One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Hi Caz...

...Barrett claimed ten days already from his Liverpool Daily Post interview, didn't he?

Hi Kattrup,

There was an article in the Sunday Times on 3rd July 1994, which mentions a ten day event, but it's not the eleven day event proposed by Lord O, which he based - very loosely - on Mike's January 1995 affidavit.

The ten days referred to in the ST article were when Mike was supposedly tapping out Maybrick's "confession" on his word processor, at some unknown point between 1990 and 1992. Anne is not mentioned.

Lord O's interpretation was that Anne spent eleven days in early April 1992, handwriting Mike's previously tapped out composition into the photo album.

So that would be two separate tasks, the first taking Mike ten days to perform, while Anne took a day longer to perform hers.

My own interpretation is that Mike was describing the same event in a different way and on a different occasion, twisting it out of true on each, to suit what he was trying to claim at the time.

This almost certainly was Anne, who spent ten or eleven days tapping out the diary text on the word processor, with Mike's 'help', and witnessed by young Caroline, to create the transcript that was given to Rupert Crew.

Interestingly, the same article claims that stains and a glue-like substance in the binding 'betrayed' its previous existence as a photo album, yet as I previously pointed out, Alec Voller observed the glue-like staining in 1995 and indicated a dot of the diary ink which is beneath the glue.

Also, the article singles out "top myself" as a 20th century expression, but this has recently been found by our own Gary Barnett – meaning to "hang myself" - in a newspaper article from the 1870s.

So I'm afraid the article from July 1994 was spreading misinformation, if unknowingly at the time. However, we know this now, so it ought not to be used as a reliable source in 2020.

Love,

Caz
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[Graham]

All well and good, Caz - but I don't believe JM was the Ripper anyway. And wouldn't a Victorian gent who had things to hide have his banker pop them into the vaults?

C.d. - oddly enough, my capacity for beer has grown less and less over the past 20-odd years...but please don't spread this around, eh?

Graham

[c.d.]

All well and good, Caz - but I don't believe JM was the Ripper anyway. And wouldn't a Victorian gent who had things to hide have his banker pop them into the vaults?

C.d. - oddly enough, my capacity for beer has grown less and less over the past 20-odd years...but please don't spread this around, eh?

Graham

Your secret is safe with me, Graham. Don't let Caz know she might call you a big girl's blouse.

c.d.

[caz]

Again with the if-then whys. Have you considered that perhaps Eddie found a book and put it in a skip, which is, perhaps if one wades through all the various rumours, the most that can be half-reasonably claimed about what was found in Battlecrease - and so it had nothing to do with the diary? And so there's no basis for considering hypothetical and completely baseless scenarios.

Hi Kattrup,

I couldn't help noticing that your final sentence above, with its conclusion: And so... was based on an 'if' of your own, followed by a hypothetical and completely baseless scenario, involving a skip. So before you post something accusatory in future, perhaps it would be wise to check your own posts for the identical 'offence'.

But yes, of course your scenario was considered, and Paul Dodd said he didn't have a skip and would not have needed one for the electrical work going on, which was to do with the preparation work for the installation of storage heaters. So there is zero evidence for Eddie's claim, when he agreed to speak to Robert Smith in June 1993.

Listen Caz, I'm not terribly interested in keeping this "discussion" going, and I don't have the time or the stamina to answer every one of yours or Iconoclast's false claims. Like this recent idea that Barrett's photo album was highly collectible and worth a lot. I'm sure Mr. Litherland was sincere and helpful, but in the last few days you're suddenly accepting Barrett's extremely vague description of the photo album and ascertaining that it would never have been sold like that etc.
Pretty weak, in fact nonexisting, argument, but a good example of how new facts are made up, similarly to the idea that MB would have been given a thorough and complete description of the red diary before buying it etc.

