One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[FISHY1118]

I guess that's what that elusive thing 'evidence' does for an argument, eh, Fishy?

Evidence thats also been shown over 1000s upon 1000s of post that accounted for them fake items to be just that, Fake. Eh Ike ?

Your argument , and circumstancial evidence , ( not proof mind you) lacks any real credibility, and borders on the realms of something closely that which reassemble, and one would expect to find on an episode of the Xfiles .....

Mulder and scully out.

[Iconoclast]

Over two years later, when Mike melted-down, the die was cast and the book was published so Anne protected what she knew deep down was almost certainly the actual journal of Jack the Ripper and also protected her friend Feldman's film project (as she understood it).

It's a bit weird, replying to myself, but something I should have added was that Anne gave her extended provenance in the summer of 1994 and did so apparently full in the knowledge that Mike would not be able to contradict it.

So Anne knew that 1) there was no receipt for a scrapbook from Outhwaite & Litherland on March 31, 1992 (or on any other occasion). She knew 2) there were no receipts from Bluecoat Chambers for pens and nibs and ink. She knew 3) it was not in her handwriting and 4) it was not in Mike's handwriting. She knew 5) that it had not come from Tony Devereux. She knew 6) that Mike had not started researching the crimes until after March 9, 1992. She knew her husband had almost certainly handled stolen goods and she therefore knew that the very worst that could happen in taking him out of the equation by offering her own provenance was to run the risk that Mike would actually confess where he got the scrapbook from, but that was absolutely fine because his actually confessing the truth (at last) would only have shown Anne to be an understandable, convenient liar (big deal) and would not have undermined the likely authenticity of the scrapbook (indeed, may well have aided it).

She must have known all of this with some considerable certainty otherwise it seems unlikely that she would have acted as she did to protect the book and the mooted film.

As I said earlier, once she was committed to that convenient lie, she had to then live it. Her silence these last twenty years is so telling ...

As I've said a few times now in the last few days, 'the silence of the Anne' these last two decades is overwhelmingly telling: she told a convenient lie which she knew could not be contradicted (other than by the original thief coming forwards) and - having got through that terrible period in her life - she and Caroline just wanted to move on to sunnier uplands.

I - for one - totally understand why she doesn't want to talk about the Maybrick scrapbook, but I so wish she would as she is the only person in the world who knows with cast-iron certainty what was going on inside 12 Goldie Street on March 9, 1992.

[caz]

I do feel some pity for you, Ike, but I also operate on the principle 'cruel to be kind.'

While your friends (Caz and Ero) have no problem with blowing smoke up your backside, I respect the original intent of this thread. As Tom Mitchell, you asked people to help you 'shake' your irrational belief in the diary by coming up with just 'one incontrovertible, etc.' reason for disbelieving in the diary.

They don't do this. They argue that this is an old, complex document, which is hardly helpful. Only I and the late Lord Orsam care enough about you to help you in your now 15+ year quest towards enlightenment.

We haven't given up on you, yet, Old Bean. Don't think that we have!

I might have more respect for Palmer - at least a wee bit more than I ever did for the liar Mike Barrett - if he stopped making deliberately dishonest claims for what I 'argue'.

As I've said many times now, I'm more than happy for the diary to be modern, if that's what it proves to be. Somehow, I don't think Palmer could cope if Mike Barrett ever let go of his knackers.

What Palmer should be doing is asking Anne if his creation theory is anywhere near the truth, and when she laughs in his face he can come back with another theory about the identity of his modern hoaxer - this time someone whose handwriting at least vaguely corresponds with what's in the diary, and someone who could have had access to the watch before the Murphys sold it on to Albert Johnson in July 1992.

The watch cannot be a 1993 bandwagon hoax if the Murphys told the truth about using jeweller's rouge on the scratch marks inside it, unless Palmer wants to argue that both Turgoose and Wild were using faulty microscopes when examining them.

That's not an opinion by the way; it's counting.

