One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

lol trust me i dont.
but what you should really have asked him is who they left on the moon. I mean how did they get that shot of the lunar module taking off from the moon??!?!

Now you're thinking more like me, Abby - lucky you!

[milchmanuk]

Now you're thinking more like me, Abby - lucky you!

dam i just started reading your dropbox book,
i have a question about the watch.
i read a few books on this, they say the watch was polished to clean it inside ?or was it just the outside casein. i believe they tried to clean off the markings?
were the markings are.
the tool to clean it.
is it possible it cleaned an older object before hand and then deposited the small sample of material in the grooves of the scored lines.
so you end up with false dater.

[Scott Nelson]

Your casual use of environment means by its very nature, depending how the diary was kept for over 100 years has already changed the conditions.

Do you mean "time"? As in consolidation effects and/or drying?

[erobitha]

dam i just started reading your dropbox book,
i have a question about the watch.
i read a few books on this, they say the watch was polished to clean it inside ?or was it just the outside casein. i believe they tried to clean off the markings?
were the markings are.
the tool to clean it.
is it possible it cleaned an older object before hand and then deposited the small sample of material in the grooves of the scored lines.
so you end up with false dater.

For that theory to work you require two things:

1) The tool used to clean it somehow releases aged brass particles - I'm open to whatever cleaning tool you think would do that?
2) The one the likes of RJ and Orsam favour is the rusty old tool theory. RJ knows quite a fair bit about oxidisation but seems to have a lack of the same vigour when examining the aged brass particles embedded (important point) into the base of the scratches. The particles were not oxidised over time apparently. After all the experts thinks they could be compatible with 1888, but what do they know?

Guess what though, I reckon there is a strong possibility that should the exact same tests were to be replicated today we might get the same result again. However, these things are frivolous concepts in the debate of the diary and the watch. Once something is observed that's it.

[erobitha]

Do you mean "time"? As in consolidation effects and/or drying?

No. I mean environment. Like a sealed tin in a stable temperature environment.

[Scott Nelson]

Well, Ike, chalk off another hundred.

[Abby Normal]

Now you're thinking more like me, Abby - lucky you!

um no. Im actually mocking the way you think lol

[Iconoclast]

um no. Im actually mocking the way you think lol

Um really? I hadn’t spotted that. Clever you. Silly old me.

[rjpalmer]

The tea example is nonsense. You are trying to shoe-horn oxidisation as being a valid assumption made by those conducting the experiment in Leeds.

I don't think there is any point in continuing, do you? What does this even supposed to mean?

Baxendale found the ink 'easily' dissolvable in 1992. Leeds couldn't get the ink to dissolve in 1994. What is being 'shoehorned'?

If the tea was kept in a flask and tested three hours later, guess what, it would still be hot and the result would be replicated.

Actually, no. After three hours, the tea will still be hot, but it will no longer be the original 140 degrees and the difference will be measurable.

By the next day it will be lukewarm. After 48 hours or less, it will be room temperature and again the difference will be measurable.

How warm will the tea still be after 102 years even if the flask was kept in a biscuit tin under the floorboards?

You're taking uncertainties about the environment to an absurd length, implying that uncertainty means anything is possible--even a manuscript's ink staying soluble in a biscuit tin after years or even decades. (And by the way, not that it is relevant, but wasn't the biscuit tin story debunked?)

Let's take a deep breath.

Unless there was something wildly wrong with Baxendale's methods (which were standard, by the way), the diary's ink stayed soluble for at least ten weeks. We know this because it was soluble at the beginning of July 1992, and it we know the diary existed since at least mid-April 1992.

We also know that the diary's ink went from soluble to insoluble in less than 28 months (the time of the Leeds tests) and possibly much sooner, depending on when and how Eastaugh tested it and what he observed.

So, seeing that the ink became insoluble after two years or so, when left in a normal environment, is there really any reason to believe it had remained soluble for years or even decades before that? Shoving it under the floorboards (or behind a cupboard if we believe Anne Graham) isn't much different than shoving it in a desk drawer, is it?

Anyways, what exactly do you want me to ask the ink chemist? Everyone knows that environment can leave uncertainties about drying times, so you need to be more specific.

Do you want me to ask her if keeping a manuscript in a biscuit tin for 102 years would prevent the ink from drying and hardening?

For good measure, should I also ask about keeping it in the leather trunk described by Billy Graham? Or keeping it behind the cupboard that Anne described?

[rjpalmer]

Or wasn't Billy Graham's trunk supposed to have been tin? Always a tin box in this story.

[DJA]

[caz]

Make that two of us.

