to me that Keith's entire premise is flawed. It's been shown beyond reasonable doubt that Martin didn't see the 'FM' independent of the diary's transcript. Independent of Feldman, yes--and fair enough--but not independently of an idea planted by the hoaxer. If pushed, Martin can kind of see an 'FM'... but only after the idea had already been planted by the diarist, along with the generally idea of marks still in his mind, as mentioned by Simon Wood some years earlier.

It would have been a different matter if Simon and Martin had seen an 'FM' before the diary emerged. But they didn't, and both Martin and Simon make this clear.

So, we really haven't gotten anywhere. The hoaxer could have been referring to something other than the initials on the wall--which you have admitted many times--and Martin and Feldman merely misinterpreted what the hoaxer meant.

Thus, Ero and Ike are obviously wrong in believing the hoaxer had to be someone who had been "in" on a conversation with Martin and Simon in 1989.

Thanks for helping to clarify this. We can now delegate this idea to the rubbish bin. Well done!

Oh dear, RJ. I do hope you are not allowing a Barrat - as well as a Barrett - to manipulate and mislead you.

Barrett has never manipulated me. Mike has convinced you, however, that he had two copies of Tales of Liverpool and that he spent a week in the Central Liverpool Library.

I would have thought that you wouldn't have been so willing to pin your hopes on Mike's word, but to each his own.

The statement of Barrett's that I fully believe was the one he made in a Liverpool Police Station. By contrast, I don't believe Mike's claim that he was the world's greatest forger or that he wrote the text of the diary, as much as you keep trying to make it appear as if I do.

All the best, and thanks again!

RP

P.S. Not that I care in the least, nor that it matters, but none of this reveals when Paul Feldman first noticed 'FM.' How do we know that Martin Fido didn't plant that idea in his head, when Feldman read the same transcript sent to Shirley or in a private conversation? Thus, maybe only one person actually came up with this observation independently of anyone else: Martin Fido.

[rjpalmer]

Oh dear, RJ. I do hope you are not allowing a Barrat - as well as a Barrett - to manipulate and mislead you.

Hi Caz,

Let me address this, and expand upon what I wrote in my earlier post:

Thus, I don't think either Keith or Lord Orsam can claim the higher ground. Neither position appears to be entirely accurate, but we're getting there in the end, aren't we?

I think this is unfair to Lord Orsam and I shouldn't have written it.

I've just reread his article and he does explicitly state that Paul Begg is working from Martin's earlier (November 1992) report.

What he states is strictly true--the claim that Keith made in his initial post was not accurate. Keith wrote: "Paul and Martin's detailed internal reports, compiled before Paul Feldman joined the project, make it quite clear they are referring to and discussing initials on the wall of Kelly's room."

This is only true of Martin Fido's report; it was not true of Paul Begg's report. That is all Lord Orsam was saying, and he made no claim about Martin's report having post-dated Feldman's appearance on 'the project.'


Thus, if anything, it is you who are trying to 'manipulate' me, by leaving the false impression that Orsam was being misleading, when, in fact, he wasn't.

My apologies to Lord Orsam if I inadvertently misrepresented his point.

Thanks

[The Baron]

Carry on Baron. You're doing awfully well.

I am doing awfully well just because I quoted Martin Fido without any comment from my side?!

You missed the point altogether, it has been claimed that Fido had no problem seeing the FM on the wall, which was not exactly the case.


You are doing awfully bad.



The Baron

[rjpalmer]

28 years later, there still is no irrefutable proof of a forger's identity, or of how and when a forgery was produced.'

It sounds like Robert Smith has seriously lowered the stakes.

"No irrefutable evidence of a forger's identity" is an evasion. There is an abundance of evidence that the diary is a fake, and a modern one at that, but I do appreciate Smith acknowledging that he used delay tactics until it was too late for the Sunday Time's exposure to hurt the diary's sales.

Well played, Mr. Smith.

The 'modern hoaxer must be named' is the same stunt Caz Brown had been playing for years, all the while failing to put a name to her 'old hoaxer.'

If she can't name the old hoaxer, do we thus conclude it is not an old hoax? Or is the sophistry of such arguments readily apparent?

