One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Aethelwulf]

It's like saying that Timothy Dundas was there, looking at the watch in 1992, so he was in a better position to know that there were no scratches or engravings there at all, than the two scientists who later used their microscopes to examine every mark.

X

Ridiculous comparison though. Something that can't really be seen with the naked eye very well against what Erobike claim are two glaringly obvious letters written in blood in a part of the room that Phillips described. Of course it was plenty light enough for everyone to go about their work but conviniently too dark for Phillips and everyone else that went into that room to see the large letters right infront of them. That is what Ikobitha's argument comes down to and they have no plausible answer they just go bleating it was too dark.

[Iconoclast]

I didn't see your 'black was white' when I wrote my 'white can be black'.

Now we've had a few spooky moments in our days on the Casebook but I'd say that was right up there in na-noo-na-noo-land, wouldn't you?

I think the truth is probably more in favour of 'fools never differ' as we just keep fighting the Good Fight year after year (me carrying Maybrick's standard into battle, you tearing down any for Barrett) when life would be so much easier for us both if I just let the true identity of Jack the Ripper slip out of our grasps and you just let people believe that Bongo Barrett had a hand in the creation of the text of this most remarkable artefact.

Evidently, there is something in us both that prevents us from being so shallow as to walk away form our beliefs due to the utter din around us ...

[Iconoclast]

Ridiculous comparison though. Something that can't really be seen with the naked eye very well against what Erobike claim are two glaringly obvious letters written in blood in a part of the room that Phillips described. Of course it was plenty light enough for everyone to go about their work but conviniently too dark for Phillips and everyone else that went into that room to see the large letters right infront of them. That is what Ikobitha's argument comes down to and they have no plausible answer they just go bleating it was too dark.

No-one said that the letters were large and no-one said that they could be seen with the naked eye. Why are you creating premises which are untrue in order to draw a conclusion which is not then sustainable?

The letters were not seen even with the benefit of the cameraman's flash when the photograph was published in book after book from 1899 onwards (and more clearly from 1972 onwards). This is because none of us were looking for letters and/or looking for potential clues on Kelly's wall and - even if we'd spotted the 'F' (or 'E') and the 'M' - what possible help could that have given us? None whatsoever. What was true in 1888 was also true before 1992: no-one was looking so no-one saw what actually is pretty obvious once you know where to look. It was only when the Victorian scrapbook came along and made its famous prediction that Florence Maybrick's initials might be found in Kelly's room that anyone looked and - lo! - there they were. The clearest evidence that either Jack the Ripper was James Maybrick or else that the scrapbook text was created by a hoaxer who had been the first ever to notice what is now very obvious on Kelly's wall.

[Iconoclast]

Ridiculous comparison though.

Your arguments might possibly hold more water if you avoided your instinct to simply dismiss those of others so immediately. Using terms such as 'ridiculous' for arguments that are patently not ridiculous just makes your arguments ... well, I think you get it.

[Aethelwulf]

No-one said that the letters were large and no-one said that they could be seen with the naked eye. Why are you creating premises which are untrue in order to draw a conclusion which is not then sustainable?

The letters were not seen even with the benefit of the cameraman's flash when the photograph was published in book after book from 1899 onwards (and more clearly from 1972 onwards). This is because none of us were looking for letters and/or looking for potential clues on Kelly's wall and - even if we'd spotted the 'F' (or 'E') and the 'M' - what possible help could that have given us? None whatsoever. What was true in 1888 was also true before 1992: no-one was looking so no-one saw what actually is pretty obvious once you know where to look. It was only when the Victorian scrapbook came along and made its famous prediction that Florence Maybrick's initials might be found in Kelly's room that anyone looked and - lo! - there they were. The clearest evidence that either Jack the Ripper was James Maybrick or else that the scrapbook text was created by a hoaxer who had been the first ever to notice what is now very obvious on Kelly's wall.

Ok so still no credible answer. Perhaps you might do better in the much anticpated, bog roll busting, Pink Soc that you like to boast about.

[Iconoclast]

Ok so still no credible answer. Perhaps you might do better in the much anticpated, bog roll busting, Pink Soc that you like to boast about.

Still no credible answer???????

Are you reading any of this?

Mind you, I did appreciate Pink Soc - I quite like it ...

[John Wheat]

Take it to the Bury thread, John, where you can at least post from your acquired knowledge about your suspect. If you are so confident about Bury, why are you even here, arguing the toss about Maybrick?

Love,

Caz
X

Ike brought it up. I get bored easily.

[caz]

Some people aren’t quite as good at juggling contradictions as other people and might be wondering what distinguishes a woman who could lie this elaborately to people she had become friendly with—Feldman, Emmas, Skinner, etc.--- and the behavior of a person who ‘really had authored or penned the diary.’

RJ can try to analyse Ike's thinking until hell freezes over, but it won't help him to analyse Anne Graham's thinking, when she told and kept on telling her 'in the family' story, or - crucially - to conclude what knowledge she actually has about the diary and its origins. That is surely the only thing that matters in the great scheme of things. Having a pop at each other [and yes, we are all guilty of that!] over what we currently believe or don't believe is ultimately unproductive.

