One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

That's as close to an apology as you are going to get.

It's not an apology as well you know, but nobody was expecting anything otherwise.

[Iconoclast]

By the way, Ike, I sent you a PM.

Orsam reads this so I shan't bother with a response on the PM.

You'll all recall that I was accused by Palmer of lying when I said that I would have (and still will) accept as proof of a hoax an auction receipt. Here's what I said in #9993: "if Mike Barrett had provided any receipt whatsoever from Outhwaite & Litherland for anything at all that he had purchased there since early 1990, and assuming the items were not listed (or else they were listed and they clearly stated 'Victorian scrapbook' or some such identifier), then I would be satisfied that this was evidence that backed-up his hoax claims". This was the truth and I stand by it.

Palmer then blatantly accused me of lying so I qualified my comment in #9997 by saying: "If an auction ticket had been produced and Outhwaite & Litherland had validated it as one of theirs, I'd have accepted that as game up."

I added the "and Outhwaite & Litherland had validated it as one of theirs" because with Orsam and Palmer you have to be incredibly pedantic in how you phrase things because they are always on the look-out for a misunderstanding they can make mileage out of - in this case, it occurred to me that I could not be expected to simply accept any 'auction' ticket that someone might have mocked-up so I qualified that it needed to be validated by O&L (but - in reality - I meant validated by which ever auction house it was claimed to have originated from). I don't think that's an unreasonable or demanding expectation. You just ask the auction house, "Can you validate this is a [company name] receipt". Nothing more complicated than that.

But there's a deep unpleasantness in the mind set of these two people where they just can never ever ever be wrong (on any point) and they are always looking for an angle to find a problem which doesn't exist or a contradiction which no-one else can see.

So Orsam - who I can't quote - used my request for a "validation" as a sort of "Look how quickly you shifted the goalposts" moment and therefore iterated their now joint case for my claimed mendacity. Christ, man, I hadn't even had a chance to see an auction ticket before I was accused of moving the goalposts!

It's a shame, it really is, because I have always sought to be reasonable with these two characters but it's clear that that is not on their agenda (and it's some agenda).

Palmer, please don't PM me again.

[rjpalmer]

It's a shame, it really is, because I have always sought to be reasonable with these two characters

Yes, you've been entirely reasonable with Mr. Muddy Mud, Orsam's Clown car, etc. etc. as you have misrepresented the opinions of your opponents for years.

I'm happy to make this the end of the road, Thomas, but I'm not going to lie. I don't believe that Barrett waving a generic auction ticket from 1990 would have convinced you or anyone else who is Diary friendly.

It's actually something of a compliment, because it certainly wouldn't have convinced me. The obvious implication of Barrett's affidavit, as well as his '11 day' claim is that the photo album was purchased after the maroon diary, which documentation dates to March 1992. I've been consistently about this for many years.


If it was me, and Barrett waved around a "miscellaneous" ticket from 1990, I'd have been skeptical and might well have just assume that he had found an old auction stub from the previous owner of the Goldie Street house, P. Williams. A 1990 date would have seriously undermined my own suspicions about how and when the hoax was created, and why Barrett had contacted Martin Earl.

But to each their own. I've said all I'm saying on the matter.

[StevenOwl]

I'm happy to make this the end of the road...

But to each their own. I've said all I'm saying on the matter.

See you tomorrow...

[Iconoclast]

What actually happened on March 9, 1992? That’s the biggest question of all in the long-running James Maybrick debate.

I have in my mind a fairly clear view of how Michael Barrett came to possess the Maybrick scrapbook with Jack the Ripper’s confession inside it. The overwhelming clue is in the known circumstances of March 9, 1992. On that day, what could in theory have started as a truly monumental coincidence in short time fashioned itself into a rather obvious pair of events which led one from the other. The evidence points overwhelmingly to the ‘double event’ of March 9, 1992, being a pair of linked events rather than a mind-blowingly implausible coincidence of events.

Event 1. On the morning of March 9, 1992, electricians from Portus & Rhodes were at work lifting the floorboards of James Maybrick’s last home before he died on May 11, 1889. This was the first time on the record that the floorboards in Battlecrease House had been lifted since his death. Some 37,000 days had passed since Maybrick had died and – finally – there was a record of his floorboards coming up.

Event 2. On the same day, in the early afternoon, Rupert Crew Ltd (a literary agency) received a ‘phone call from a ‘Mike Williams’ saying that he thought he had a record of the thoughts of Jack the Ripper (supposedly written by James Maybrick as it turned out) and were they interested in seeing it.

