One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

Bruce sidesteps the issue, doesn't he?
He doesn't think James Maybrick wrote it, but I don't remember him ever saying the murderer wrote it, either. So, at best, it's half fake.
Anyway, it was a dirty trick for Robinson to have named Michael Maybrick.
All those devout people, all over the world, singing 'Jerusalem! Jerusalem!' with tears in their eyes and now there's always some smart aleck kid in the back pew giggling "Jack the Ripper wrote that!"

As I recall, he made his original statement before he had researched the possibility of Michael having been the fiend so I always assumed that he was erring on the side of "It's too good to be a fake" when he said it. For the record, I thought his book was mesmerising in its detail (I particularly appreciated his references to 'wet weekends') and his obvious literary creativity; but I didn't yield away from James even when some of the evidence seemed compelling (for example, where he was 'gigging' when certain Ripper letters were sent which did seem unlikely as the number of them grew).

Ultimately, I was just very surprised when he came out for Michael over James. If you are going to argue for authenticity through James or possibly half-authenticity through Michael, I just didn't then see (nor see now) why you would err on the more complicated version of the two authenticities.

It's an interesting question for both Bruce (and perhaps Keith who clearly spent a great deal of time debating and researching with Bruce over something like ten years or something): What was the turning point (if there was one) which moved Bruce's views away from "It's too good to be a fake" and towards "but it's too good for James therefore it must have been Michael)". I have obviously simplified the question horrendously, but hopefully the spirit of my enquiry is clear.

Ike

[caz]

This claim - that if the scrapbook were genuine it would come with a bit more literary merit - always makes me laugh, then absolutely fume when I count the idiots who sign-up willingingly to it.

How am I doing on my colour scheme prediction, by the way, Caz?

It's a bit like those idiots who say, "If it was Jack's diary, it would be far more structured, have dates, maybe even the odd emoji, with loads of life events and murder details" - like Jack Ripper (or even James Maybrick) called Shirley Harrison's original book "The Diary of Jack the Spratt McVitie"! (It was publisher Robert Smith if anyone's still in any doubt.)

So well done on nailing this stupidity firmly to a burning fence, Caz. If James Maybrick were a sort of early-day James Joyce (ask your grandparents, kids), he'd have been off spraffling Pinot with the arties down his local art gallery or wherever arties hang out, talking about "the depth of the wanderlust of the artist as a spirit of nature" or some such shite like that not sticking it large in a company scrapbook with his artisan voice and slipshod blade work.

Just my opinion, naturally, but - let's face it - I'm generally right.

Ike
A Colour Palette of Insight

Actually, Ike, it was Mike Barrett who first referred to this questioned document as Jack the Ripper's "diary", when he phoned Doreen's office, claiming to own it.

Now, the terminally suspicious mind will see this as a sure sign that Mike was planning to fake James Maybrick's diary, from the family's move to Battlecrease in February 1888 until a few days before his untimely death in May 1889.

Others might be able to imagine Mike seeing the "old book" for the first time, flicking through the pages of handwriting before finally coming to the name and date on the last one and thinking to himself: "Good Christ! If this is actually Jack the bloody Ripper's bloody diary, I don't just want a piece of it - I want the whole bloody lot, and I want it now!"

One consideration that rarely gets addressed is the fact that there is no mention on record of James Maybrick, in connection with Jack the Ripper's diary, until after 13th April 1992, when it is first seen in London. This gives Mike plenty of time to identify "Jack" from the internal clues if he has no idea on 9th March who might have written this "diary", or even if they might be identifiable as a real person. The bogeyman could so easily have come straight from the writer's imagination, with nobody specific in mind, before the words Battlecrease, Michael, Gladys and Bunny led to the revelation of who 'Sir Jim' was meant to be.

The Battlecrease provenance only survives because of the absence of anything concrete to demolish it and, naturally, if Mike had only whispered the name "James Maybrick" in Doreen's shell-like on that first afternoon, it would have gone an awfully long way to rule out the possibility that he'd only just seen the guard book.

Any evidence of this same guard book being elsewhere when Mike phoned Doreen on 9th March, and turning up in an auction sale on 31st, would have done the job just as well.

The question that lingers is what made Mike decide to phone Doreen on that day, to say he had "Jack the Ripper's diary"?