Even if Anne knew next to nothing, and didn't know diddly about Eddie, what she did know would have been invaluable nonetheless. All she had to tell Feldman is that the Formby/Yapp connection was an invention, that she hadn’t seen the diary as a young woman, that Mike had come home with the diary several months later than she claimed--in March/April 1992--which would have allowed Feldman to work his way back around to the Dodd provenance, or follow other lines of inquiry instead of wasting his time on her malarky. It could have theoretically saved his film deal...

...yet never a peep.

Right, so all Anne had to do was to admit that she had gone along with Mike's lies, knowing that Tony Devereux had bugger all to do with it, and she did this because she had suspected, just like Tony's daughters, that Mike had got the diary "from somewhere he shouldn't". Clearly she wasn't going down that road, and instead told the irresistible force that was Feldman what she believed he desperately wanted and expected to hear. He would then leave everyone else alone, and Tony's family might finally get the closure they so richly deserved from Anne's reassurance that his only input was to take the brown paper parcel from her as a personal favour, and pass it straight on to Mike. The bonus, if she signed on the dotted line to confirm that nobody else would be claiming prior ownership of the diary, was that Feldman was talking about making her a millionaire.

So the woman in the case clearly deserves all she gets, and can therefore be accused of creating the diary for her idiot husband, even if her sin was to lie about the provenance of an old book she believed all along that Mike had probably nicked.

[rjpalmer]

That is what Ikobitha's argument comes down to and they have no plausible answer they just go bleating it was too dark.

Welcome to Maybrick Hell, my son--where the only source of light is gaslight.

[rjpalmer]

Speaking of gaslighting:

Am I accusing people of lying regarding their remarkable inability to see the 'shapes' that so many can see effortlessly, whether 'diary defender' or 'diary distractor'?

Yes, Ike, you were accusing people of lying.

Exact quote:

"Diary detractors and diary supporters alike 100% understand why you have to say that you can't see the 'FM" that is so patently obvious to everyone else. You can't admit to seeing them because..."

Your statement had Jack-all to do with the Magic Eyes effect.

You were claiming the poster could see the imagine, but just wouldn't 'say' it or 'admit' it.

It's the Martin Fido paranoia all over again.

Ah, well. Sometimes it's almost as if Bongo Barrett really was a member of MI-5 and this has been just one big thirty-year psych-ops experiment in gaslighting on a massive scale...

[caz]

Thanks, Ike. Nor is anyone else convinced...nor should they be. Accept for Caz, who has stated she is 100% convinced, so perhaps I should redirect this thread to her.

I can't be the only person to notice that the Lyons provenance went from there being enough documentation to prove it in a 'court of law.'

To enough documentation to prove it 'to the court of history.'

To 'my preferred provenance.'

To 'possibly a coincidence.'

To 'maybe Anne Graham has told the truth, after all.'

I don't recognise those quotes as my own, or expressed by any one individual, so I'm not sure what point RJ is making, except to state the bleedin' obvious that opinions will always differ from one person to the next, especially when they are not all in possession of all the available documentation, and one person's opinions are also subject to change as new information comes in and old opinions are reassessed - unless you are someone who is pathologically incapable of changing your mind regardless.

I seem to recall that it was Keith Skinner, speaking in Liverpool back in 2007 [16 years ago], who suggested - in response to a question from Jeremy Beadle - that if all the documentation in his possession [as at 2007, 16 years ago] were to be put before the jury [meaning the attendees of the event, who would be asked to give their verdict for or against Maybrick when all the talking was done] he believed the verdict would be that the diary came out of Battlecrease House. Keith had to go on and clarify, for those in idiots' corner, that he was talking about a court of history and not a court of law, and that it wouldn't follow that the diary had been written by the real James Maybrick or that he was Jack the Ripper.

Which I suspect many readers will interpret as 'I haven't the faintest idea what is true, but I believe that Mike and Anne didn't write it, though I can't really give a coherent reason why I believe that, beyond my own psychological insights into their personalities, though I am at the same time willing to admit that Anne Graham could have been deceiving us all over a period of many months, and of course that Barrett was also a liar, which however doesn't to my mind suggest that he or she would have stooped to creating this hoax, nor did they have the combined talents to do so.'

It all comes across as rather subjective.

Well it would, wouldn't it, given that nobody who would interpret RJ's unattributed quotes in that shallow and simplistic fashion could possibly be in full possession of the carefully documented material and circumstantial evidence, growing all the time, which informs the opinions of those who can see the Barretts - and the electricians - in the context of the known events and get a view of the bigger picture, which RJ and others would prefer not to have if it spoils the view they can get from their much narrower window, of a hoax created by the Barretts over eleven days in early April 1992. Psychological insights may be supported or undermined by the wealth of existing information, but they don't take precedence over it and are pretty useless without it. RJ has convinced himself, based on what has so far reached the public domain [and largely taken from Barrett's own Hungarian phrase book] that his belief is the correct one, and therefore the Barretts must not only have been more than capable of creating the diary, but must also have had personalities which made them both up for the challenge. Sadly for RJ, he doesn't have the evidence he needs to inform his belief, much less the psychological insight that might at least have allowed for that belief to be correct. If he is wrong about either, he is wrong about everything.