And while we wait for that unlikely meteorological event, let's have a brief summary.

You claimed that I am ignoring evidence "pointing against Barrett and Graham as the diary's creators," yet, when pressed, you refuse to state what that evidence is.

In reality, I helped you get the ball rolling by starting a list of 4 items that might be consider evidence of the diary's antiquity. So far, no one has added anything to that list.

I do notice, however, that you now mention the diary being found at Battlecrease on 9 March 1992--which would presumably eliminate the Barretts as suspects.

Is this correct?

If so, is it fair for me to remove item #1 from my previous list---namely, that Billy Graham remembered seeing the diary shortly after World War II?

Or do you think it is possible that Billy Graham did see the diary in the 1940s but that it somehow still made its way under Dodd's floorboards in the intervening years, but--by a bizarre set of circumstances--was found and handed back to Graham's own son-in-law?

If you agree that idea is silly, can I now revise the list of evidence that I am supposedly ignoring?


1. Rod McNeil’s ion migration test determined the diary's ink went on paper between 1909 and 1933, inclusive.

2. The chemist Alec Voller noticed the ink was ‘bronzed’ during a visual examination of the diary in October 1995, which to him suggested antiquity.

3. [By implication] a miniscule piece of metal, ‘darkened with age,' was found in a scratch on the back inside cover of the ‘Maybrick’ watch. This is not the diary, of course, but I'll be generous and include it.

4. The diary was found under Dodd's floorboards on 9 March 1992 and Barrett could not have placed it there, having no known association with Dodd or any of the electricians working at Battlecrease on that date.

Is that a fair summary of where we now stand? Or am I ignoring anything else?

Catching up...

I'm not sure why you expected me to address your questions, when you had been studiously avoiding my own.

If I find you have subsequently posted your own preferred chronology of events, in a more coherent fashion than Mike Barrett ever did, using only hard dates to guide your thinking, I will return to your summary if I see any merit in commenting on it.

Is that not fair enough?

For now, have you given any more thought to whether or not you see in the diary any effort made by Anne [presuming she composed up to 95% of the text] to make it read like anything other than a fictional story?

We both suspect it was never meant for publication at time of writing, but you say "novella" and I say "political satire". You say Bongo the Clown and I say Punch.

[caz]

Oh, by the way. I meant to say how much of a kick I got out of this rigmarole, Ike. Thanks for the humor.

"Chronologies are fundamentally determined by dates." ....unless, of course, you want to give credence to the floorboard tales told by Alan Davies or Brian Rawes!

The first claimed he told a shopkeeper in Bootle in late 1991 that a leather-bound diary had been found in a biscuit tin under the floorboards of Battlecrease. Several months too early to have anything to do with Bongo Barrett and Eddie Lyons and a phone call to Doreen Montgomery in March 1992. Worse yet, we are informed by Robert Smith that when he investigated this claim he learned that this shop in Bootle hadn't opened until November 1992---when Barrett's diary was already safely in London!

Oops!

"Chronologies are fundamentally determined by dates."

Our second informant tells of a breathless Eddie Lyons rushing down the drive at Battlecrease with news of an important discovery under the floorboards in June 1992-again three months too late to have anything to do with our boy Bongo or the diary. And the timecards for Lyons, Rhodes, and Rawes fully corroborate that this was the month these three men were indeed working together.

"Chronologies are fundamentally determined by dates."

Indeed! And the chronology shows that these tales fall apart on further inspection.


Meanwhile, despite your increasingly desperate efforts to undermine Bongo's affidavit, your misgivings are spectacularly meaningless because we already have hard dates showing when Barrett went shopping for the red diary---the ad placed by Martin Earl in Bookfinder and the check stub supplied by Anne Graham show that it was 1992.

Thus, the minor discrepancies in Gray's noble attempt to make sense of these slushy confessions by Barrett need not unduly worry us. The account given by Barrett has been confirmed, so it matters very little whether a man in the throes of a bender said it was 1990, 1991, or 1066.

It's a great pity you can't even get your own dates correct here.

It makes you a less reliable witness than the electricians themselves!

[rjpalmer]

It's a great pity you can't even get your own dates correct here.

It makes you a less reliable witness than the electricians themselves!

Nice try, Caz.

My own dates?

You missed your calling. You should have worked in politics.

If these dates don't appeal to you, don't blame me. They are the dates given by Shirley Harrison, who carried out her own investigation, and by your own friend, Robert Smith.