If the text of James Maybrick's diary was sitting on Mike's word processor ready to go, as soon as he could locate a "diary" from the 1880s to house it, what was it about Monday 9th March 1992, that had him reaching for the telephone and calling a London literary agency? What were the chances that on this day only, a Fountains Road resident, whose nearest pub was the Saddle [a documented fact, which Palmer has done his heroic best to call into question], could be placed at James Maybrick's old house, helping out on a job involving floorboards being raised on the first floor?

For those who don't believe Mike was suddenly overcome on that March afternoon, following his usual pint, with a paranormal blast from the past, telling him it was "now or never" to call someone about his Battlecrease Bugle, a more rational explanation might be a direct physical link between an electrician's small steps in that house and Mike's giant leap into the unknown on the same day.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

The question that lingers is what made Mike decide to phone Doreen on that day, to say he had "Jack the Ripper's diary"?

If the text of James Maybrick's diary was sitting on Mike's word processor ready to go, as soon as he could locate a "diary" from the 1880s to house it, what was it about Monday 9th March 1992, that had him reaching for the telephone and calling a London literary agency? What were the chances that on this day only, a Fountains Road resident, whose nearest pub was the Saddle [a documented fact, which Palmer has done his heroic best to call into question], could be placed at James Maybrick's old house, helping out on a job involving floorboards being raised on the first floor?

For those who don't believe Mike was suddenly overcome on that March afternoon, following his usual pint, with a paranormal blast from the past, telling him it was "now or never" to call someone about his Battlecrease Bugle, a more rational explanation might be a direct physical link between an electrician's small steps in that house and Mike's giant leap into the unknown on the same day.

Well Caroline, it could be that it was Eddie telling Mike that a diary found years earlier at the house (and which Mike had come to possess) was about James Maybrick. Eddie, having just been told this by a colleague at the house where floorboard-lifting again occurred on that March 9th. This latest renovation work may have reminded the colleague of the earlier finding and he told this to Eddie. Who figured out the story was about Maybrick is open to question, but my money would be on Devereux, into whose possession the 'book' eventually arrived. There could even be a possible connection between Tony and Eddie.

[erobitha]

Well Caroline, it could be that it was Eddie telling Mike that a diary found years earlier at the house (and which Mike had come to possess) was about James Maybrick. Eddie, having just been told this by a colleague at the house where floorboard-lifting again occurred on that March 9th. This latest renovation work may have reminded the colleague of the earlier finding and he told this to Eddie. Who figured out the story was about Maybrick is open to question, but my money would be on Devereux, into whose possession the 'book' eventually arrived. There could even be a possible connection between Tony and Eddie.

Hi Scott. So you think your theory is more likely than Eddie finding the book on the 9th March 1992 and Mike getting wind of this on the same day and phoning a literary agent in London?

[The Rookie Detective]

So, just a few questions...


Did Maybrick write the diary?

Was Maybrick a fantasist?

Is the diary genuine?

Is the diary a work or fiction?

Does the diary change anything?

Does the diary prove anything?

Was Maybrick the Ripper?


It's important to understand that the answers to these questions may not be the same.

Regardless of all the debate since this thread started back in 2008, and with over 10000 posts, the only important question from the list above is the last one.

Was Maybrick the Ripper?

Regardless of the answers to all the other questions, the only answer that is relevant to the Ripper case is whether Maybrick was the killer.

Whether he wrote the diary of not makes little difference in context to the murders.

The same concept can be applied to the many alleged Ripper letters and correspondences.


To paraphrase one of the greatest movie lines...

Point a finger up to the moon...but spend too much time looking at your finger, and you'll miss the moon in all it's heavenly glory.


RD

[caz]

Morning Rookie,

When we strip away all the individual claims and counterclaims, the speculation, expectation, assumption, opinion, conjecture, argument, wishful thinking and suspicion, which have surrounded the origins of this questioned document since 9th March 1992, we are left with not a single hard fact to tell us where the guard book was on that day; where it had been up until that day; and where it was between 9th March and 13th April, when it was seen for the first time on record.

You can read all the diary books as thoroughly as you like, but you will not find definitive answers to Paul Begg's original three questions:

Who wrote it?

When was it written?

Why was it written?

If anyone claiming to know the answers [Feldman, Harrison, Harris, Warren et al] could have proved it in print using the evidence alone, all the sound and fury accompanying their arguments over the decades, and being repeated today by others, would not have been required.