And RJ can't have that, can he? The very idea is impossible for him to contemplate.

[caz]

Welcome to Maybrick Hell, my son--where the only source of light is gaslight.

'Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic in which a person, to gain power and control of another individual, plants seeds of uncertainty in another person's mind. The self-doubt and constant questioning slowly cause the individual to question their reality.'

I had to look it up, because it seems like the latest trend, to accuse people of 'gaslighting' when they merely hold a different and unpopular opinion. It's ugly and inappropriate, and I don't see anyone questioning their reality on this thread, so where is the evidence that anyone is doing this? If they are, it's not working, so what exactly is RJ's problem?

[caz]

Surely you don't mean you, Ike?

Only 593 more pages to go.

I'd like to read more about the various provenance ideas people might have. As it works for me, the "Devereux Committee" is probably the best bet for a rewrite since the first mention of provenance by a keeper (Barrett) is typically closest to the truth.

Hi Scotty,

But Mike Barrett was not a 'typically' truthful person. He lied pretty much whenever there was a d in the day of the week. Closest to the truth is still not the truth. If Mike never did reveal when or how he really, really, really got the diary, then nothing he ever said about it can be said to be close to the truth.

Devereux should finally be allowed to rest, diary free.

IMHO.

Love,

Caz
X

[Aethelwulf]

No-one said that the letters were large and no-one said that they could be seen with the naked eye.

You can get a sense of scale though from the photo and your supposed m is large and so is the supposed f. I didn't realise blood was invisible - I wodner what what stuff Phillips was describing if Kelly's blood was invisible?

none of us were looking for potential clues

Funny that because Abberline was trawling through the fire grate, presumable looking for clues. Wasn't a clay pipe recovered, another potential clue that would have meant nothing at the time given how many people smoked them, but is was still recorded. If there had been letters in blood they would have been noticed and recorded.

Phillips was looking for clues in the location and pattern of blood to presumably get an idea of how the crime was committed. People were looking for clues. But I guess Kelly had invisble blood so understandable the 'lettterrrss' were missed.

I'm sure someone supplied a close up of the supposed F and showed it was just lots of little unconnected specks and clearly not a smear of blood. Someone also showed a close up of the non m and the it appears to be two unconnected loops. Don't cry Ike but they're just irrelevant shapes (ike spits dummy out and stamps foot).

[caz]

Hello, Ike.

1. Just so you know, I received a private message from 'Lord Orsam' stating that he will respond to each of your questions, but I suppose you'll have to wait until his next article appears. Watch for it. I am a little confused, though. I thought these questions were for Anne Graham, so why is Jay Hartley expecting a diary critic to answer them? Your post wasn't just a cheap gimmick, was it?

2. If Keith wants to know the truth about the Maybrick Hoax--no matter how the chips might fall--why doesn't he just call Anne Graham on the telephone and ask her? It might be an embarrassing guestion, and none of my business, but it's a fair one, isn't it? They were close once, and after twenty years perhaps she would tell him? He's stated publicly that he believes the diary came from Dodd's house--the obvious implication being that Anne's story, which he had previously championed, is a lie. Anne should have a chance to make a rebuttal to this very public accusation by not only him, but by Robert Smith, and Caz Brown. Not being a hypocrite, she should also have a chance to rebut my beliefs and the beliefs of many others that the diary was written in Goldie Street in 1992. I just figure that there is a far better chance for her not hanging up on Keith (whom she knows) than in her not hanging up on me (whom she doesn't know from Soothsayer Mitchell).

Why not make the call and end this here and now? The clock is ticking, Putin is insane, fascism is on the rise, and the earth is heating up. Let's get on with it. Make that phone call, end it, and we can call it a day. I saw this spray painted on a wall: "Knowledge, without action, is futile."

Of course, on the same afternoon, I saw another spray-painted slogan along the lines of "s-d off."

Which will it be?

RP

How does RJ know Keith hasn't tried, or has no intention to contact Anne again to see if she will go back on what she told us over twenty years ago, that she would not talk to us about the diary again?

Even Keith can't get blood from a stone, but if there is even the ghost of a chance of getting Anne to revisit those painful last years of a long marriage, even if she only repeats her 'family' story or claims that she actually knows next to nothing about where the diary came from, I'm sure the attempt will be made again at some point.

Is RJ sure the writing on the wall didn't read: "Knowledge, without auction, is futile"?

And it wasn't the Good Lord who responded with: "S-d off"?

As Anne may well have said to her ex husband: "There was no u bidding for that scrapbook at O&L, u dirty rotten scoundrel, so u can s-d off."