[caz]

It's been shown beyond reasonable doubt that Martin didn't see the 'FM' independent of the diary's transcript. Independent of Feldman, yes--and fair enough--but not independently of an idea planted by the hoaxer. If pushed, Martin can kind of see an 'FM'... but only after the idea had already been planted by the diarist, along with the generally idea of marks still in his mind, as mentioned by Simon Wood some years earlier.

It would have been a different matter if Simon and Martin had seen an 'FM' before the diary emerged. But they didn't, and both Martin and Simon make this clear.

So, we really haven't gotten anywhere. The hoaxer could have been referring to something other than the initials on the wall--which you have admitted many times--and Martin and Feldman merely misinterpreted what the hoaxer meant.

I'm not sure where you are trying to go with this, RJ. The Baron - whatever his name really is and whatever his first language really is - managed to find and quote Martin Fido thus:

"I have to say I doubt whether the forger had any awareness of the supposed initials on the wall at all..."

Initials 'supposed' by Simon Wood to have been on the wall, before quickly realising he must have been 'seeing things'.

You and I - and Keith for that matter - would appear to agree with Martin on this one, as the supposed wall is not even mentioned in the diary, nor any specific initials connected with Kelly's murder. So how can you claim with a straight face that the idea of the initials F and M on the wall had already been planted in Martin's mind by the hoaxer, when he doubted there was any awareness on their part of any supposed initials on the wall at all? How does that make any sense?

Mike Barrett echoes this same lack of awareness in his research notes, pondering just like the rest of us on the meaning of the initial here and there, referred to in the diary in relation to Kelly's murder, and he only manages to find a letter M referred to in relation to Chapman's murder, and his own speculation is that the V's on Eddowes's cheeks could have been intended as a letter M to represent Maybrick's 'mark'. No letter F is mentioned anywhere, in the diary or in Mike's notes, nor any writing on any wall.

Thus, Ero and Ike are obviously wrong in believing the hoaxer had to be someone who had been "in" on a conversation with Martin and Simon in 1989.

I'm not sure they believed anything of the sort. But I'll leave them to comment if they feel any pressing need to do so.

The statement of Barrett's that I fully believe was the one he made in a Liverpool Police Station.

Remind me, which one was that? Surely not his affidavit of January 5th, 1995, which is full of claims that are provably untrue?

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Let me address this, and expand upon what I wrote in my earlier post:



I think this is unfair to Lord Orsam and I shouldn't have written it.

I've just reread his article and he does explicitly state that Paul Begg is working from Martin's earlier (November 1992) report.

What he states is strictly true--the claim that Keith made in his initial post was not accurate. Keith wrote: "Paul and Martin's detailed internal reports, compiled before Paul Feldman joined the project, make it quite clear they are referring to and discussing initials on the wall of Kelly's room."

This is only true of Martin Fido's report; it was not true of Paul Begg's report. That is all Lord Orsam was saying, and he made no claim about Martin's report having post-dated Feldman's appearance on 'the project.'


Thus, if anything, it is you who are trying to 'manipulate' me, by leaving the false impression that Orsam was being misleading, when, in fact, he wasn't.

My apologies to Lord Orsam if I inadvertently misrepresented his point.

Thanks

I didn't know if Orsam was being misleading, as I was only going by what you posted about his article, and assumed you had taken the order of events from what he wrote, because you smugly concluded that Martin Fido had been 'pushed' into seeing a letter F by Paul Feldman, when Martin's report containing that observation had been made a month before Paul Feldman first saw the diary.

It's a funny way to admit your own mistake, but I'll take it.

[caz]

To me, Martin's comment about 'if pushed' now becomes clear: he was thinking about what he might say about the initials 'FM' if Paul Feldman grabbed him by the throat and threatened to throw him off the balcony!

...P.S. I strongly recommend that you bite the bullet and read his articles, if you haven't already.

Here again, RJ, was your error, based on reading one of Orsam's articles.

I bet he is not best pleased at having to wipe your bottom for you.

[caz]

It sounds like Robert Smith has seriously lowered the stakes.

"No irrefutable evidence of a forger's identity" is an evasion. There is an abundance of evidence that the diary is a fake, and a modern one at that, but I do appreciate Smith acknowledging that he used delay tactics until it was too late for the Sunday Time's exposure to hurt the diary's sales.

