One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

I never understood what Caz's 25-year obsession with Barrett pounding on the wrong door (or pretending to pound on the wrong door) is supposed to tell us. In fact, it doesn't tell us anything.

Even Dr. Canter was in a muddle over the house numbers. On pg. 415 of Shirley Harrison's 'American Connection,' he claims Maybrick lived in No. 7 and the house is now numbered No. 8.

Afternoon All,

I understand that when Shirley and Sally went to the house [the right one] they were shown the deeds and you'd hardly credit the former house numbers attributed to it before it became No. 7. Oh go on then. They include nos. 3, 4 and Canter's 8.

Why should anyone be remotely surprised if Mike was originally in a muddle about it, whether he faked the diary or not?

And I'd appreciate it if RJ didn't try to project his own and Orsam's obsessions onto me. I'm not, and never have been, remotely 'obsessed' with Mike Barrett 'pounding' on doors, which he never claimed to do anyway. Quite the reverse. Whether the diary was faked by him or fenced to him, it wasn't in his interests before a publisher was secured, to 'pound' on any door in Riversdale Road, to ask which house had once been home to James Maybrick. I should have thought the reasons were fairly obvious.

But I am curious to know why RJ thinks it would have been in Mike's interests to 'pretend' to have identified it as No. 6 in the 1990s, if he had established, or even suspected, that Ryan had the number wrong and it was the house next door at No. 7. How does that help Orsam's theory that Mike's information for his research notes came straight from Ryan, but he then needed to find a way to hide the fact? If he found No. 6 Riversdale Road in the pages of Ryan's book, before putting that as the address of Battlecrease in pride of place as the very first typed up research note, both Barretts must have wrongly assumed this to be correct, and that it could easily be confirmed by other sources, or just by someone knocking at the door. The same applies to Mike simply going to Riversdale Road himself and jumping to a faulty conclusion. He could of course have done both, in either order, and the one would have seemed to confirm the other.

As we all now know, the house only changed its number to 7 and dropped its distinctive name, following the abrupt departure of the Maybricks, who had occupied it for a mere 15 months, between February 1888 and May 1889. It could have been called the Battlecrease Diary, as it is only concerned with events while the house bore that name.

Why couldn't Anne and Mike have read McDougall? And Moreland? And Christie?

Now this is getting hilarious.

I made this very point myself several times, and RJ studiously ignored it. Why couldn't Anne and Mike have read McDougall? And Moreland? And Christie? Or, dare I say it, even a few back issues of The Liverpool Echo?

If the whole point of the exercise was to type up a few amateurish looking research notes, to give the impression that they had never heard of Ryan, because his book had enabled them to fake the diary, it wouldn’t have taken a mastermind to ignore The Poisoned Life completely and pick a few titbits from one or more of the above instead, sourcing them correctly, or not at all. Either way, job done, and Ryan left on the shelf, unmolested by man, woman, beast or Barrett.

But I suppose the argument would then have been that the total absence of Ryan, in any guise, was a sure sign of guilt, as was the total absence of Fido, indicating an acute awareness that the diary text reflected both.

And here comes the corker:

Meanwhile, Caz is dancing all around the issue, evidently pretending that Ryan isn't the source, using an obviously faulty argument about Gladys.

This shows not only a complete misunderstanding of my own observation and its implications, but the fact that RJ has walked into his own Ryan trap and managed to strangle Orsam’s baby at birth, by bringing up little Gladys and trying, but failing, to make her fit the same fakers’ mould. I’m not sure if Orsam is grateful, or grinding his teeth, to see how RJ is giving a masterclass in how to make the research notes reflect his own ability to perform mental gymnastics.

The Barretts were operating by dimmer switch then, at the dimmest level when letting Ryan supply the info for their notes, including No. 6 for Battlecrease and the Britannic for where the Maybricks met, and only had the wit to leave both unsourced to try and cover their tracks. But then they turned their brightness up to maximum for a single light bulb moment – a one-off instance – and pretended not to have found a date of birth for Gladys, deftly avoiding the Ryan trap on page 27, where he supplies the wrong date for her entrance into the world.