And that makes the watch yet another hurdle for Palmer to clear, along with Tim Martin-Wright Hurdle, Brian Rawes Hurdle, Arthur Rigby Hurdle, the Mystery of Mike's Missing Auction Ticket and various other hurdles.

[rjpalmer]

You know full well that Anne’s provenance was believed over Barrett’s because she had more credibility and her’s was the only credible provenance in town

What was credible about it?

Even your friend Jay Hartley, recently posting over on the 'Who Were They?' thread, couldn't make such a suggestion with a straight face (Post #664):

"That I believe she did, Scott. You and I may have different theories on why, but Anne's "in the family" story is simply not credible. I don't think it was credible even when she said it, but I can see her motive for going along with Feldman's enthusiasm."


The criminal mastermind Anne, you tell us, came forward to undermine Barrett's story--not that she had anything to fear from it, mind you!

It's gibberish, Ike. You're talking in circles.

And take care with those superfluous apostrophes. The Typographical Taliban are about!

[caz]

I'm just checking with you that this isn't pure mud of the muddiest variety, Muddy the Mud Boy. You are claiming that it is an established fact, on the record, backed-up by witnesses, that James Maybrick spent his entire Aintree afternoon on that omnibus, yes? He never left it once? He never went to the grandstands to place a bet or watch a race or meet any of his friends, acquaintances, and work contacts? This is a known certainty, yes? Not just bits of mud splattered around to change the narrative in your favour, yes? James Maybrick sat on that omnibus with the people he saw most days and did not attend in person a single race that day? I don't know how many races ran at Aintree on March 29, 1889, but it wouldn't have been one. There's usually around seven races run on grand national day, with the national itself not even being the last, as one might imagine (like playing the third-place playoff after the final has been won). So that omnibus must have sat there for many hours. Did it have its own toilet? Did none of the occupants leave it for even one race? Maybrick doesn't say at what point of the day he was within a few feet of His Royal Highness. It could have been early doors or late doors or middle-of-the-afternoon doors. How can any of us know from this distance and with so little information at hand. But - soft! - you have proof positive that James Maybrick did not leave that omnibus once so that excludes the Maybrick scrapbook as a James Maybrick Production, yes? You haven't just slung a bit of spare mud my way and hoped it would stick?

Thing is, I've never seen that certain proof and I'm guessing my dear readers haven't seen it either so do post it in the next day or so so that we can all pack up our picnic hampers, re-cork the champers, and bugger off home for the football on the telly.



And a police guard stopped any of the prisoners getting off it, yes?



Proof, please, claimant: "James, still at the omnibus, scolded her". Not proof that he scolded her, not even proof that he scolded her at the omnibus, but - rather - unequivocal proof that he scolded her whilst still at the omnibus. So no extra work, in truth, RJ. If you produce the first proof (of your wider claim) that will suffice for the second proof (of this related claim).



Well, provide the incontrovertible proof, RJ, and we will all be on our way.



I make of it that I seriously doubt a player like Maybrick would have sat on his arse for many hours when there was so much going on in the grandstands and around the track over the course of many races.

I was at Ascot in 2017 at a slap-up meal of cow pie and bangers and mash, top hat and tails and all the works. Even had a name badge. The view from the restricted section above the common rich people was spectacular. I could have spent the entire afternoon up there, getting pissed and hobnobbing with the people I worked with every day. But - soft! - we all, periodically, broke away and went downstairs and out to the concourse and the grandstands and around the track, just for jolly, wouldn't you, on such an auspicious day. At one point, I was within a few hundred feet of Her Majesty the Queen. Maybe, if I checked back in my serial killer scrapbook (not my private diary, obviously), I might find that - for a spot of dramatic effect - I had exaggerated how close I was to her: "within a few feet of her maj this safter - bet she'd have squealed to know that she was so close to the name all England (Casebook members) was talking about". I adopted a spot of Liverpudlian licence with the English language there, by the way, to keep it consistent with the original.