Well played, Mr. Smith.

The 'modern hoaxer must be named' is the same stunt Caz Brown had been playing for years, all the while failing to put a name to her 'old hoaxer.'

If she can't name the old hoaxer, do we thus conclude it is not an old hoax? Or is the sophistry of such arguments readily apparent?

Ah, but I'm not accusing anyone of being the diary's author. I'm not claiming to know when it was written, why it was written, or by whom.

The onus is firmly on those who do claim to know such things - know them damned well - but can't or won't provide any final proof.

Meanwhile the band plays on and the fat lady waits patiently in the wings.

No stunt - and hardly my fault if you can't provide the song sheet for her.

Love,

Cupid Stunt
X

[caz]

I am doing awfully well just because I quoted Martin Fido without any comment from my side?!

You missed the point altogether, it has been claimed that Fido had no problem seeing the FM on the wall, which was not exactly the case.


You are doing awfully bad.



The Baron

I don't think I made that claim, did I? But it matters not, because we know what Martin Fido put in his November 1992 report, before Feldman became involved, and we know what he wrote in that post you quoted - thanks again - which is that the hoaxer needed no awareness of any letters on the wall in order to write the diary.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

.

It's a funny way to admit your own mistake, but I'll take it.

How tiresome, Caz, but at the same time how predictable.

And it's a funny way you have of not admitting to Keith's mistake, but I'll take it.

"Paul and Martin's detailed internal reports, compiled before Paul Feldman joined the project..."

Can you blame anyone for getting confused, since Paul's report was compiled weeks after Feldman joined the team? Or are you not going to acknowledge that part?

Let's move on, shall we, or do you want to engaged in more petty point scoring?

I'm not sure where you are trying to go with this, RJ.

I'm not going anywhere with it.

I was responding to Keith's comment that it was 'essential' for me to realize that Paul, Martin, and Feldy all independently noticed the "FM" on the wall in Kelly's photograph, as per Keith's original post.

If Keith doesn't believe the diary was referring to 'FM' why is it essential for me to have realized this, especially since it doesn't appear to be true? I can't read Keith's mind, but the only thing I could gather is that he was implying that since three people independently noticed the "FM," that this was somehow evidence that it was genuinely there.

If this is not what Keither meant, what did he mean? (That's a rhetorical question, please, or for Keith to answer. No offense, but I don't think it benefits this conversation for you to act as the gatekeeper).

I'm not sure they believed anything of the sort. But I'll leave them to comment if they feel any pressing need to do so.

If you don't think they believe this, or were heavily implying it, reread posts #7321, #7342, #7356, #7359 and #7376.

Have you not been reading along? What on earth have we been discussing?

Ero stated in #7342 that Simon's account of the 1989 incident meant that the diary was either genuine or written by someone who had been at the City Darts that night. He pleaded for Simon to think hard on this, for this could finally name the forger. He also suggested the City Darts discussion let Mike, Anne, and Tony off the hook.

Ero then revised his opinion, acknowledging that the Barretts could have come up with the 'FM' observation independently, but he felt it was very unlikely. He didn't acknowledge that the hoaxer might not have been referring to 'FM' at all, and, of course, you didn't correct his logic, even though you've made this same point many times in the past. I believe you told me it was none of my business what you responded to.

Ike then jumped in, and treated us to another statistical analysis, suggesting that the Barretts coming up with the 'FM' observation independent of the City Darts meeting was akin to someone hitting three 7s on a slot machine.

I looked up the odds, and the probability of hitting three 7s on 'Blazing Sevens' is .000015%.

So, there you have it. It's all rather tiresome, isn't it? Let's just pretend this conversation never happened, agreed?

Remind me, which one was that? Surely not his affidavit of January 5th, 1995, which is full of claims that are provably untrue?

The affidavit is not full of claims that are provably untrue. This is a bogus statement on your part. It can be shown that Barrett has the dates wrong, which is commonplace, but that does not prove that the account he gives is not fundamentally correct. This is merely a false impression that you've been spreading for nearly two decades.


But I'm not referring to the Jan 5th affidavit. You'll have to read Barrat's two articles on Blackmail and Anne Graham if you want to know.