Be wary of anyone on either 'side' of the debate, who claims there are no unanswered questions left and no mystery.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

As a humble and light-hearted suggestion, if one wishes to call one's adversaries 'idiots,' perhaps avoid using willingingly in the same sentence.

For future reference, the red squiggly mark under a word during the composition stage is not an astral color vibration; it is a hint that the word is misspelled. Sometimes one might get a false positive, however, because the British don't yet know how to spell the American tongue properly.

As an aside, my understanding is that the Amstrad word processor didn't have spellcheck (alas!), but one could apparently buy supplemental software. Barrett was on a budget.

Here's another humble and light-hearted suggestion: when posting on the internet, correct spelling is no doubt important for one's general credibility, but typos can trip up any of us and often do.

When faking someone's private diary in the early 1990s, however, if you decide for some reason that their spelling must be perfect, your best bet would be to invest in a basic dictionary - if you can't borrow or steal one from your local library. If Mike's budget didn't run to buying one from W.H.Smith [and Anne didn't already own one, or didn't think they needed one], you have to wonder about the other expenses they did budget for, such as the guard book itself and the return train fares to London in April and June 1992. If Anne's father helped out with the cash, was it his budget that didn't run to a basic dictionary?

[The Rookie Detective]

Morning Rookie,

When we strip away all the individual claims and counterclaims, the speculation, expectation, assumption, opinion, conjecture, argument, wishful thinking and suspicion, which have surrounded the origins of this questioned document since 9th March 1992, we are left with not a single hard fact to tell us where the guard book was on that day; where it had been up until that day; and where it was between 9th March and 13th April, when it was seen for the first time on record.

You can read all the diary books as thoroughly as you like, but you will not find definitive answers to Paul Begg's original three questions:

Who wrote it?

When was it written?

Why was it written?

If anyone claiming to know the answers [Feldman, Harrison, Harris, Warren et al] could have proved it in print using the evidence alone, all the sound and fury accompanying their arguments over the decades, and being repeated today by others, would not have been required.

Be wary of anyone on either 'side' of the debate, who claims there are no unanswered questions left and no mystery.

Love,

Caz
X

Thank you kindly for your response Caz.

I agree with you regarding being wary of taking a stance on either side of the debate.

When I look at Maybrick as a potential suspect, I try to imagine how he fits in with the murders WITHOUT the diary.

If anything, it's the engraved watch that is more interesting as a potential piece of evidence.

If for a moment we consider Maybrick as a fantasist who wrote the diary and had his watch engraved, then it may be a case of those items being authentic, BUT Maybrick still wasn't the Ripper.

In other words, regardless of whether the watch and diary are proven to be authentic, it still doesn't prove he was the Ripper, and so on that basis, it's a rather fruitless task to use the diary as a primary source of evidence.

In a way, the idea that Maybrick was a fantasist, reminds me a little of Albert Bachert, a man who was obsessed with the Ripper case, and a person of interest himself.

I also find it slightly coincidental that Bachert was an Engraver.

Did Bachert engrave the watch?

Someone did.


RD

[Iconoclast]

Cazmo,

I don’t mean to sound pushy, but where’s the analysis of me colour scheme, lassie?

I assume I was way off but I’m intrigued to know what you see when you read the radiant glories of my inspiring prose!

Politely yours …

El Iko
Fearful only of blades (not bulls or bears)

[caz]

Afternoon El Iko,

Every word in your posts will have a different colour for each letter, and all the colours of the rainbow are not enough to describe what I see there.

Hope this helps!

All the arguments under the sun for the Barretts being capable of writing the diary will not make it so - and they rather miss the point. If anyone else on the planet wrote it, then the Barretts were no more 'capable' of having done so than Martin Fido. Only one person was physically and mentally capable, and that's the person who did it. The only exception would be if the guard book contains a verbatim handwritten copy of someone else's original - but the colour palette can only come from whoever put the words together. It doesn't matter how well Mike or anyone else thought they could mimic the language in the diary [and let's face it, it's not that hard to sound a bit like 'Sir Jim'] because the colours in the writing will not match. Similarly, if Anne had composed much of the text, I would have expected to see the diary colours running through all her other written work, but they are not there.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