If they could make such a deliberate and calculated move, designed to remove Ryan from the equation, and do it with such consummate ease, as RJ has amply demonstrated using Gladys as his example, then they had the brains to make all the notes reflect the same total ignorance of Ryan’s existence. Gladys is the exception to Orsam’s rule which tests it to breaking point, so if he avoided the little one in his own notes on the subject, it wouldn’t take a genius to work out why. I bet RJ never thought he’d be the one to expose this fly paper in Orsam’s ointment, for which I am truly grateful, for saving me another job.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

After all, it is an undeniable fact: all the ‘Maybrick’ information in the diary can be found in one book: Ryan’s.

How can that be true, when it is an undeniable fact that Dr Fuller's words to Maybrick in 1889, as they appear in the diary, cannot be found in Ryan's book?

No hoaxer, from the dimmest to the brightest, could have plucked any five word phrase from Ryan's narrative, with any realistic chance of them coinciding with a five word phrase from Fuller's own testimony. RJ uses the undeniable fact that it is right there in the diary to argue that this is how it must have got there, via Ryan and the Barretts. Circular and pointless.

I can't see why RJ remains in denial about this, unless he still doesn't get it. But it would be far simpler to concede the point that Fuller's own choice of words can only be found in earlier sources, and that's where the Barretts got it from if they were indeed responsible.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I’m still not quite sure why RJ would like Mike Barrett, self-confessed and habitual liar, to have had serious kidney problems at any time, and to have told the truth about them and their effects on his physical and mental health and ability to function. I’m guessing that it’s tied up with RJ’s various excuses for Mike getting in such a mucking fuddle over the forgery details he dictated to Alan Gray for his affidavit of 5th January 1995, one excuse being ‘brain fog’ caused by too much alcohol, which RJ retracted after denying he had even used the term.

The medical report a year later, in February 1996, in relation to Mike’s claim for disability living allowance, states categorically that the doctor found no evidence of renal failure, and no physical or mental impairments to living a normal and independent life. No apparent effects from a previous stroke, and indeed Mike failed to mention one in his own declaration, which is odd if he knew it was in his records and could be useful to his claim. No signs of any chronic conditions either, that could have caused or contributed to his apparently unique ‘difficulties’ the previous January.

We were surprised when my dear departed mother-in-law told us the doctors said she had chronic kidney disease, when she was in hospital with flu just a couple of weeks before she died at the age of 84. We thought she must be confused, because she had never been told this before on her frequent visits for various medical complaints and routine health checks, and none of us had any idea. But there was no confusion. She had rarely touched alcohol for years and her mind and memory were as sharp as tacks right up to the end.

On balance, in RJ's shoes, I’d forget the idea that Mike’s kidneys were letting his memory down so badly on 5th January 1995 and stick to blaming the booze. Then all RJ needs to explain is how alcohol had messed with Mike's brain to the extent that he managed to reject the red diary, obtain the photo album and get the Maybrick diary created, a full two years before showing the result to Doreen in London, given that by 18th January 1995, he could again recite the exact date of that meeting – 13th April 1992 – a day to remember. Is it in any way likely that he was suffering from temporary but total amnesia concerning this date while preparing and then swearing the affidavit, only to recover his perfect memory for it in next to no time at all?

I find it very hard to believe that Mike could have forgotten taking the diary to London just a day or two after Anne had literally finished crossing the last t, dotting the last i and applying the blotting paper. And yet that's what must be argued to keep the auction dream alive.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

On balance, in RJ's shoes, I’d forget the idea that Mike’s kidneys were letting his memory down so badly on 5th January 1995 and stick to blaming the booze. Then all RJ needs to explain is how alcohol had messed with Mike's brain to the extent that he managed to reject the red diary, obtain the photo album and get the Maybrick diary created, a full two years before showing the result to Doreen in London, given that by 18th January 1995, he could again recite the exact date of that meeting – 13th April 1992 – a day to remember. Is it in any way likely that he was suffering from temporary but total amnesia concerning this date while preparing and then swearing the affidavit, only to recover his perfect memory for it in next to no time at all?