Don't you 'Listen Caz' me. What a sauce. Where was I 'suddenly accepting' Mike's 'extremely vague' [??] description in his January 1995 affidavit of: 'a photograph Album which contained approximately 125 pages of photographs. They were old photographs and they were all to do with the 1914/18 1^st World War. This album was part of lot No.126 which was for auction with a ‘brass compass’, it looked to me like a ‘seaman’s Compass, it was round faced with a square encasement, all of which was brass, it was marked on the face, North South, East and West in heavy lettering. I particularly noticed that the compass had no ‘fingers’.'?

What 'new facts' was I making up? Mr Litherland is surely in a better position than any of us to know whether such an album [had it ever existed outside of Mike's intoxicated fantasies, spurred on by Alan Gray's dreams of a payday and Melvin Harris's nightmarish thought of his hoax-busting reputation going down the toilet] would have been 'highly collectible and worth a lot', and how such an album would have been sold [had one been put up for auction at Outhwaite & Litherland]. Mr Litherland was shown Mike's description, as it appears above, and gave his professional opinions. I'd be careful if I were you, about suggesting he has been making up new facts.

Similarly with Martin Earl, who has recently described how he ran Martin Earl's bookfinding business. Before ordering from the supplier any item which did not quite match a customer's specifications, Mr Earl says he always contacted the customer to talk through the item and get agreement for him to purchase it from the supplier. Suppliers provided full descriptions and if needed Mr Earl would go back to them for any additional information needed or asked for. In the case of the Victorian diary sent to Michael Barrett, Mr Earl would have contacted him, before going ahead and ordering it from the supplier, even if it was the only one he had been offered. It would have been described to Mr Barrett, to make sure he was still interested, not least because the year was outside of the date range requested. Mr Earl says it is not possible that Mr Barrett was unaware that the diary was for the year 1891, when it was sent out to him on 26th March 1992.

These are not 'ideas', which I have come up with to befuddle or confuse anyone [although you do a good impression of someone who is easily befuddled and confused]. It's called gathering information from the people in a far better position than we are, to know what they are talking about. Best of all, they can't be accused of having a horse in the race, whether it's a one off or a two off.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Well, it's complicated when you ask "If he didn't know Mike, what was he doing in the Saddle in June 1993, being introduced by Mike to Robert Smith?" in reply to my statement that Lyons stated he did not know MB. So you ask a question implying that in fact, Lyons did know MB, because he was together with him in the Saddle and Robert Smith happened by and met them. When you full well know that Lyons was there because Smith had arranged for him to be there. I mean, do you see how it might give off the impression that you're deliberately obfuscating?

It gives me the impression that you don't really have a handle on this at all, and have not read carefully what has already been posted about the event.

I'll try once more to make it even simpler for you.

Robert was going up from London to Liverpool and he asked Mike if he [Mike] could arrange for him [Robert] to meet one of the electricians. Robert was not really expecting it when Mike said yes, he could arrange this. Mike took Robert to the Saddle, where they sat down together with a drink. It was Eddie Lyons who came in later, walked over to where Mike was sitting with Robert, said his piece and left again.

So no, I never said that Mike and Eddie were together in the Saddle and Robert 'happened by and met them'. And no, I don't 'full well know' that Eddie was there because Robert had 'arranged for him to be there'. Robert had asked Mike, but it was Mike who arranged it with with Eddie that he [Eddie] would pop in to feed Robert his version of the 'discovery' story.

David Barrat (I assume you're referring to him) actually doesn't have an answer for life, the universe and everything. But he does have more answers than you.

I'm quite certain he does, Kattrup, but they have to be right. You don't score points on Mastermind just for having more answers than your fellow contestants. One correct answer is worth one point, while twenty incorrect guesses are worth no points at all.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Another thing one could wonder is how it’s possible to argue vehemently for an imagined Battlecrease provenance, stating about the work being done and MB’s phonecall “Now if you see those two events colliding by pure chance, there's not much I can do to help you.”

and still “lean firmly towards the hoax camp” while saying: “Mike could still have ended up with a mid to late 20th century fake created by a prankster who sensibly intended to remain anonymous.”

Are those two imagined provenances not mutually exclusive? If the diary came from Battlecrease, as has been insisted with no supporting evidence, it was, it is argued, the first time the floorboards were lifted, so the diary must be Victorian. How then is it possible for MB have ended up with a modern fake?