So, just a few questions...
Did Maybrick write the diary? [Ike - Yes]
Was Maybrick a fantasist? [Ike - Who knows? Who cares?]
Is the diary genuine? [Ike - Yes]
Is the diary a work of fiction? [Ike - No]
Does the diary change anything? [Ike - No, it changes everything]
Does the diary prove anything?[Ike - Yes, assuming Ripperologists are intrigued to know who Jack the Ripper actually was (it's top question on my list for St. Peter, by the way)]
Was Maybrick the Ripper?[Ike - I think you're doing that 'Asking the same question multiple times' thing again, Rookster]
It's important to understand that the answers to these questions may not be the same.[Ike - Well, some of them are different questions so that's a given]
Regardless of all the debate since this thread started back in 2008, and with over 10000 posts, the only important question from the list above is the last one.
Was Maybrick the Ripper?[Ike - Asked and answered, Rookeroo]
Regardless of the answers to all the other questions, the only answer that is relevant to the Ripper case is whether Maybrick was the killer.[Ike - Yes]
Whether he wrote the diary of not makes little difference in context to the murders. [Ike - I beg to differ; if he didn't write the scrapbook, he wasn't JtSMcV]
The same concept can be applied to the many alleged Ripper letters and correspondences.[Ike - Except that they might point us towards a candidate as circumstantial evidence]
To paraphrase one of the greatest movie lines...
Point a finger up to the moon...but spend too much time looking at your finger, and you'll miss the moon in all its heavenly glory.[Ike - Did you just make that up?]
RD

You just needed to ask me, Rookiedoo ...

Ike

[caz]

Thank you kindly for your response Caz.

I agree with you regarding being wary of taking a stance on either side of the debate.

You are most welcome, Rookie, but that's not quite what I meant. You don't need to be wary of taking a stance; fill your boots! You just need to be wary of others, who have taken a stance and claim to be right, unless they can tell you where Mike got his guard book from and when - and who held the pen would be a bonus.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Afternoon El Iko,
Every word in your posts will have a different colour for each letter, and all the colours of the rainbow are not enough to describe what I see there.

Hold on, further clarification is required here, Cazeroo. Are you saying that my posts are so incredibly amazing that they are actually inventing brand new colours into the spectrum of a hardened synesthesiast and thereby enriching their life even more than the mere semantics which leap from my perfect syntax, each chosen as though they were diamonds not simply words?

Just asking for a friend, obviously ...

Ike

[erobitha]

Thank you kindly for your response Caz.

I agree with you regarding being wary of taking a stance on either side of the debate.

When I look at Maybrick as a potential suspect, I try to imagine how he fits in with the murders WITHOUT the diary.

If anything, it's the engraved watch that is more interesting as a potential piece of evidence.

If for a moment we consider Maybrick as a fantasist who wrote the diary and had his watch engraved, then it may be a case of those items being authentic, BUT Maybrick still wasn't the Ripper.

In other words, regardless of whether the watch and diary are proven to be authentic, it still doesn't prove he was the Ripper, and so on that basis, it's a rather fruitless task to use the diary as a primary source of evidence.

In a way, the idea that Maybrick was a fantasist, reminds me a little of Albert Bachert, a man who was obsessed with the Ripper case, and a person of interest himself.

I also find it slightly coincidental that Bachert was an Engraver.

Did Bachert engrave the watch?

Someone did.


RD

Hello Rookie.

The fantasist angle is interesting but I go back to your points on the watch. If anyone faked Maybrick’s signature how did they get the K so right?

Also, the C5 were not defined in Maybrick’s lifetime. So that puts him in the bracket of potential killer or it is a modern hoax. If it’s a modern hoax then it was hoaxed at least decades before 1992 as per the experts opinion. So why?

I’ve always believed the watch holds the truth.

[caz]

Hold on, further clarification is required here, Cazeroo. Are you saying that my posts are so incredibly amazing that they are actually inventing brand new colours into the spectrum of a hardened synesthesiast and thereby enriching their life even more than the mere semantics which leap from my perfect syntax, each chosen as though they were diamonds not simply words?

Just asking for a friend, obviously ...

Ike

Pretty much, Ikypoo. Your colourful prose is unique to you, but so is the colour palette I see in it. When you posted those comments by Keith, the change of font colour was irrelevant to me. I simply saw your true colours followed by Keith's, as if you were together in the same room, speaking in turn. I have no idea what you look like - I can't recall ever seeing a photo - but I'd be amazed if you and Keithypoo could be taken for identical twins.

Love,

Caz
X