I find it very hard to believe that Mike could have forgotten taking the diary to London just a day or two after Anne had literally finished crossing the last t, dotting the last i and applying the blotting paper. And yet that's what must be argued to keep the auction dream alive.

Love,

Caz
X

Just a quick reminder, from the same tapes which RJ sent packing and now expects them to be made available by someone who actually cares about preserving evidence that comes his way...

Mike even admitted to Alan Gray, who later typed up the affidavit of 5th January 1995, that he got his dates wrong on purpose.

It doesn't get much plainer than that, does it?

If Mike knew he was making up the dates for the events he described in that affidavit, it begs the question why he needed to do that unless he was making up the events themselves, and lying about the when and why of any actual events he could usefully weave into the story, in order to create an impression that was entirely false. It's what he had been doing, after all, since 1992, with his Devereux story, mixing fact with fiction in his attempts to make it sound vaguely credible and tough to disprove. In short, he had history.

If Anne ever did read the affidavit from start to finish, she'd have been left in no doubt what a pile of absolute garbage it is.

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

Rumours of the death of this thread have been greatly exaggerated. Despite the strenuous efforts of some.

[Iconoclast]

Rumours of the death of this thread have been greatly exaggerated. Despite the strenuous efforts of some.

Well observed, MrB. This - The Greatest Thread of All - stands as a testament to the madness of those who would twist every tiny detail of a tale in order to make of it an impossible, ridiculous truth. It's been going on too long, this nit-picking the details which work for a Barrett hoax and ignoring the mountain of evidence that Mike Barrett was a failure in everything he touched, finding a break in persuading DC Thompson up in Dundee that he could safely ask celebrities the questions they sent him and then type them up cogently enough for their editors to then structure into articles (Mike himself admitting that the process only got that far and for so long because the more learned Anne stepped-in to tidy-up and type-up his scribbled notes). A failure in everything he touched (I'm sad to say - I don't think he was deeply malicious, though Anne's bruises might speak otherwise). A failure from the very start in his 'writing career', but vain enough to wave it like a flag around The Saddle so that Eddie Lyons actually thought Mike might be able to do something with the scrapbook he'd just filched out of 3, 6, 6a, 7, 8 (take your pick) Riversdale Road that morning and let him have it for £25.

The only decent thing Mike ever did was to bring the scrapbook to market with only a few irrelevant lies. Once his befuddled brain exploded, however, and the steaming pot of hidden lies spilled out, it was game-over for anyone who might have ever thought Mike Barrett could have had anything whatsoever to do with this remarkable confession of James Maybrick who - history already knows - was Jack the Spratt McVitie.

Yes, rumours of the death of this thread have been greatly exaggerated. Unlike the asinine claims and strenuous efforts of some to convince the easily-persuaded that Bongo Scrap-Dealer had a creative hand in the scrapbook which he brought to London on April 13, 1992 ...

Ike
Ike Iconoclast
Keeper of the Keys and an Ever-Watchful Eye Over Bollocks Being Sold as Truth to the Perennially Ill-Informed

[caz]

Evening Ike,

I've been reconsidering the 5th January 1995 affidavit to explore why Mike lied about all the raw materials having been purchased; the 'creative' juices having flowed; and the ink having been applied, in early 1990, when Tony D still had eighteen months to live, and no publisher had yet been approached, and the diary would not be making its debut in 'that London' for another two years.