[rjpalmer]

I bet he is not best pleased at having to wipe your bottom for you.

Charming as always, Caz. Really outstanding.

Lord Orsam never contacting me about this, nor corrected me, nor am I in secret communication with him regarding this, if that's what you're implying.

I noticed my error and correct it in good faith, but you do love zero-sum games, don't you, my dear?

One could respond in kind, of course:

"I suspect Keith is mightily pleased that you wiped his bottom, and so discreetly, too, by not even mentioning that it needed wiping!"

See how childish this is? Are you never embarrassed by how low you go?

Shall we trade more insults or should we stick to the topic at hand?

[caz]

It sounds like Robert Smith has seriously lowered the stakes.

"No irrefutable evidence of a forger's identity" is an evasion. There is an abundance of evidence that the diary is a fake, and a modern one at that, but I do appreciate Smith acknowledging that he used delay tactics until it was too late for the Sunday Time's exposure to hurt the diary's sales.

Well played, Mr. Smith.

I think it says more about the Sunday Times, that their desperate bid to restore their own reputation after the Hitler Diaries fiasco ended up costing them in the region of a hundred grand and propelled the diary into becoming a best seller.

One of Mike Barrett's claims from his affidavit of January 5th 1995 was that he had been trying since December 1993, through the press, to 'expose the fraud' that was the diary of JtR. Mike complained that 'nobody' would believe him. Yet it was June 1994 before his first published 'confession' appeared in the Liverpool Post.

You'd think the Sunday Times would have been very interested to hear from Mike in December 1993, just two months after such a costly reputation saver, that he now wanted to expose the fraud himself. But there is no evidence that they were aware of any of this until they printed the story of his confession on July 3rd 1994. So what was preventing Mike from exposing himself - as a fraudster I hasten to add, he wasn't the Naked Rambler - during those long months from December 1993 to July 1994?

Interestingly, in the Sunday Times article of July 3rd 1994, Mike had admitted the previous week that he had 'spent 10 days tapping out the 9,000-word "confession" on a word processor…' and 'bought the ledger – an old photographic album – in a house clearance sale…'

Either there was a serious misunderstanding about what Mike was actually admitting to here, or he badly screwed it up in advance of his affidavit of the following January.

The ten days of Mike tapping out Jim's confessional diary on his word processor later morphed into the eleven days Anne took to transfer Mike's tapping by hand into the photo album obtained at an O&L auction.

Perhaps David Barrat might like to have a bash at establishing that his awesome auction of March 31st 1992 was in fact a house clearance sale, and using his nut to work out what Mike and Anne were really doing over those ten or eleven days.

I suspect Mike was reading from the diary, while Anne tapped it out on the word processor, making the odd understandable transcription error along the way - most probably between April 13th 1992, when Doreen first saw the diary, and later that month when she wanted to get cracking on attracting prospective publishers. In Mike's mind, this amounted to producing the diary of Jack the Ripper, and was as close as either Barrett got to 'writing' it.

[Iconoclast]

Either there was a serious misunderstanding about what Mike was actually admitting to here, or he badly screwed it up in advance of his affidavit of the following January.

Hi Caz,

I wouldn't hold your breath that this will cause anyone any concerns if they are amongst those who have decided that the Barretts created the document we now know as the Maybrick Diary. If Mike said "house clearance sale" then that just becomes the March 31, 1992 O&L auction. No real need to explain the discrepancy. Mike just used the term "house clearance sale". Of course, James Maybrick was not to be permitted this largesse when he made mention of Florrie visiting her 'aunt'. This had to be a stonewall error by Mike Barrett despite the possibility that Maybrick just didn't care enough about that detail to get it right, had genuinely believed that Florrie was visiting an aunt, or indeed that he had got confused around which aunt she said she was visiting - it turned out it was John Baillie Knight's aunt but that semantic inexactitude is simply transformed into a clear sign of a hoax by Michael Barrett, but when Michael Barrett errs and does so on the record (by saying he got the scrapbook from a house clearance sale), this will - you watch - either be conveniently ignored or else rationalised away as a misremembering on Barrett's part.

