One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Ally]

This is the problem with believers who rely on "faith" rather than ...you know...reason. They are prone to to making idiotic statements of "fact": like we all agree the Diary is flawless. I mean that's pretty much indicative of the logic of people who actually believe that the Diary is true. They say it's true, so it must be. Actual evidence is irrelevant. Then they justify their faith with a caveat such as this: I mean flawless in the sense of not containing one glaring big ole flaw. Because that's what flawless means, doncha know. If you have a diamond that has several tiny chips, cracks and occlusions, you can still call it flawless as long as there isn't a great big ole crack running right down the middle.

The logic of the conman. They really need to start teaching rational thought in schools.

[Tom Mitchell]

[QUOTE=Ally;38479]If you have a diamond that has several tiny chips, cracks and occlusions, you can still call it flawless as long as there isn't a great big ole crack running right down the middle.
QUOTE]

Hi Ally,

I agree with your analogy - it is really interesting. What we have in the diary is a confession from the murderer which has 3-4 unresolved aspects - rather like your diamond with a handful of chips, cracks, and occulsions.

Your diamond may indeed have chips, cracks, and occlusions, and yet you are comfortable that it is nevertheless still a diamond.

I feel much the same way about the diary.

Thanks for the support.

Cheers,

Tom

[Sam Flynn]

What we have in the diary is a confession from the murderer which has 3-4 unresolved aspects...

...and the whole thing written in someone other than the murderer's hand. Focusing on 3 or 4 flaws in what purports to be a diamond, whilst ignoring the fact that the crystal lattice is made entirely of calcite, is rather missing the point, Tom.

[Tom Mitchell]

Hi Sam,

We are going 'round in circles - we need an example of Maybrick's casual (rather than formal) handwriting in order to resolve the handwriting debate. You write as though it were never so well proven that Maybrick did not pen the diary. Where are your examples of Maybrick's casual handwriting style which have convinced you of the fraud? You really ought to publish them.

You are quite right, I totally missed the point about calcite and crystals.

I loved the Widow Twankey stuff, though - made me chortle in the woods whilst walking the dogs.

Cheers,

Tom

[Sam Flynn]

We are going 'round in circles

We're not, Tom. Some of us passed through the periphery long ago, whereas anyone who now believes that this ill-written "shabby shocker"™ is Jack the Ripper's diary is still trapped inside the bubble.

Apologies for off-target imagery and grandiloquent prose, by the way - evidently the diary's writing style is catching. Or perhaps I read, as a nipper, the same sort of cheap paperbacks as whoever wrote it.

[Ally]

Oh no worries, Tom. I always make a point of supporting the feeble-minded, they need all the help they can get.

[Omlor]

Just two quick notes here, as others have properly pointed out most of the nonsense.

Tom, you keep mentioning the "tin matchbox" line and suggesting it might just be a coincidence. You obviously haven't read the text closely enough.

The passage you are referring to does not just cite the one line from the police report. It's cites three lines. It takes three separate objects from the list which all appear adjacent to one another on the page in the official document and places those very same three specific objects right next to one another in its own text, and manages to cite one of the lines verbatim complete with odd syntax and all. So unless you are so driven by your own blind desire as to believe that there was a strange and inexplicable sudden explosion of three amazing coincidences one after another after another all on the very same page, the only possible explanation if you look at the report and the diary side by side and see the three items listed next to one another on both is that whoever was writing the diary must have been looking at that list.

If you are going to talk about the text, please at least get the details correct.

Also, why wouldn't private and personal correspondence be considered "casual"? And why do you think the real James Maybrick would have two handwritings that look absolutely nothing at all like one another in any way?

You are trying way too hard to make excuses here. After a while, it all starts to smell desperately Feldmaniacal. And believe me, no one wants that.

I'm sorry, but you have been duped,

--John

[Tom Mitchell]

Hi John,

Now we are getting there!

I freely admit I don't know what the two other adjacent items were so I am going to have to try to look it up. If you could just tell me, that would be really helpful.

If there are three adjacent items in the list, and they are similarly listed by the forger and in that order, then - absolutely - that's when coincidence is stretched too far.

I was unaware of these adjacent items - and in that order, you say? Now that really is stupid of the forger (especially after going to all that effort to get his or her timelines right and the small details right).

A quick look at the original Harrison book doesn't clarify it as her list goes (paraphrased, obviously):

Alpaca skirt
Blue skirt
Man's vest
No drawers
Men's boots
Tin box tea
Tin box sugar
Tooth comb
Cigarette case
White apron
Tin pawn tickets
Tin match box

Can you clarify this one (in the interests of speed)?