The end of June 1992 is the date Harrison gave for Eddie Lyons running down the drive with news of an 'important' discovery at the Battlecrease job site. 'American Connection' p. 291-292. Her source was Mr. Rawes:




Of course, that's too late for this discovery to have had anything to do with the Maybrick Hoax, but if you're now trying to backdate this to before March 1992, when Barrett made his phone call, color me unsurprised.

As for Davies and the Bootle shopkeeper and the book in the biscuit tin, Harrison has this happening at the end of 1991 (too early for Battlecrease) but Smith said the shop didn't open until November 1992 (too late for Battlecrease).

Of course, it is not the least bit surprising that you are trying to blame me for the shifting chronology of the diary supporters, but what are you trying to say?

That Robert Smith was wrong?

[caz]

Yes, they are. Thank you for confirming this simple point that I was making. Bongo's 'chronology' was provably incorrect - not just on the basis of 'dates' but on the basis of your favourite type of dates, the 'hard dates' such as when Tony Devereux died.

If you can show us that Alan Davies was referring to a hard date of "late 1991", that would show the chronology to be inconsistent. APS began trading on October 26, 1992. The events of March 9, 1992 - of course - gave us the scrapbook. One of those electricians retrieved it from Battlecrease House and it soon found its way into the hands of Mike Barrett. By July 1992, Mike had vicariously secured a publishing deal. Not the sort of thing anyone would imagine he'd keep quiet about in his local pub - you know, the one he shared with Eddie Lyons. On July 17, 1992, Lyons found himself back at Battlecrease House for the first time since March 9 (and possibly 10), 1992. The memories quickly flooded back. He had taken that scrapbook and sold it to Barrett for about £25. Now Barrett was about to publish the property Lyons had stolen. Of course, he was deeply concerned that day - July 17, 1992 - when Brian Rawes turned-up looking for the P&R van (he wasn't on the timesheet, by the way, RJ, despite your strange claim that he was - he was just nipping in to collect the company van, hardly grounds for Colin Rhodes to bill Paul Dodd, eh?); so Eddie spoke with Rawes briefly about having found something important and Rawes told him to tell Colin Rhodes. Of course, Eddie didn't. He couldn't if he wanted to protect his reputation and keep working in Liverpool (or indeed anywhere else). So he let it lie. APS opened in late October 1992 and a month or so later, Alan Davies walked into the shop and told Alan Dodgson (assistant) about the rumours he'd heard about a diary being found by some electricians who worked in the same company as he did. Hard dates confirm this chronology. Dodgson said his boss - Tim Martin-Wright - might be interested in the diary; but next time the conversation came up, Davies was confirming what he may have already been told - that the 'diary' had long ago been sold "in a pub in Anfield", and there the tale ended until the summer of 1994 when Martin-Wright discovered Harrison's book in a shop in Berwick and reached out to Paul Feldman.

Some lovely hard dates available to anyone who wants them, RJ. Of course, you've got to want them. Are we clear? Are we clear? I think the answer to that is "Crystal", don't you?

Not so much 'oops', RJ, as 'poops!' - you've once accepted someone's vague recall of dates and details over the very hard dates you claim you crave.

Hi Ike,

It may be worth pointing out that there is a documented event, which provides a very likely reason for Alan Davies being 'out of the loop' in late 1992, and therefore unaware that the diary had changed hands months earlier. He was injured in a nasty car crash in June 1992, and spent the next few months on sick leave.

Very shortly after Brian's brief conversation with Eddie, on Friday 17th July 1992, which Brian then related the same afternoon to Arthur Rigby, Brian and Eddie were both made redundant - Brian on Tuesday 21st July 1992 and Eddie on Thursday 23rd July 1992. There is no suggestion that Arthur mentioned Eddie's "important" find to the boss, or that this could have had anything to do with the order in which the men were laid off. But following Alan Davies's accident and Brian and Eddie's departure from the firm, there would have been no further work related contact between the three of them, suggesting that Alan's only knowledge when he walked into APS may have dated back to Tuesday 17th March 1992, when he was down on the Skem contract timesheet with Eddie's best mate, Jim Bowling.

There's a chronology here with hard dates that one would not normally expect to provide a solid base for a long series of individual and independently reported witness accounts gathered over the years, if, as RJ would have us all believe, they amount to nothing more than invention and idle rumour, by people who have gained nothing from talking.

Forget the nest of forgers. This would have to be a conspiracy on an industrial scale, involving an army of silly fakers, who have been toeing the party line without knowing what that line is, or whether it's even remotely compatible with actual events and the hard dates we have for them.

If I'm wrong about any of this, Boris Johnson will still be PM next week.

Love,

Caz
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