Two events, probably separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles, somehow came together (in the right order) on one day, some 37,000 days after they first could have occurred (either separately or together). On the surface, this would have to constitute the most spectacular coincidence in the history of chance events. Before we could conclude that much, however, our investigator, the aristocratic and brilliant but recklessly maverick (bending all the rules but always getting the job done) statistician Count Itup would need to just check a few of the facts. Let’s imagine he interviewed brilliant observer-of-things-with-a-scrupulously-honest-eye, Mr. Ike Iconoclast who just happened to also be a complete know-it-all. How would that interview proceed (skipping the nice bits at the start where they talk about football and tea)? I think it would have gone somewhat as follows:

Iconoclast: So, what do you need from me?
Count Itup: Well, as I said, I’m Count Itup from the Department of Official Coincidences, and I’m just looking to validate a remarkable chance event the department has just been informed about which apparently occurred on Monday this week.
Iconoclast: Ah, I imagine you’re referring to the remarkable ‘double event’, yes?
Count Itup: Yes, I am. So, can you tell me about the two events in question, please?
Iconoclast: I can indeed. The first event happened during the early morning of last Monday – March 9, 1992. A team of electricians from Portus & Rhodes Ltd. were working in 7 Riversdale Road, Aigburgh, in Liverpool.
Count Itup: Okay. And what else can you tell me about the house?
Iconoclast: Well, a hundred years ago, the occupants were James and Florence Maybrick and they called it Battlecrease House.
Count Itup: And was there anything notable about that?
Iconoclast: Well, she was imprisoned for his murder – she apparently poisoned him with arsenic which was rather ironic.
Count Itup: How so?
Iconoclast: Well, apparently, he was addicted to arsenic.
Count Itup: That is ironic. Anything else I should know about? How many electricians were there?
Iconoclast: One there all day, another there for a few hours, and a couple of guys sent down there to help out.
Count Itup: And where was Portus & Rhodes located?
Iconoclast: Nearby. Maybe five minutes’ drive away or something like that.
Count Itup: And the electricians – they were local to Portus & Rhodes?
Iconoclast: No, they came from all over the Merseyside area.
Count Itup: Okay. Is that about it?
Iconoclast: I’d say so, yeah.
Count Itup: So tell me about the second event that day.
Iconoclast: Well, that afternoon a literary agency …
Count Itup: A literary agency? In Liverpool? Another irony!
Iconoclast: No, in London. A literary agency in London received a call from a guy calling himself ‘Mike Williams’ - though it turned out that wasn’t his name - and he said that he thought he had the diary of Jack the Ripper and were they interested in seeing it.
Count Itup: So what’s the coincidence?
Iconoclast: Apparently it was written by James Maybrick.
Count Itup: Now, that is quite a coincidence indeed! Very impressive, sir. Maybrick dies 103 years ago and finally – after, what, thirty-odd thousand days later - his floorboards come up and then later that day someone claims to have James Maybrick’s Jack the Ripper confession? Good work, Mr. Iconoclast, glad you called this one in - the department would definitely Code Purple that one, I’d say, and we’ve been short of Code Purples for quite a while now!
Iconoclast: That’s great to hear – that’s why I called you guys. Do I get my Code Purple Coincidence Reporting Supplement now? How do I claim it?
Count Itup: Well, steady on there, Tiger, I need to actually validate it was a Code Purple first.
Iconoclast: Well, what could you possibly need to know, it was obviously an amazing coincidence, right?
Count Itup: Certainly sounds like one, but I just have to ask for a few more details.
Iconoclast: Like what?
Count Itup: Well, for starters, I’m taking it as read that this ‘Williams’ character was ringing from, like, Singapore or Japan or California or Australia, yes?
Iconoclast: Why does that matter?