I'll leave that for you to work out for yourself, Kattrup. You seem to need it to be modern more than I do.

But in case you didn't know, things often turn up that have been stashed by someone in the void beneath a floorboard in an old house. Items could have been put there weeks before, or decades, by anyone with access. A floorboard need not be lifted only during renovation work, but by whoever wants to use the void as a hiding place. Colin Rhodes himself was present at one job where a large stash of five pound notes was found just like this by one of his crew. They were handed to the lady of the house, a widow, who was not surprised because she had felt sure her husband had left some money, which did not materialise when he died. The fivers could have been stashed there shortly before his death, or added to over the years, without any previous work involving lifting the relevant boards. It was not until Colin Rhodes and his crew were given the job that the floorboards were lifted for the first time by someone other than her late husband and gave up his secret.

Would the widow have argued that the fivers had to be Victorian, because that was the first time those floorboards had ever been lifted by anyone working on the house? Of course not. What makes Battlecrease different - and possibly unique - is the steady stream of visitors ever since the summer of 1889, which add up to hundreds of true crime enthusiasts padding in Maybrick's shoes throughout the house over the many decades leading up to 9th March 1992. It would not have been impossible for anyone determined enough to hide their spoof diary somewhere in that house, where it could have been found in days, weeks, years - or not at all while the prankster lived.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Kattrup and RJ-save your sanity and get off this hamster wheel.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Kattrup and RJ-save your sanity and get off this hamster wheel.

Hey, that's not fair Abby.

A hamster wheel just goes round and round, annoys everyone who is exposed to it and makes you regret ever getting involved with hamsters in the first place, whereas......

[caz]

Mr. Bundy -- Perhaps you are starting to hone-in on why this ‘debate’ (is it a debate?) should be avoided like the plague. First off, these conversations are filled with a disturbing amount of misinformation stated as ‘fact’—for instance, that the electrical employee Eddie Lyons was at Battlecrease (Dodd’s house) on 9 March 1992, when the timesheets show that he wasn’t, and the employee who was actually there (Arthur Rigby) confirmed that he wasn’t. Yet, in this little corner of alternative universe, we are told in no uncertain terms by codding cods like Ike that Lyons WAS there, and people evidently accept this, and the conversation proceeds on this most ethereal foundation.

To Mr. Bundy,

I don't know who R.J's sources are, because he rarely says, but it is disturbing to see him being so misled by them. He hasn't been personally involved in any of the lengthy and in-depth investigations into Portus & Rhodes and Colin Rhodes's team of electricians, and neither has Lord O, banished to his basement, on his own with his unique interpretation of the evidence, which is all he has to sustain and prolong the tatty old belief in Bongo Barrett as the diary's creator, which is way past its use-by date. The thing to bear in mind is that it is only an interpretation, and this one is necessarily based, very loosely, on the fading echoes of Bongo's own words, made up when his world had collapsed around him. Nothing else is required or wanted. If Bongo said no electricians were involved in his story, that's good enough for R.J. But it would be interesting to know what made R.J think that Arthur Rigby 'confirmed' to anyone that Eddie wasn't with him at Battlecrease on 9th March 1992. Arthur named Eddie as one of two electricians he was working with at the house, who had both behaved oddly and gone quiet in his presence. He saw them quickly put something under the seat in the van as he approached. This is what Arthur had told his brother Pete, along with the names of both electricians, and Pete related all this years before either the names or any of the P&R work sheets were in the public domain.

In fact, several of those who were involved with Portus & Rhodes, either directly or indirectly with the work done at Battlecrease on 9th March 1992 – including Colin Rhodes, Arthur Rigby and Eddie Lyons himself – have individually and on a number of different occasions made it clear, in statements made to family members, friends and investigators [many of them recorded and some already in the public domain], how they knew Eddie was indeed at the house on that day, and his name has consistently come up as one of two, three or four of the P&R crew who knew something about the diary being found and removed from the house. But what did Colin Rhodes know about how he managed his own employees, and when their names would or wouldn't have appeared on work sheets drawn up to invoice his customers for labour and materials?

