One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

For future reference this line of argument will be called the 'hoax once removed gimmick' (HORG), which appears to be the last refuge of denial.

I think you missed the rather obvious 'last refuge of denial' which I assume would be that it is authentic.

Good acronym, though, RJ. I see the nursing home is keeping your mind as active as they can under the circumstances ...

[Iconoclast]

Today we have enjoyed another bout of tumbleweed from a diary critic who wants something to be a fake, genuinely believes something to be a fake, but knows deep down they can't actually demonstrate it to be a fake. Today it was Trevor Marriott but he shouldn't feel too embarrassed by his performance because it is just the latest in a long, long line of posters making claims that they know of the incontrovertible, unequivocal, undeniable fact which refutes the diary but then skip the really interesting bit at the end. For future reference this line of argument will be called the 'tease with incontrovertible tumbleweed' (no acronym required). It's a bit like Mike Barrett 'hiding' his ticket stub away from the audience at the Cloak & Dagger Club: the performance is full of tease but no end delivery. Here's a quick summary of how it goes for those people who have a life and have luckily missed today's exchanges:

Diary Denier: It's an obvious fake. It's been proved to be a fake time and time again.

Diary Researcher: Oh, I didn't know that. What was it that proved it to be a fake?

Diary Denier: Well, you can't show that it's authentic.

Diary Researcher: I didn't say I could prove it was authentic, but I have written a book covering all of the salient points and here's two of the really compelling ones.

Diary Denier: Those examples are just rubbish.

Diary Researcher: Well, I've done my bit, let's get back to answering the issue you raised - what evidence is there that proves it's a fake?

Diary Denier: It's an obvious fake.

You're all very welcome. I'm here all week.

ike

[rjpalmer]

No, Ike, that would be simple denial.

The last refuge of denial would be to finally admit it was a hoax, but still cling to the bogus idea that the hoax is somehow based on reality.

We see this thinking in one of this thread's most active contributors; this person readily admits the diary is a hoax, yet nonetheless make a series of arguments that can only be interpreted as a belief that the hoax is accurate. There really was a murder in Manchester; Maybrick really did visit Thomas at Christmas; he really did refer to his wife's godmother as her auntie; he really did own editions of Crashaw; etc.

My mind is not that subtle, mate. If it's a fake, it's a fake, and I don't need to consider the idea that a fake will be accurate. Bruce Robinson offers a variation on this same theme; it's a fake, but a fake written by the actual Ripper.

Well, I've got to totter off now, the bingo is almost starting! I hear from nurse we may be getting butterscotch pudding for lunch!

RP

[Iconoclast]

If it's a fake, it's a fake.

Can't argue with that logic, RJ.

Well, I've got to totter off now, the bingo is almost starting!

Well watch those stairs, mate. I hope your zimmer's got brakes.

I hear from nurse we may be getting butterscotch pudding for lunch!

Only my favouritist ever!

[rjpalmer]

Ike-- one last thing to consider before I start filling out my bingo card.

Ray Santilli, the producer of the Alien Autopsy video, was never arrested, charged, or prosecuted for fraud.

Even when he admitted it was a hoax, he was not charged with any crime.

How did Santilli market his film? Under the title Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?

Sound at all familiar?

The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Discovery, The Investigation, The Debate.

Shrewd, very shrewd. Making no promises of authenticity and not selling any document--just the 'investigation' of a document.

I suppose, in theory, a couple of hundred customers could file a class action suit and say they were swindled, but since both the Alien Autopsy and the Jack the Ripper Diary were marketed as "investigations," I don't think they could win.

You see, prosecuting a hoax is a very dicey enterprise.

Smith can't be prosecuted--he was already cleared of any wrongdoing, and he states he genuinely believes the document is real, and we have no way of proving otherwise. As for Barrett, who is his victim? Smith? What damages can he show? The loss of a pound? And those foolish enough to have bought a copy of the diary were told straight out of the gate that it was an investigation of authenticity---there was no guarantee of any service rendered. The disclaimer is on the front cover.