Count Itup: Well, it’s only a coincidence if there’s no link between the two things so I’m assuming this ‘Williams’ guy was ringing-in from many hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the first event, yes?
Iconoclast: Er, no.
Count Itup: No? So was he ringing from nearby, like Europe or Scandinavia or somewhere like that, maybe a few hundred miles away from Battlecrease House?
Iconoclast: Er … no … listen, could I just get my chitty for my Code Purple Coincidence Reporting Supplement? I’m kind of in a hurry.
Count Itup: All in good time, sir. Now, he wasn’t ringing from hundreds or thousands of miles away, so was he ringing from, say, the UK?
Iconoclast: Yes.
Count Itup: Oh.
Iconoclast: Why ‘Oh’?
Count Itup: Well, it’s starting to sound a bit like a Code Green Coincidence to me, to be honest.
Iconoclast: A Code Green?
Count Itup: A Code Green, yes. We get quite a few of those.
Iconoclast: Is there a chitty for that one?
Count Itup: There is, but it’s obviously not quite as generous. The team might not even go to the pub for a Code Green. We might just get a cake or something – have it in the office with a can of beer or a glass of wine. A short speech then home, you know what I mean?
Iconoclast: Oh, that’s not so good.
Count Itup: Well, look, we might yet to able to salvage this one. Where was he actually ringing from? Shetland? Orkney? Inverness? Aberdeen? The further away the better, sir, obviously.
Iconoclast: Er, no. I think he tried to reverse the charges, though!
Count Itup: He could have done that from anywhere, unfortunately. Did the line crackle?
Iconoclast: I don’t know.
Count Itup: Shame, that would have helped. So was it Dublin? Belfast? Swansea, maybe? Southampton? Norwich? Canterbury? It really needs to be a hell of a long way away from the first event to be a proper Code Purple, so where did the call come from?
Iconoclast: Well, to be honest, it came from the north-west.
Count Itup: The north-west? Oh dear, that’s not so good. Like Manchester or Carlisle or maybe Workington?
Iconoclast: No. Look, it was from Liverpool.
Count Itup: From Liverpool? The same city as the first event occurred in?
Iconoclast: Yes.
Count Itup: That’s bad. That’s really bad news. That’s a Code Green, mate, you’ve got there, maybe even worse, maybe a common or garden Code Amber, it’s that bad. I appreciate it’s hard for a layman to detect the difference, but that’s not a Code Purple, I’m afraid.
Iconoclast: But Liverpool’s massive!
Count Itup: It is, that’s true, but it’s not Code Purple massive. We have strict guidelines on these things. My coincidence meter here is already dropping heavily. So the second event could have happened anywhere in the entire world but it happened in the same city as the first event? That’s a really bad break, man.
Iconoclast: I did wonder, if I’m honest.
Count Itup: Did you tell the dispatcher this before they sent out the emergency coincidence vehicle?
Iconoclast: No, I didn’t think it was relevant.
Count Itup: Well, it is. They really need to ask more questions. Sliding down that pole at my age is not good for the wedding tackle, sir. And I ain’t married yet. I don’t think this was an emergency call-out. They could have sent a rookie out in a week or two.
Iconoclast: Really? Surely it’s still a massive coincidence?
Count Itup: Not a ‘massive’ one, sir, no.
Iconoclast: Is there any way to check?
Count Itup: Well, look, I’ll agree with you that Liverpool is a big city so I could potentially squeeze you a Code Green out here.
Iconoclast: Okay. Let’s do that.
Count Itup: Well, hold on, before I write this one up as a Code Green, I need to find out a bit more.
Iconoclast: Like what?
Count Itup: Like where in Liverpool did the ‘phone call come from?
Iconoclast: It came from Goldie Street in Anfield. That’s about eight miles north of Riversdale Road.
Count Itup: Okay, that’s better. The meter’s clocked that one straight away, eight miles, eh? At least it wasn’t like a few streets or anything!
Iconoclast: Er, no.
Count Itup: So did any of the Portus & Rhodes team live anywhere near Anfield? Just checking, sir, as these questions will be asked back at the office if I award a Code Green Coincidence Supplement. I assume they live in Cheshire or the Wirral or maybe further north-east, yes?
Iconoclast: Well, one of them does live in Fountains Road …