R.J clearly thinks he, or his source, knows better than Colin Rhodes did himself. It's a recurring theme lately, and it's looking sadder and more desperate as the names pile up, of those in the best position to know, who are getting an undeserved public kicking from a small handful of armchair Barrett believers who have demonstrated no interest in adding to their knowledge, and no desire to test their beliefs against new information as it comes in, no matter how much more reliable the sources are likely to be than their own.

...in the end, all that is really happening, with rare exceptions, is a symbolic and somewhat disturbing recitation of all the same basic arguments that have been tossed back and forth for twenty-five years or more...

I agree with R.J's words here, except that the disturbing recitation of the same old, same old, is all the more disturbing because it utterly fails to take on board any new information which threatens to render those ancient, storm-tossed arguments obsolete and invalid.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Sometimes I can't believe the utter audacity of a certain contributor to this discussion.

How will "people be able to judge" the legitimacy of Barrett's confession if they are not given access to the Barrett/Gray tapes? Wouldn’t these be a highly relevant part of examining “all the salient points”??

I love the way R.J fondly imagines I have the time, the energy, the will - or indeed the ability - to pander to his requests, when they are couched in such unpleasant and inflammatory language. I don't own any of the material he claims to be so desperate to hear, and I imagine if Keith wants to release it he will do so in his own sweet time, and won't be bullied by someone who has shown a remarkable contempt for the material which has been posted recently, and an even more noteworthy unwillingness or inability to test his beliefs against it. Why on earth would anyone think the Barrett & Gray comedy box set would fare any better?

It has been admitted--by Diary supporters themselves--that Barrett's affidavit was typed up by Alan Gray. Although Barrett signed it, and supposedly dictated it, it is generally agreed that Gray helped Mike craft his statement and organize his 'evidence.' This was done over many days and weeks, and these long 'sessions' between Barrett and Gray were recorded on audio tape.

The 5 January 1995 confession was one element of this process and is what has been released to the public. But the possibility exists that Gray didn't transcribe or correctly interpret everything that Barrett had told him over these many sessions, or may have missed or misinterpreted other “salient points.” Maybe he even got some of the dates wrong. As I have stated many times, Gray was not a 'Ripperologist' and was not a historian and may not have completely understood all the information that Barrett was telling him. Even the Diary Defenders have conceded this point and have even repeated it back to me as if it is their own unique and original insight. Gray, in his own later statements, even concedes that he didn’t originally understand the immediate relevance of, for instance, Mike’s revelation of the source of the Crashaw quote. There could have been other things that he hadn’t understood.[/SIZE][/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia][SIZE=16px]What amazes me about the above post, is that I have recently received a fairly good bullocking for goading Keith Skinner into releasing these tapes for independent assessment. Fair enough. Maybe people don't like my methods or my attitude, but one can hardly argue that I wasn't living up to the standards and spirits of Keith's own philosophy!

From Keith:

“What I do know however is that the point of Jonathan’s series of Diary podcasts is to let people, who may be interested in the 27 year old controversy, hear the voices of key figures involved, at precise moments in time which have been caught on tape. These recordings have not been doctored. There is no hidden agenda to present anything but the facts. What reason would we have for giving a bias Roger?”

Fair enough, but why doesn’t this also apply to the Barret/Gray tapes?

What on earth could be more relevant than hearing Barrett's full confession and discussion of the diary’s origins “at the moment which it was caught on tape” without any ‘doctoring’ or editing? Isn’t Barrett the ‘key figure’? Isn’t my request in the very spirit of Keith’s own statement?

If Caz is so eager for the public to judge the legitimacy of Barrett's confession, using “all the salient points,” why does she not join me in calling for the release of these tapes? If they show Barrett's confession to be poppycock, why not deliver the final death blow by releasing them and allowing the public to hear this popplycock "undoctored," to use Keith's terminology?