Well I hope to, RJ, but there's no horse racing for me today, only the trepidation of playing away to the best club team pretty much in the world right now - the winners of four trophies already in 2023 - so I'm not as optimistic of enjoying the omnibus to the sofa and the Picnic bars (my favourite) and the champers of a McEwan's Champion Ale, the closest I'll get to a champion this season, I imagine. I won't be a few feet away from that, mind!

I'm very disappointed, Ike. Is Palmer also going to argue that James Maybrick could never have thought of giving Her Maj a call, either on his new-fangled dog and bone or in person, because he was just a lowly commoner, not fit to be within bragging distance of Victoria?

By the way, I'm also disappointed with Chelsea's performance on Sunday, but was even more disgruntled to see an empty space on the supermarket shelf last week where our favourite Picnic bars usually sit. Mr Brown had charmed my last bar off me the day before, so I was looking forward to him replacing it. I mean to get even. Twirls and Snickers are okay, but they don't come within a few hundred yards of a Picnic.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

What was credible about it?

I meant that Anne was more credible than Bongo and that her provenance was more credible than his forgery story.

[rjpalmer]

As I've said a few times now in the last few days, 'the silence of the Anne' these last two decades is overwhelmingly telling

It is indeed telling, Ike, because there is no reason Anne couldn't simply tell the truth now and support her old friend's theory. He'd be the toast of the town, but, strange to say, her lips are sealed.

Have you listened to the podcast on the Cottingley Fairies yet? The one I recommended?

The reason the girls didn't come forward for decade is because they didn't want to embarrass and disappoint the people who had put faith in them. They literally waited until after Conan Doyle and Gardner were dead.

I hope that doesn't happen in this case, but I interpret Anne's silence much differently than you do.

[Iconoclast]

By the way, I'm also disappointed with Chelsea's performance on Sunday, but was even more disgruntled to see an empty space on the supermarket shelf last week where our favourite Picnic bars usually sit. Mr Brown had charmed my last bar off me the day before, so I was looking forward to him replacing it. I mean to get even. Twirls and Snickers are okay, but they don't come within a few hundred yards of a Picnic.

Other than in footballing success terms, our lives seem to rather mirror themselves even at the level of occasional chocolate bars, Caz!

Mrs I, not-so-young Izzy (now 24!), and I have chocolate on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings (well, I suspect Izzy has a stash in her bedroom, if I'm honest). Mrs I loves Crunchies. I love Picnics. And Izzy loves Twirls. If ever any of these are missing from the shelves, we always buy Snickers as we all love them! How bizarre is that?



Absolutely irresistible!

[Iconoclast]

It is indeed telling, Ike, because there is no reason Anne couldn't simply tell the truth now and support her old friend's theory. He'd be the toast of the town, but, strange to say, her lips are sealed.

Have you listened to the podcast on the Cottingley Fairies yet? The one I recommended?

The reason the girls didn't come forward for decade is because they didn't want to embarrass and disappoint the people who had put faith in them. They literally waited until after Conan Doyle and Gardner were dead.

I hope that doesn't happen in this case, but I interpret Anne's silence much differently than you do.

Who has to die before she confesses, RJ?

[Iconoclast]

Have you listened to the podcast on the Cottingley Fairies yet? The one I recommended?

I haven't, no. I'm struggling for time at present. It has been a crazy year so far and my Jack studies have severely struggled, so much so that many of the more recent folders amongst my collection are just reminders of arguments.

Obviously, being a Brit, I am at least familiar with the Cottingley Fairies and obviously they have always been a hoax, and a fairly clever one at that given the age they were created and the ages of those who created them; but I don't know all the details. Nor indeed do I subscribe to the oft-cited view on here that if you can cite a hoax in one location then all things that might be hoaxes are therefore of necessity hoaxes. It's a bit like assuming that we'll beat Chelsea at the Cathedral on the Hill again this season just because we did last season.

Though I think we will ...

[rjpalmer]

Tom Makes a Strong Argument for Releasing the Barrett/Gray Tapes


There is an interesting anomaly in Tom's Post #9909 above.