Count Itup: What was that, sir? I didn’t catch that, you spoke so quietly all of a sudden.
Iconoclast: One of them lives in Fountain Road.
Count Itup: Fountains Road? Where’s that?
Iconoclast: It’s about a twenty-minute walk from where the guy lives who made the call.
Count Itup: Say again? Can you speak up, sir? Are you okay, I can hardly hear you?
Iconoclast: I said that it’s about a twenty-minute walk from where the guy lives who made the call.
Count Itup: Are you shitting me, sir? Pardon my French, but are you jerking my chain? One of the electricians lives twenty minutes’ walk away from the guy who made the call and you’re calling that in as a Code Purple?
Iconoclast: I didn’t tell the guy it was a Code Purple.
Count Itup: The guy who could have lived anywhere in the world lives just twenty minutes’ walk away from the guy who was under the floorboards that very morning? Seriously, sir, I’d be lucky to make a Code Amber out of this one.
Iconoclast: Really?
Count Itup: Really, sir. The only saving grace is that twenty minutes’ walk is at least not on top of each other. It would still take some kind of a coincidence – barely a Code Amber, more likely a Code Red.
Iconoclast: Maybe a Code Puce?
Count Itup: We don’t have a Code Puce, sir.
Iconoclast: That’s a shame.
Count Itup: Anyway, I think you’re thinking of a Code Vermilion.
Iconoclast: Am I? Is there one of those?
Count Itup: No, there’s not.
Iconoclast: Oh.
Count Itup: Look, sir, you’re looking at a Code Amber Third Grade (Questionable Validity) here, I’m afraid. It’s only not an obvious Code Red because of the twenty minutes’ walk, but is there anything else you haven’t told me that could shorten that distance?
Iconoclast: Like what?
Count Itup: Like, did they know each other?
Iconoclast: No, I don’t think they knew each other.
Count Itup: Well, that’s something, at least.
Iconoclast: Look – full disclosure here – I think they both drink In The Saddle Inn.
Count Itup: You think they drink in the same pub?
Iconoclast: I think so.
Count Itup: You think so?
Iconoclast: Well, I know so.
Count Itup: You know so? Where is it?
Iconoclast: It’s in Fountains Road too.
Count Itup: What’s Barrett doing there? Doesn’t sound like a local for him to me.
Iconoclast: Apparently, he goes in most weekdays on his way to pick his daughter up from school ‘round the corner from the pub.
Count Itup: So, let me get this straight. The bloke who ‘phoned the literary agency in London using a false name who could have been calling from absolutely anywhere in the entire world could in fact have been ringing from a public phone in a pub sitting right next to one of the guys who were under the floorboards that morning in James Maybrick’s old house? Is that about it?
Iconoclast: That’s about it. Any chance of a Code Amber chitty, mate, I really need it.
Count Itup: A Code Amber? That’s not even a Code Red, mate! You should be grateful it’s late on a Friday afternoon ‘cos I’ve got to get off to my Counting Bricks Class at the tech tonight, otherwise I’d be bringing you in on a Wasted Emergency Coincidence Call-Out Charge.
Iconoclast: Really?
Count Itup: Yes, really! Do you know how many false coincidences we get calls about every day? It’s a national disgrace. All I can say to you, sir, is that I hope your elderly mother is never in need of an emergency coincidence vehicle because they might all be out on inappropriate cases like this one.
Iconoclast: Okay, fair enough. Honestly, I didn’t think.
Count Itup: No, they never do.
Iconoclast: I wasn’t meaning to waste your time.
Count Itup: No, I don’t suppose you were, but surely you can see how that’s just not worthy of an emergency call?
Iconoclast: Yes, yes, now you mention it, I see exactly what you’re saying.
Count Itup: It isn’t even worth a letter, mate. You’d be better off keeping the stamp.
Iconoclast: Right. That’s a shame. Sorry again.
Count Itup: I’ll be off, then – those bricks won’t count themselves, will they?
Iconoclast: No, they won’t.
Count Itup: But before I go, can you just confirm that Jack the Ripper was a bloke called James Maybrick from Liverpool?
Iconoclast: Looks that way, I guess, yes.
Count Itup: Any idea where the nearest bookies is around here?