[Iconoclast]

Ike-- one last thing to consider before I start filling out my bingo card.

Sound at all familiar?

The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Discovery, The Investigation, The Debate.

If it looks like two little ducks and it quacks like two little ducks, it doesn't mean it's two little ducks, RJ.

[caz]

Hi Ero,

You're welcome.

Alas, unfortunately I deny that your logic is coherent.

Here’s the problem as I see it.

On one hand, you suggest that the ‘FM’ is there for us to see. You see it. Ike sees it. Caz suddenly won’t admit in plain English whether she sees it or not...

How old are you, RJ? Eleven? I mean this is seriously childish, isn't it? What's with the 'suddenly'? How many times do I have to repeat that you know as well as I do that there are no direct references in the diary to specific initials related to the Kelly crime scene, nor any clarification of what is meant by 'here' and 'there', and therefore we are all left to speculate, just as Mike was doing in his research notes?

For what little it's worth, I can see what looks like a letter M on the wall behind Kelly's remains in the photo and, like Martin Fido back in November 1992 pre-Feldman, I can also make out the vague letter F shape to the left of it if pushed. The wounds on Kelly's forearm stand out to me like a sore letter F, and I don't believe for a second that they were made while her blood was still pumping. I do think the diary author may have been referring to this as the clue ['it' - singular] left in front for all the see, but again that's mere speculation which gets us not very far.

Or can they only be seen after someone else suggests they are there, as Simon did in (in a generic way, and which he soon retracted) in 1989?

In a generic way? Really? The Baron quoted Martin Fido clearly stating that he wouldn't say what letters Simon thought he saw [before they suddenly weren't there after all], in case he wanted to publish something about them. It seems that Simon was not even referring to Martin's M or F, but other letters which Simon thought could have been the start of the murderer's name.

[The Baron]

>>who can never decide what his or her first language is


But how can I decide whether English is my first language or not?! Every time I say it is not, then I read some posts in this thread, coming from those who claim to be native English speakers, and I find my comprehension of the language extremely better!

It is not an easy task as it seems in the land of the faked diary.


The Baron

[caz]

I'll answer this in two parts.

1. They didn't. Here you are straying back to your paradox within a paradox, because you are insisting that the Barretts independently made the same discovery as Simon, when, as Caz and others have pointed out, the hoaxer is not necessarily referring to initials on the back wall. Thus, there is no coincidence to explain. It is simply your own interpretation that is impressing you as too unlikely to be credible. As others see it, the diarist is referring to 'the whore's initial' in front, carving on flesh, and an initial 'here' and 'there,' which no matter how hard you try, is not a convincing description of two initials together on a back wall, behind Mary Kelly. There is no 'coincidence' to mull over, because the hoaxer and Simon were referring to two different things.

2. Maybe you are simply undervaluing Barrett's abilities and creativity?

Please carefully consider the following. There is a remarkable passage from none other than Ike's Society's Pillar, pages 71-72. It's a real barn-burner.

Ike points out that "A post-mortem drawing of Eddowes' face clearly shows an inverted-V on each of her cheeks. Placed together, they would form a plausible letter 'M' which could be taken to be James Maybrick's mark."

Ike calls this 'unreasonable serendipity' but fails to mention another salient fact: the person who first made this discovery was none other than Mike Barrett!

"Apart from that you have Fido's text which speaks of the Ripper "putting his personal mark on his victim's face". The victim, of course, was Eddowes and the only person to speak of these marks as forming an M was Mike Barrett. This does not mean that it was his personal discovery; it might have been Devereux's for all we know, but it was Mike, and Mike alone, who made the idea public. THIS IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY Mrs HARRISON IN HER HARDBACK (page 170). In writing of the alleged clues at the murder sites she says that an M "...was carved on the cheeks of the fourth woman to die, Catharine Eddowes- a fact that Mike Barrett was the first person ever to notice."

--Melvin Harrs.