He wrote that Alan Gray...

"sees one letter - a 'Y' - in a letter Barrett is sending to Doreen Montgomery, and he thinks he's seen it in the scrapbook"

This is what supposedly caused Gray to think that the diary is in Mike's handwriting and Mike says "fifty fifty".

But according to Inside Story by Linder, Morris, and Skinner(p.152) it was something very different that prompted Gray's thoughts:

"Gray saw the name 'Dorothy Wright' which Barrett had written on the tape of an interview he conducted with the clairvoyant for Celebrity Magazine."

So, which was it?

Mike writing a letter to Doreen or the labelling of a cassette tape? It can't have been both. Someone - either Tom or the authors of Inside Story - must be confused.

In Inside Story, Gray is then quoted saying "By Christ, I've seen that Y somewhere else... I've seen that in the Ripper diary manuscript, have I?"

The difference may be important because Gray might have been wrong in assuming that Mike had labelled the cassette tape. Perhaps it was Anne?

Either way, someone has messed up, and this admirably demonstrates why the readers of this forum can't just rely on someone else to interpret the tapes. We need to listen ourselves.

And while it could be that Mike was lying when he said "fifty-fifty", it's not entirely clear that he was directing his mind to the handwriting. He might have been responding to Gray's comment "You said Anne did it" by explaining that the entire forgery project was fifty fifty between himself and Anne. This, after all, was a common theme of Barrett's--the 'I wrote it but Anne wrote it'--and if he was a bit drunk and not really listening, who knows what road his brain was going down?

Tom has inadvertently highlighted why we need to listen to the tape ourselves to see if we can work it out. He gives short quotes without any proper context. When Gray said "You're still saying it's all her handwriting?" what was he referring back to? An earlier conversation? Or something else?

Keith seems to have totally lost sight of the reason why the tapes need to be released. It's got nothing to do with the tapes conclusively proving that Mike and Anne created the diary (or did not do so). It's all about trying to work out why Mike's affidavit, obviously drafted by Gray, contains the errors that it does. Also, to see if Mike ever mentioned creating the diary after 9th March 1992.

[caz]

Was Barrett a scholar of the Maybrick case, or are we to believe that this was just another lucky guess by Mike?

Just like it was a lucky guess that the art shop that he pointed out to Harold Brough did, in fact, sell an iron gall manuscript ink with trace amounts of chloracetamide?

In either instance, Barrett could have fallen flat on his face. He didn't. And you have no explanation for it.

In what way did Barrett not fall 'flat on his face', when trying to claim he was a literary hoaxer in addition to being a thief, a liar and a con man? Who actually believes his claims, apart from a couple of keyboard warriors who have a psychological need to be right, and a handful of one-liner merchants who don't demonstrate a single original thought on the matter?

Where is the explanation for Mike's inability to give a single credible account or order of events for how and when the scrapbook was turned into the diary?

If you could just give me one incontrovertible fact that would allow me to abandon my belief in a modern hoax out of Goldie Street I would be happy to do so, but in 15+ years you still haven't presented one...

That's the thing about 'belief'. Billions never allow themselves to abandon their belief in God, to take the most obvious example, no matter what facts they are presented with. Why would it be any different for anyone whose belief in Mike Barrett Almighty borders on religious faith?

We've been told Anne was 'free and clear' of Mike and had been for months. She was refusing her royalty checks, we are told. Her story all along was that Mike got the diary from a man he knew from the pub--it would have been a minor admission to say that she wasn't sure if this man was Tony Devereux or someone else.

Instead, she sends everyone on a wild goose chase for years.

You have no explanation for her behavior, Ike, which is why you so obviously dance all around it and never take the bull by the horns.

Well now. Palmer doesn't have a bull to take by the horns, but he does have Anne Graham to run his theory past and take to task.