So, it turns out that the ‘double event’ may not have been the coincidence we have all been told it was. Looking back, I guess we should have realised when we were informed it wasn’t actually even that unlikely a coincidence. Thinking about it, how often do people’s floorboards get lifted up in the morning for the first time in 103 years and then in the afternoon someone using a false name and drinking in the same pub as one of the workmen fully eight miles away claims they have the diary of the world’s most infamous serial killer which apparently was written by the guy whose floorboards came up a few hours earlier?

I wonder what the bookies would say?

[Scott Nelson]

Ike, didn't Eddie Lyons or any of the other PR electricians deny having found the diary on March 9, 1992?

[Iconoclast]

Ike, didn't Eddie Lyons or any of the other PR electricians deny having found the diary on March 9, 1992?

Oh, absolutely, Scotty, when speaking about their own actions, though it was slightly different when they were talking about the actions - or putative actions - of each other.

There is no direct and irrefutable evidence that Eddie Lyons or any other members of the Portus & Rhodes team stole anything - and that's not necessarily surprising, but there is certainly tantalising suggestions that something of that nature may have occurred.

If you're talking about what we know for certain, then no member of the team admitted to finding anything themselves. IIRC!

Ike

[caz]

If you're talking about what we know for certain, then no member of the team admitted to finding anything themselves. IIRC!

Ike

Hi Ike,

Well, Robert Smith knows for certain that in June 1993, while in the Saddle with Mike Barrett, Eddie Lyons came in and told him that he had found a book while working in Paul Dodd's house and threw it in a skip.

Why Eddie would have volunteered such an odd story to the diary's publisher, in Mike's presence, if he never found or removed anything while he was at the house in March or July 1992, is anyone's guess.

But there is a second independent witness, Brian Rawes, who told the police in October 1993 that when picking up the firm's van from Dodd's house in July 1992, Eddie mentioned to him in the driveway that he had found a diary which could be important. At that time, Mike Barrett and Robert Smith were actively involved with negotiating a publishing deal for the Battecrease diary.

I haven't yet come across a simple or logical explanation for both Robert Smith and Brian Rawes inventing a similar conversation with Eddie [I got the v and the s the right way round this time! ], so what the hell was going on here?

Answers on a saucy postcard...

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The blindingly obvious error of Brexit was to assume that it wouldn't be voted for, thereby lazily agreeing a first-past-the-post vote would be honoured (because the assumption was that the Remain vote would win). If you are debating something which cannot be in any way easily corrected if it goes wrong, you need your outcome to be unequivocal. Random sampling error (and plebiscites are random because in practice the whole population does not vote) will produce marginal differences every time the same vote occurred. If the plebiscite took place every day for a month, there would be 30 (it was June, after all) different outcomes because each vote would consist of a different sample of the population (not everyone who voted on June 1 would be able to vote every day). Some of those outcomes may have favoured Leave but the vast majority may have favoured Remain. We'll never actually know if the vote we got was just one well within one standard deviation of the mean (where most results sit in a normal distribution curve of outcomes), but what we can say is that 52% Leave could easily have been a random outcome in a sample that could generally have produced Remain votes.

For example, let's say every day that month except June 23 was brilliant sunshine so for every day bar one, the British public got their hankies onto the top of their heads, rolled up their trouser legs, and trooped off to vote Remain primarily 'cos "this feels like Spain!" and it felt great.

But let's imagine that on June 23 - the day of the actual plebiscite - it pissed down the whole day and the wind blew a hoolie so all the Remain voters thought, "This feels like Manchester, I'm not going out to vote and it doesn't matter anyway 'cos everyone knows Remain is going to win and what difference will my little old, wet, vote make?" and you have a whole bunch of motivated Leavers pouring out into the streets 'cos they know every single vote really does count (collectively). What do you get that one day in 30? You get the possibility of a sufficient 'swing' to Leave to hit one vote over 50% or just a little more even though statistically speaking you'd have generally got a decent Remain majority. That's what statistics can do - if you don't set the threshold for "Leave" high enough, you run the risk of a Type I error (and you accept "Leave" instead of "Remain"). If the threshold for Leave had been, say, 60%, I think we'd still be eating mange tout and the French could do absolutely haw-hee-haw about it.

At just 52% Leave, we have no way of knowing if that's actually what the British public wanted that day only that that is what the British public who voted that day wanted. If we'd had 60% Leave, I think we could all have accepted that that was what the majority of the British people truly wanted. The first-past-the-post principle was madness for such a monumental moment in British history.

Remind me, what was the weather like on June 23, 2016?

I think the weather must have been reasonably settled here in East Devon, Ike, because Mister Brown and I wheeled his mother down to vote, and we all voted to remain. A lost cause where we live, unfortunately, but we did our best. Ma-in-law said she was voting Remain, not for herself, because she was in her eighties and her own freedom of movement was already severely impaired due to nobody's fault, but for the younger generations and their freedom of movement, which was in the balance due to the shortsighted idiocy of others. Sadly, she passed away the following February, along with many other octogenarians who may not have been so selfless.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I don't know how many more times I have to present a reasonable alternative to your (and the Dark Lord's) closed-minded view on this.

Here's the scenario:

Barrett's got this gold-dust Victorian scrapbook in his hand and he doesn't want to lose it so he's going to put some steps in place to try to protect it. He knows in his heart of hearts that's it's utterly hookey so he thinks that someone (he doesn't know who, obviously) might come knocking on his door wanting it back. Are you getting it so far?