Cheers,

Tom

[Omlor]

Tom,

You can see a transcript of the list in Martin Fido's book, with the relevant part appearing in bold face on the top of page 70.

The knife, the cigarette case, and the tin matchbox appear one immediately after the other on the list.

Out of all the items listed, what three specific items does the diarist have "James" mention one next to the other in his diary entry?

The knife, the cigarette case, and the tin matchbox.

And he has "James" reproduce the line about the matchbox in exactly the same odd syntax as it appears on the list.

Whoever was writing the page in the diary was obviously looking at the list.

--John

[Ben]

Hi Tom,

Few other candidates have much more than a bit of circumstantial evidence to support their case.

But if you remove the diary, which is a likely modern hoax, there's no evidence whatsoever against Maybrick. He becomes just another bloke living in a city far the north of London, and thus worse than useless as a ripper candidate. So the "means, motive and opportunity" are entirely predicated, in the mind of the "believer", on the contents of a dubious document, but even if we assume he had all three at his disposal, we're left with the problem of his "campaign" or "motive" being made a nonsense of by the vast majority of serial murder cases in which the perpetrator had no "motive" beyond the satisfaction he derived from the murders themselves.

Much of the "knowledge" evinced by the diary of the Maybrick case (of which he knows a good deal more than the ripper murders) is easily obtainable via the literature dealing with the former case, and as for Maybrick being known as "May", all our genius had to do was pick up a copy of Martin Fido's "The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper", glance at the rear dust-cover and notice the "blind man's bluff" sketch, which speaks of "catch(ing) whom you may". Not too tall an order.

Best regards,
Ben

[Tom Mitchell]

I'm struggling with this critical 'three items in a row' thing - this is a big deal-breaker!

In the diary text itself, the tin match box entry is followed by the cigarette case, then 'make haste' and 'my shiny knife' and 'the whore's knife' (Stride's, of course).

Next mention of the tin box, it comes after 'no light', and before 'tea and sugar'.

He then repeats this later.

I'm sure I must be misreading this (we feeble-minded types have just such a tendency), but I can't even find TWO adjacent items never mind the three.

Maybe the official police report (published c1987?) has the items in a different order?

Please help - I feel we are finally close to busting the forgery wide apart.

Tom

[Tom Mitchell]

Hi Tom,

and as for Maybrick being known as "May", all our genius had to do was pick up a copy of Martin Fido's "The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper", glance at the rear dust-cover and notice the "blind man's bluff" sketch, which speaks of "catch(ing) whom you may". Not too tall an order.

Best regards,
Ben

Oh dear dear me, Ben, you have to do better than that!

The Punch cartoon did not provide proof that ANYONE referred to Maybrick as 'May', and I certainly did not say it did! Maybrick refers to himself as 'May' in the diary in response to the Punch cartoon - but the evidence that ANYONE referred to him as 'May' comes in a letter from Florie to Brierley.

[Tom Mitchell]

Tom,

You can see a transcript of the list in Martin Fido's book, with the relevant part appearing in bold face on the top of page 70.

The knife, the cigarette case, and the tin matchbox appear one immediately after the other on the list.

Out of all the items listed, what three specific items does the diarist have "James" mention one next to the other in his diary entry?

The knife, the cigarette case, and the tin matchbox.

And he has "James" reproduce the line about the matchbox in exactly the same odd syntax as it appears on the list.

Whoever was writing the page in the diary was obviously looking at the list.

--John

I think the game is up. The diary is dead in the water. This totally nails it. The forger did all that research on Maybrick (some truly obscure details indeed), and then blasts his own case apart with dodgy handwriting and plagiarising from Martin Fido!

What on earth was he thinking of?

Idiot!

Well, I can get back to highlights of yesterday's 'Match of the Day' now.

Cheers,

Tom

[Ben]

Oh dear dear me, Ben, you have to do better than that!

Nope, Tom, that's just the thing. I didn't have to do any better than that, and nor did the forger.

Oh look, here's a ripper book with a funny sketch on the back. Oh look, the last word is "May" and it's being used in the context of the intended capture of the Whitechapel murderer. Hey, that's conveninent, cuz the chap I'm implicating has "May" in his surname. Let's bung that in the diary!

And he does.

[Ash]

I use the term 'flawless' in the context of having no one incontrovertible flaw which renders it a fake.

In which case Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is also intrinsically flawless. Show me the one incontrovertible flaw in that theory which proves that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist. You can't. Therefore, by your own logic, it is a flawless theory, and we should all hail his noodly appendages.

The diary has many flaws. Almost countless ones. Therefore it is not "flawless". The fact that one can explain those flaws away by using bizarre tortured logic does not make them any less flaws.