The ten days of Mike tapping out Jim's confessional diary on his word processor later morphed into the eleven days Anne took to transfer Mike's tapping by hand into the photo album obtained at an O&L auction.

Whether it was ten days or eleven days, the critical element is that Mike needs to have the transcript already prepared on his PC ready for Anne to transcribe into whatever Victorian document they have managed to conveniently source with just twelve days to go before Mike's scheduled visit to London. Is there evidence that this is what happened or is there evidence that - actually - the transcript on the PC was self-evidently based upon the content of the already-written scrapbook?

Perhaps David Barrat might like to have a bash at establishing that his awesome auction of March 31st 1992 was in fact a house clearance sale, and using his nut to work out what Mike and Anne were really doing over those ten or eleven days.

Mike could have said that he got it in a Lucky Bag and Orsam would find a way to twist this into a 'truth' - probably in that long, labyrinthine form which leaves you quickly feeling that non sequiturs are being thrown around like sweeties from a Lucky Bag to make an argument which was never there to be made.

I suspect Mike was reading from the diary, while Anne tapped it out on the word processor, making the odd understandable transcription error along the way - most probably between April 13th 1992, when Doreen first saw the diary, and later that month when she wanted to get cracking on attracting prospective publishers.

Well, I did ask above Is there evidence that this is what happened or is there evidence that - actually - the transcript on the PC was self-evidently based upon the content of the already-written scrapbook? The answer to that seems to me to be unequivocal: the version of the transcript which I have seen (presumably the one Martin Fido was working off in November 1992) contains inconsistencies which are very obviously based upon the scrapbook's occasional opaqueness which led inevitably to guesswork by the Barretts. The one which I recall from the transcript I have seen is the line "Christmas save the whore's mole bonnett". Now, every transcript since October 1993 has rendered this line in this way - as obscure as the sentiment is, it is at least sensible and grammatically correct in this format. But here's the rub, the line in the scrapbook quite clearly looks for all the world as though it reads "Christmas soul the whore's mole bonnett". This is interesting because it is this latter version which Anne Barrett apparently transcribed into the scrapbook. How is that possible? Orsam would have to argue that Mike Barrett had intended the line to read "Christmas soul the whore's mole bonnett" (because the transcript on Barrett's PC has to come first, remember) and therefore that is what Anne Barrett wrote into the scrapbook. He would then have to argue that all subsequent transcripts of the scrapbook 'corrected' Mike's line so that it made grammatical sense (if not perhaps modern day sense itself) by turning what he intended into "Christmas save the whore's mole bonnett".

Which version feels more instinctively realistic, dear readers - that the Barretts misread 'save' as 'soul' in the scrapbook or that Mike Barrett actually typed the word 'soul' and that that was therefore felicitously transcribed by Anne Barrett into the scrapbook?

In Mike's mind, this amounted to producing the diary of Jack the Ripper, and was as close as either Barrett got to 'writing' it.

Yes, in the spirit of the discussion above, in the mind of the likes of Orsam sitting scheming in his Chigwell semi (wondering why his website is the only website in the whole of the internet which needs the reader to enlarge the zoom perspective in order to avoid reading it as if through a drainpipe - imagine the developer meetings in which they decided that was the best way to help their clients get their material consumed!), one might say that Mike Barrett typed the diary of Jack the Ripper. It cannot have escaped Mike's attention - deep down - that the more likely process (based on the internal evidence of the transcript) is that he didn't even type the diary of Jack the Ripper in much the same way as he didn't really produce the final copy for his Celebrity articles without them first being 'tidied-up' by the long-suffering Anne. Imagine the humiliation of the 1980s - getting handed on a plate by DC Thompson celebrity interviews in and around Liverpool and then not being able to execute the final product. And then in the 1990s having to rely on Anne to transcribe onto his PC - the very thing he bought specifically to advance his writing career! - the strange scrapbook he had come into possession of. I can only assume that all of that frustration led to a groundswell of bitterness and anger which one day might cause him to confuse a well-established process such as an auction sale with that of a mere house clearance sale. Oh, and all the rest, of course!

The strangest thing of all about Mike's creative writing career is that - in his mind - he was DC Thompson's 'chief writer'. Or was this also not entirely the truth of the matter?

Ike