So he needs a document that resembles the one he has in his hands. It doesn't have to be a perfect match. It just needs to be something he can say "Here's the document I got the other day" if someone in authority (such as the polis) come asking.

So he seeks a genuine 1880-1890 diary and he seeks sufficient blank pages so that when the complainant says "Mine had several blank pages at the end" Mike can say "And so does mine, just like you said".

I think that that adequately deals with him asking for a diary from 1890 when James Maybrick was dead a year which is something Orsam and yourself have stumbled very badly over (having to resort to the truly tenuous argument that Mike's request for a 'diary' was because he actually expected a 'notebook' which is apparently what you believe we all would expect to receive having made such a clear and specific request).

Now, then, who's interpretation is the most believable here and who's the most facile?

I leave it to my dear readers to decide ...

If Palmer actually believes that Mike may have told Anne that they were going to create a sales gimmick to house her fictional take on the Ripper and Maybrick cases, it would not be a million miles away from Mike bringing the diary home in March 1992 in suspicious circs, and being strongly advised by Anne not to show it to anyone, but to write a story based on it - at which point Mike has the bright idea to get himself a genuine Victorian diary to house this 'story' and use it - drum roll - as a sales gimmick!

Any objections to me pinching Palmer's sales gimmick and designing one of my own?

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

Well, Robert Smith knows for certain that in June 1993, while in the Saddle with Mike Barrett, Eddie Lyons came in and told him that he had found a book while working in Paul Dodd's house and threw it in a skip.

Why Eddie would have volunteered such an odd story to the diary's publisher, in Mike's presence, if he never found or removed anything while he was at the house in March or July 1992, is anyone's guess.

But there is a second independent witness, Brian Rawes, who told the police in October 1993 that when picking up the firm's van from Dodd's house in July 1992, Eddie mentioned to him in the driveway that he had found a diary which could be important. At that time, Mike Barrett and Robert Smith were actively involved with negotiating a publishing deal for the Battecrease diary.

Hi Caroline,

This seems to imply that Lyons found something important in Dodd's house in July 1992, not the previous March. And if he did, who pulled the "book" out of the skip? Could the little maroon diary have been a purchased later to say that was what was recovered from the skip?

[rjpalmer]

Oh, it's a 'memo' book now, is it? .

I suggest you take it up with Keith Skinner.

He described it as an "1891 De La Rue's Indelible Diary and Memorandum Book."

Considering its tiny size, it's obviously more suitable for writing memos than diary entries, so yes, I call it a memo book.

[rjpalmer]

And if he did, who pulled the "book" out of the skip? Could the little maroon diary have been a purchased later to say that was what was recovered from the skip?

There was no skip at the job site. Source: the house's owner, Paul Dodd, as told to Chris Jones. Installing a few heaters doesn't require a skip for demolition. The job was too small.

So, if Eddie had a vague memory of something being tossed in a skip, it was from some other job site and he's confusing things. Portus & Rhodes did residential wiring, obviously, and these blokes were probably at dozens of different job sites in a year's time.

[Scott Nelson]

So RJ, they had nothing to do with floorboards being lifted at the house (at any time?)

[rjpalmer]

So RJ, they had nothing to do with floorboards being lifted at the house (at any time?)

Hi Scott.

That's a different question, but I've seen no direct evidence of it.

According to Shirley Harrison (p. 292 The American Connection) "Paul [Dodd] had again done the initial preparation himself."

What could this 'initial preparation' mean other than moving the furniture, taking up the carpeting, and removing the heavy floorboards so the work would be ready for the electricians when they arrived?

There's a post on here somewhere that quotes or paraphrases one of the electricians (a helper of the main guy) remembering that the floorboards were already lifted when he showed up.

Doesn't it make sense? Why pay expensive electricians to do 'grunt work' that you could do yourself? When my father had some wiring done when I was a kid, he did absolutely everything he could do himself, so the electrical contractor could be in and out of the house as quickly as possible, thereby saving him quite a nice bundle of cash. The contractor was charging by the hour.

It keeps being stated that the floorboards were lifted on 9 March, and this could be true, but this appears to be based largely on a reference to "floorboard protectors" on a bill, and it doesn't sound to me that floorboard protectors are for lifting floorboards.

Meanwhile, doesn't it bother you that Eddie is remembering a book being thrown out of a window into a skip, when Dodd tell us there was no skip? If he's wrong about such an important detail, why accept the story at all?