Keith Skinner can do what he wants---I have no control over his decisions, and I don't particularly care what he decides. But if a man has supposedly made a false confession (and this is what Keith Skinner and Caroline Brown want us to believe) what competent prosecutor or defense attorney or court of appeals would not want to review the original tape recordings of his statement? To see, for instance, whether he had been coerced, or coached, or, by contrast, whether he had demonstrated legitimate inside information that his interviewer had missed? Wouldn’t this be the most obvious and the most relevant source to review and study?

Of course, I do blame myself for not having kept the tapes I did have, because, sadly, with Barrett, Gray, Dangar, Feldman, and Harris all dead, I can’t imagine there would be any copyright restrictions or other reason why they couldn’t be downloaded to the internet.

I think R.J has just demonstrated here, far more eloquently than I could, why Mike's affidavit is such a complete and utter dog's breakfast that nobody in their right mind should have taken a single word of it at face value without first digging below the surface to try and get a better understanding of what was behind it. There is plenty of information on this already in the public domain, but it goes unheeded - so again, why would the tapes make a jot of difference?

If R.J is suggesting anyone is deliberately holding back material they know would support Bongo's nonsense, then he should say so or forever hold his peace.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Yabs.

No one seems too eager to answer your question, probably because the answer is rather embarrassing.

From the pen Shirley Harrison:

"...We made a return visit to Battlecrease House in June 1997 and sat in James Maybrick's bedroom, now Paul Dodd's living room. It was an eerie experience.

Paul [Dodd] was adamant. The house was originally gas-lit and converted to electricity in the 1920s. It was rewired again when his father bought it in 1946 and again in 1977 when Paul himself had gutted the place and lifted the floor boards. Had anything been hidden, he was sure that he would have found it then.

Work was done on the cellars in 1989 and in 1991 there were repairs to the roof but the workmen had no access to the house for this. Storage heaters were installed in two phases - in Maybrick's bedroom in the late summer of 1991 and in the downstairs flat in 1993. Paul had again undertaken the initial preparation himself.

But once we started pinning down dates, none of the people whose names we had been given appeared to have been in the right place at the right time. The key characters didn't want to talk. It was all very mysterious. Something might have indeed have been found at Battlecrease, but, whatever it was, it was seemingly not our diary and whatever it was had vanished...at least temporarily!..."


Question: what does Dodd mean by having done the prep work himself for the relevant projects? Was it Dodd who lifted the floorboards in March 1992? Or were they even lifted?

It kind of sounds to me like Dodd did the preparation, and the electricians only came in for the part that requires an electrical license. Many people remodeling their homes do this to save money. Anyway, only one electrician put in a full day on 9 March. What exactly did he do? We know other electricans wouldn't return until June. At this time, they finally installed the heaters, but they seemed to have also rewired some lighting in the ceiling in the room below, as you note. Wouldn’t this have entailed the floorboards from the room above? Why would they have lifted the floorboards twice? Wouldn’t any wiring for the two projects have been completed at the same time? If heavier wiring had been needed, don’t electricians usually just use the old wiring to restring the new stuff, or use the old conduits, rather than repeatedly rip out the floors and walls? A lot of questions, not a lot of concise documentation, other than the timesheets showing that the relevant employee, Eddie Lyons, was not at the house on 9 March 1992, and wouldn’t be there until later that summer---which makes him entirely irrelevant, since Barrett had already brought the diary to London by that time.

This bird does not fly.

Your bird doesn't fly, R.J. If I were you, I'd check it hasn't got its head stuck in the sand and isn't a dodo.

Probably had its feet nailed to the perch.

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

Sounds like an oozlum bird to me.

[MrBarnett]

Apologies, I’ve just run ‘oozlum bird’ through the British Newspaper Archive and realised that almost no-one will understand what I’m talking about.

[rjpalmer]

"Some versions have it that, when startled, the oozlum bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up its own backside, disappearing completely."

That sounds like a suitable ending to the Diary saga.

[MrBarnett]

"Some versions have it that, when startled, the oozlum bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up its own backside, disappearing completely."

That sounds like a suitable ending to the Diary saga.

That’s the one.

Sadly underepresented in the BNA, but well known to Brits of a certain vintage.