So here we have it: privately, Barrett is giving clues to how one should interpret the diary, and later these same observations are used by Ike and others as evidence of the Diary's authenticity.

Barrett literally has Ike eating out of his hand, though Ike was evidently unaware of this fact.

Oh for heaven's sake, RJ, we've been through this before - and quite recently. 'Privately, Barrett is giving clues...' amounts to no more than what Shirley read in Mike's research notes, which have been in the public domain now for several years. Mike was speculating about Maybrick's 'mark', thinking the VVs on Eddowes's cheeks may have been intended to look like M for Maybrick, as there was a previous reference to the letter M after Chapman's murder: Along with M ha ha

The 'initial here and initial there' after Kelly's murder, with no clarification, had sent Mike back to check on the earlier references to M, followed by Maybrick's 'mark'.

There are only so many ways to interpret what the diary author seems to have meant by 'my mark', after the Mitre Square murder. You have got it so fixed in your head that Mike was 'interpreting' what Mike had put in the diary himself, that you are missing the devil in the detail. I don't believe Mike was ever subtle enough to have designed those notes to read like he was genuinely trying to work out what the initials were referring to, by going back to the previous murders for elucidation.

[caz]

Here's what Simon wrote back on October 25th:

"Hi Yabs,

It happened at a City Darts 'Jack the Ripper Seminar' in 1989. I was probably talking to just Martin Fido and Keith Skinner (Paul Begg, living in Leeds at the time, made only occasional visits to London) about turning a black and white photograph into colour. I had seen this demonstrated on TV and thought it might be an idea to experiment with the Kelly photograph. During this, or a subsequent conversation, I pointed out the initials on the wall, reasoning in true Grand Guignol style that Kelly had finger-painted the murderer's initials on the partition wall beside her bed.

"Depending on which printed copy (Rumbelow, Farson, Begg, Knight etc.) of the Kelly photograph is examined, the initials appear more or less indistinct, and I thought the best exposure was in the Sphere paperback edition of Dan Farson's book.

My discovery was pounced upon with enthusiasm, but try as we may none of us could decipher the initials, let alone fit them to a suspect. And there, as far as I am concerned, the matter was dropped.

Four years later, in Shirley Harrison's book, this became—

"In 1976 Stephen Knight's "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution" reproduced the picture with enough clarity to show that there appeared to be some initials on the wall partition behind Mary Kelly's bed, although they were not pointed out until 1988. The crime researcher Simon Wood mentioned them to Paul Begg."

Now you know the story of the initials on the wall."

Martin's memory appears to have been slightly different from Simon's because years later he made a post on this site, and seems to have remembered two specific initials being mentioned (but apparently not "FM"), but Martin didn't reveal what the initials were in case that Simon wanted to eventually publish them.

Cheers.

I'm struggling with how Martin thought he was keeping Simon's letters a closely guarded secret. If he didn't even know - or remember - what they were, he couldn't spill any beans about them, and he had to know what they were, in order to know they were not the M and F he referred to in his November 1992 report.

It would also appear that Martin was unaware that Simon had changed his mind later the same day and no longer saw any letters, or else Martin would have known there were no beans to spill.

It's baffling, but there we are.

[Simon Wood]

It's not really baffling. Everyone at the City Darts seminar decided I was seeing something that wasn't there. Fair enough. We all make mistakes, as the hedgehog said climbing off the scrubbing brush. I gave it no further thought. So imagine my surprise when four years later Shirley Harrison wrote that there was enough clarity [in the MJK1 photograph] to show that there appeared to be some initials on the wall partition behind Mary Kelly's bed, initials that weren't there and I hadn't seen. "The crime researcher Simon Wood mentioned them to Paul Begg." Why would I mention to Paul something I had imagined, something that everyone at the City Darts that night agreed wasn't there. It makes little sense. And then it just so happened that the initials I didn't see because they weren't there jived with the initials of the wife of the latest JtR suspect du jour. Methinks someone has been telling porkies.

