One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Henry Flower]

It didn't have to be, Observer, if it was always intended as a spoof, a burlesque, a parody, a silly piece of mischief, a black comedy - something more akin to the jokey ripper letters sent in by a host of naughty individuals of very variable literary talents, who thought it a hoot to wind up the police and the public and to read about their offerings in the papers. Did they all expect their missives to be taken for genuine communications from a murderer?

Or don't you accept such people existed - in their droves - and not just in Victorian and Edwardian times? Those missives didn't write themselves, were not written for profit, and few of the senders were ever identified.

Love,

Caz
X

My only problem with that, Caz, is that as the tens of thousands of pages of this very thread show, the hoaxer/s seem to have taken great care to avoid any outright smoking gun errors. The odds on managing to avoid a single outright Gotcha over that many entries seems rather slender if it were compiled by some person or persons just out to have a bit of fun, don't you think?

[caz]

How would a modern forger obtain a sample of Maybrick's hand Caz?

Well if it wasn't possible to do so, without leaving a phone or paper trail, one wonders why anyone with two brain cells would begin such a project, never mind make Maybrick's confession run to 63 pages. If I recall, at least one of the sources a modern forger is meant to have used mentions Maybrick's will and that it was written in a shaky hand, which implies it still existed and was available to researchers. You'd have to be bonkers to assume no examples could or would be found.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Not if the forgers were as thick as mince - which would seem to be borne out by the appalling grammar, not to mention the amateurish tone, of the diary itself.

Er, Sam, you're forgetting something. It's a hoax, painting Maybrick as a thick as pig s***, funny little rhyme merchant, who - when he's not congratulating himself in his diary - delights in going to that London and finding another whore to slaughter, imagining she is the airhead back in Liverpool who is making a fool of him by having it away with all and sundry.

It is quite a comical piece if you read it that way. Why its author - whoever they are - is meant to display perfect, or even reasonably good grammar and spelling, I have absolutely no idea. I take some of the bloomers to be deliberate, to send up the jumped-up "Sir Jim", while others are just the kind that can be seen everywhere, including the writings of those who would claim to be far better educated than the real James was likely to have been.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I mean, they had the nous not write it in biro, right?

Christ, that one's so old, Henry, it should be drawing its pension by now.

Here's another golden oldie for you:

Mike was no forger, he was a very naughty boy.

Love,

Caz
X

[Henry Flower]

Christ, that one's so old, Henry, it should be drawing its pension by now.

Here's another golden oldie for you:

Mike was no forger, he was a very naughty boy.

Love,

Caz
X

I was wary of using the word 'biro' because in one language it means 'judge', and I didn't want Pierre getting any more daft ideas...

[caz]

I don't want to offend any partisans, but in terms of style and content I honestly found the 'Carnac' 'Autobiography of Jack the Ripper' more convincing. I can't put it better than Observer has, the Maybrick thing is a total cheese-fest.

Yes, the Carnac document is the grater of the two.

Groan. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

Arguably that might be because the Carnac author was trying to be 'convincing', while there is nothing to suggest 'the Maybrick thing' wasn't written by someone actually aiming for a total cheese-fest.

In fact, it should have been found in the cheese shop. The one which had run out of the real thing.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

My only problem with that, Caz, is that as the tens of thousands of pages of this very thread show, the hoaxer/s seem to have taken great care to avoid any outright smoking gun errors. The odds on managing to avoid a single outright Gotcha over that many entries seems rather slender if it were compiled by some person or persons just out to have a bit of fun, don't you think?

Really??

Then you can rule out Mike Barrett, because sure as eggs are eggs and cheese is cheese, the smoking guns and Gotchas would have come at you from all angles and from page one.

It all depends on who did write it and how much interest and intimate knowledge they may have possessed about the two cases and the cast of characters before they got the idea to combine them. If what you see in the diary is merely a product of what they already had at their fingertips - or learned from their cradle, so to speak - might that not have qualified them better for the job than anyone coming up with the basic idea first, then having to start all their research from scratch? I can't imagine anyone trying the latter approach and making anything other than a complete pig's ear of it that would have impressed nobody, not even Feldman. But if it was written for fun because of what the author already knew, and all the tricks they had ready up their sleeve, no special effort would have been required to check facts and avoid fatal errors.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

As I will almost certainly lose my internet connection - again - before the day is out (I have an engineer coming on Monday to fix the phone and broadband), have a great weekend all.

Love,

Caz
X

[GUT]

If not a hoax, then - what? A bit of a joke that went too far?

That's my current opinion.

[Sam Flynn]

That's my current opinion.

It's an eminently feasible possibility.

[GUT]

Not sure of the purpose of the joke though.

[Mike J. G.]

Yes, Mike, you should know, but evidently you don't.