Perhaps Palmer could ask her why she felt secure enough to tell an unprovable story of her own, knowing that Mike could prove his was true, simply by waving the blasted auction ticket in Harold Brough's face.

Or is Palmer's latest theory that Anne made two correct predictions in this context: firstly that Mike would be unable to find the ticket because he had become a scatterbrained drunk; and secondly that when he found it again five years down the line, he wouldn't dare produce it anyway for fear of being arrested?

[Iconoclast]

But according to Inside Story by Linder, Morris, and Skinner(p.152) it was something very different that prompted Gray's thoughts:

"Gray saw the name 'Dorothy Wright' which Barrett had written on the tape of an interview he conducted with the clairvoyant for Celebrity Magazine."

So, which was it?

According to my records, Seth Linder (who apparently led on the final write-up of Inside Story) originally stated in his notes that Gray saw the "Y" in a letter Barrett had written (or was writing?) to Doreen Montgomery. As you note (and as I had also noted had I read my own notes further), it was then published as a "Y" on a tape bearing an interview with Dorothy Wright (now there's a piece of evidence I'd love to hear). I could email Seth but - honestly - I don't see that the difference makes much of a difference. It's all very moot, despite your typical suggestions to the contrary, as the point that I was making was that that was all it took for Gray to be mesmerised and intoxicated by the thought of the riches to come his way in revealing the hoax.

Either way, someone has messed up, and this admirably demonstrates why the readers of this forum can't just rely on someone else to interpret the tapes. We need to listen ourselves.

Shame you threw them out/gave them to a friend/your dog ate them, then, RJ.

And while it could be that Mike was lying when he said "fifty-fifty", it's not entirely clear that he was directing his mind to the handwriting. He might have been responding to Gray's comment "You said Anne did it" by explaining that the entire forgery project was fifty fifty between himself and Anne. This, after all, was a common theme of Barrett's--the 'I wrote it but Anne wrote it'--and if he was a bit drunk and not really listening, who knows what road his brain was going down?

Whilst I would be the first to give Barrett credit for the possibility that his brain was elsewhere when he spoke (context is everything), the passage was clear that he was responding to Gray's question about the handwriting. It was more of a "Hold on, if it's your "Y", how come you said Anne did all the handwriting".

... we need to listen to the tape ourselves to see if we can work it out.

Shame you threw your copies away, then, isn't it, RJ? Slightly reckless, I'd say ...

When Gray said "You're still saying it's all her handwriting?" what was he referring back to? An earlier conversation? Or something else?

Objection, m'Lud - asked and answered.

Keith seems to have totally lost sight of the reason why the tapes need to be released. It's got nothing to do with the tapes conclusively proving that Mike and Anne created the diary (or did not do so). It's all about trying to work out why Mike's affidavit, obviously drafted by Gray, contains the errors that it does. Also, to see if Mike ever mentioned creating the diary after 9th March 1992.

I get the sneaking feeling that Keith will not release the tapes because he knows exactly what sort of mudslide would follow, Muddy. Maybe if you and His Dark Presence were less inclined to dig deep for any possible misinterpretation possible which might somehow, tenuously, favour their Barrett Hoax Theory, Keith might be more inclined to give you back what you threw away (in more senses than one).

PS Before you ask again, I don't have the original tape for the "Y" moment - and have had to rely on what Seth noted for his own records.

[Iconoclast]

Who actually believes his claims, apart from a couple of keyboard warriors who have a psychological need to be right, and a handful of one-liner merchants who don't demonstrate a single original thought on the matter?

Now that was priceless, Caz!

[rjpalmer]

I could email Seth but - honestly - I don't see that the difference makes much of a difference.

There you have it, folks.

Tom Mitchell gives a curiously different account from what the authors of Inside Story gave us, yet "I don't see that the difference makes much of a difference."

Accuracy, detail, nuance, context--it makes no difference. It makes no difference that you can't hear the tapes--and don't mind the contraditions.

And this is the bloke chosen to be our gatekeeper to the Gray/Barrett tapes.

Hard pass, Ike.