[Iconoclast]

>>who can never decide what his or her first language is


But how can I decide whether English is my first language or not?! Every time I say it is not, then I read some posts in this thread, coming from those who claim to be native English speakers, and I find my comprehension of the language extremely better!

The Baron

I absolutely hate to agree with you, but you do actually have a point there ...

The Ike

[Iconoclast]

It's not really baffling. Everyone at the City Darts seminar decided I was seeing something that wasn't there. Fair enough. We all make mistakes, as the hedgehog said climbing off the scrubbing brush. I gave it no further thought. So imagine my surprise when four years later Shirley Harrison wrote that there was enough clarity [in the MJK1 photograph] to show that there appeared to be some initials on the wall partition behind Mary Kelly's bed, initials that weren't there and I hadn't seen. "The crime researcher Simon Wood mentioned them to Paul Begg." Why would I mention to Paul something I had imagined, something that everyone at the City Darts that night agreed wasn't there. It makes little sense. And then it just so happened that the initials I didn't see because they weren't there jived with the initials of the wife of the latest JtR suspect du jour. Methinks someone has been telling porkies.

Porkies do appear to be being told, Simon, I would agree.

Everyone at the City Darts seminar decided I was seeing something that wasn't there.

When did Martin Fido become a crowd???

Ike

[Simon Wood]

There were always regular visitors.

[Iconoclast]

There were always regular visitors.

Well it sounded like a place where interested parties would regularly visit, yes, but how many of them were privy to the conversation you had with Martin Fido regarding the initials on the wall?

Keith Skinner says he was there but off elsewhere organising the presentations (or whatever), and you have not previously stated that your conversation with Martin involved either more participants or any listeners. Now suddenly you mention it ("Everyone at the City Darts seminar decided I was seeing something that wasn't there"). Now, if I were Lord Orsam, I'd write a ten-page argument (that looked like four hundred when funnelled through that drainpipe he likes to use) proving categorically that this statement was incorrect but I won't because one assumes that your use of the word 'everyone' is horrendously misplaced here. I'm leaving Orsam's Stetson and Sheriff badge in the wardrobe on this one, Simon, but I should remind you that your journey to this point appears to consist of:

1989 - Out on the lash with Skinner and Fido, you ruined the evening (and any hope of any of you pulling) by harping on about some letters you thought you might be able to see on Kelly's wall.

1994 - You get credited in The Jack the Ripper A-Z with having first identified the initials on Kelly's wall which had become famous in these here circles due to the controversial Diary of Jack the Spratt McVitie published in October 1993.

20whatever - You get yourself an upgrade on your Sinclair ZX, enrol on the nascent Casebook: Jack the Spratt McVitie, and then start telling anyone who will listen that you were the one who first saw the letters on Kelly's wall (without ever being clear that you didn't mean the 'F' and 'M' that most people with at least one eye have no problem seeing, creating the rather splendid opportunity to be accused of being the person who first saw those initials when they didn't matter and then miraculously couldn't see them again when they did).

2021 - We finally get to the bottom of it. It was you and Fido in the conservatory with the lead piping (no-one else) and the two of you were debating some other part of the Kelly crime scene photograph, and by the end of that first evening you'd realised that you weren't after all about to win a game of Cluedo after fifteen attempts (Newcastle joke there).

November 30, 2021 - Suddenly everyone in the City Darts that evening was also playing the game and they all rejoiced together in the sure knowledge that no such letters could be seen.

Have I captured your chequered tale reasonably accurately, Simon?

So, before you take all the porkies home with you in a bag marked 'Swag', could we get the definitive story of what you thought you saw, where in the photograph you thought you saw it, and - ideally - how you and Fido spent hours debating it that evening before agreeing that you were actually completely wrong, only for Florence's initials to be rather patently on view a few centimetres to the right?

This reminds me of the old Buddhist tale of the guy who is looking for his housekeys underneath a streetlight. When asked if he knew he definitely dropped them there he replied that he'd dropped them a couple of streets away but the light was better here.

Was the light in the Kelly photograph better where you were looking on that fateful evening, Simon?

Ike