I'm pretty sure that Gore's directory of 1888 will give you the Post Office Tavern in Post Office Place off School Lane, just a stone's throw from Church Alley where Maybrick grew up. At least two local men in recent years and on separate occasions - one a publican himself, the other a local history buff and pub frequenter - would give you this particular drinking establishment - now called the Old Post Office - if you were to ask them about Liverpool's "post house", without even thinking of the "Poste House" in Cumberland Street. Why would they have lied to me or Robert Smith, or been mistaken? The chap I asked (in the terrific Irish American bar on Lime Street) didn't know me from Adam, nor why I was asking.

Mind you, that wouldn't mean anything, because a hoaxer doing his research properly could have learned easily enough that the Poste House in Cumberland Street was a non-starter, or may not even have been thinking of that one, just as our two sources didn't.



Well let's hope they are all attending the Liverpool conference with you to back up your claim.



As a sign used to say behind the bar in the Liffey on Renshaw Street:

"No track suits after 6.30 pm."

Calm down, calm down and what have you.

Love,

Caz
X

I used to work in Quiggin's on School lane and I know the Post Office well, and you'd have a solid point if it wasn't called "the Post Office Tavern", as opposed to "the Poste House" as is written in the diary, IIRC.

That's the reason that the Gore's directory doesn't mention a "Poste House," because it didn't exist then. This is why when I inquired at the library in town, I wasn't successful in being shown any Poste House pub.

If the diary had talked about James taking refreshment in the Post Office Tavern, we'd have a different kettle of fish entirely.

Also, I'm not sure if you've actually been in that Irish bar on Lime street, but nobody worth their salt would call it terrific! lol. It's a bloody dive, it only serves standard lager and Guinness and is frequently in trouble with local authorities over its poor hygiene and bad clientele. The infinitely better Irish bar that everyone frequents is on the corner of Wood street, where you can buy a pint without being offered a line of coke from a pock-marked teenager from Granby.

Can anyone confirm that this establishment was known locally as the "Poste House?" Because I can't, which is why I said I can't find any mention of any Poste House being in Liverpool during this period. I'm not sure who this local is that you're referring to, but some details on where to find any reference to this establishment being known as the Poste House would be nice, along with a correct date for the pub on School lane.

It seems more likely that the writer of the diary really did mean the Poste House, and was lacking in his/her research, as I've mentioned previously, their research is vastly overrated, as they lifted most of their ideas from about 3 books in total.

[Mike J. G.]

Eh? Must have missed this. What Maybrick-related 'information' has Mike posted?

Having a senior moment here.

Love,

Caz
X

Many people mention the Murder, Mayhem and Mystery series when discussing the diary's obvious lifting of material, but I rarely ever see anyone mentioning Liverpool Soundings, where the writer of the diary quite obviously lifted the info on the National where May/Flo had a bickering contest and where the winning horse was detailed, among other small details.

[Mike J. G.]

Why 'odd'? Florence Maybrick and Jack the Ripper appeared together in a cartoon in the wake of the 1888 Whitechapel murders and the 1889 Maybrick trial. Is that also 'odd'? It's what happens when you have sensational news stories. Stuff will appear in print in various forms over the decades, so picking out one source as 'odd', and the likely source our naughty hoaxer used, is not good enough I'm afraid. The information was always there. RWE didn't pluck it out of the sky. He found it and used it for his publications just as our hoaxer used it to add colour to the diary.

Love,

Caz
X

Well, I guess it depends on how badly you'd like to believe in certain things. It seems pretty obvious that considering Barrett lent a copy of MM&M to Devereux, that Barratt likely also had Liverpool Soundings, as these books were widely available in shops all over Merseyside during the 80s and 90s, I myself have all of them, as do a good many people I know who're interested in local history or local folklore.

Considering most of the info in the diary consists of pieces from these two books, I'd say its safe to assume that the writer was quite obviously reading them for inspiration.

To argue otherwise is up to you, but again, it's all down to what you choose to believe. I don't think the diary is as big a mystery as some people do, I think it was an obvious joke played by a Scouser for the sake of having a bit of a giraffe, and it worked, cos here we are...

[Mike J. G.]

RWE's MM&M was used many times on the message boards to bash everyone over the head with, while shouting "Modern fake!" The boards did crash at one point (possibly caused by the volume - in both senses) and a load of old cobblers - sorry, posts - got lost forever.

But this is very old hat, I'm afraid, which is probably why you haven't seen any recent discussion of RWE as a possible source.

Love,

Caz
X

Fair enough, but again, I've seen no mention of Liverpool Soundings, can you show me any?

It's still a point that is hard to argue, the information was available in a series of popular local books. The diary reads like a person lifting various tidbits from these books and attempting to hash them into some story that we're supposed to believe was reality, despite all of its over-dramatization.

None of the diary-talk is based on much other than rumour and fiction. Two random blokes finding a secret diary at Battlecrease and then taking it to Liverpool university, lol. Who does that? Not that that is the silliest thing about this suspect and the story, but to my mind, it just adds to the overall silliness and try-hard drama of it all.

Maybrick's story is interesting enough without this silly Ripper talk, but I do like a good natter about it, nonetheless.