It's very clear that he did lie, because whether one is a Barrett believer or sceptic, the scrapbook almost certainly only arrived in Goldie Street in March 1992. Having perfect recall of the exact date in April when he took it with him to show Doreen [still wrapped in the brown paper mentioned by one of the electricians before anyone was meant to know about it], Mike must also have remembered that his enquiry for a Victorian diary was around the same time he first contacted her literary agency, just the previous month.

Assuming the affidavit was designed to frighten Anne, and ‘blackmail’ her into communicating with him and letting him see Caroline, it’s a mystery why Mike didn’t date the red diary, auction and physical creation to March/April 1992 if all that was true. He took the sting out by dating these events back to early 1990, for which Anne knew no evidence would ever be found. The worst he could do would be to swear another affidavit at some future date, with yet another change of story. And she’d have had to take her chances.

If they both knew that the diary had arrived, already written, in March 1992, then they also knew all Mike’s claims were pure fantasy, whatever dates he tried to attach to them. Would Anne have wasted anyone’s time letting them investigate, even assuming a copy of the affidavit was there on the mat to greet her when she arrived back from the January 1995 Cloak & Dagger meeting, and she read every line?

I suspect there were two reasons for Mike dating the purchase of the red diary, the auction and the physical creation to an impossibly early 1990: 1) March 1992 was too close to home, as this was when he had really acquired the diary, and 2) he would have considered it impossibly late to have created it in early April 1992, because who in their right mind would believe a simple man and wife team with no previous could have pulled off a stunt like that? He’d have risked a good kicking from Alan Gray for starters, if he ran the idea past him.

Little did Mike understand the power of suggestion and wishful thinking that would one day have him attending that auction just a couple of weeks before Shirley took the Victorian guardbook, reeking of linseed oil, to Jarndyce and the British Museum.

Incidentally, who would have used a pristine Victorian guardbook to glue in photographs taken well into the early 20th century, as we are meant to believe? Would such an item have been sitting round the house gathering dust, waiting for someone to find a use for it? Or would it have been bought for the purpose?

I have an old handwritten family recipe/remedy book dating back to the 1840s, which has many more blank than used pages, because presumably nobody in later years wanted to use it for that or any other purpose, but to preserve it as a record of a bygone age.

Love,

Caz
X

[erobitha]

I've been reconsidering the 5th January 1995 affidavit to explore why Mike lied about all the raw materials having been purchased; the 'creative' juices having flowed; and the ink having been applied, in early 1990, when Tony D still had eighteen months to live, and no publisher had yet been approached, and the diary would not be making its debut in 'that London' for another two years.

....and yet the ink was apparently still dripping off the page.

Mike couldn't have been lying surely not?

[rjpalmer]

Just briefly popping to remind Caz of some unfinished business.

I’m still not quite sure why RJ would like Mike Barrett, self-confessed and habitual liar, to have had serious kidney problems at any time, and to have told the truth about them and their effects on his physical and mental health and ability to function.

This is a characteristically ridiculous comment.

Not being a sadist, I would hope that Barrett wasn't suffering from kidney troubles, but the references to the records we have seen suggests otherwise. At least three different physicians between 1982 and 1996 refer to Barrett having either a 'non-functioning kidney' or even renal/kidney 'failure.'

No, folks, I am certainly not willing to take Barrett's word for it (unlike Caz. All Barrett had to do was write 'nothing to date' on his bogus research notes and she believes him and thinks this doesn't mean he had The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick in his lap. At least Ike had the sense to realize Orsam was right)

Let me just remind you, Caz, that I am merely attempting to ascertain why Birchwood (not Barrett--they aren't the same person) wrote that he had seen a reference to Barrett being on dialysis sometime after the mid-1980s.

I've now waited 12 days since my post of 2-10-2022, 8:50 p.m., when I asked for clarification about the medical reports you alluded to; you have apparently seen the originals and not merely abstracts, since you refer to Barrett having jotted down a note to Shirley Harrison on one of them.

So why the mystery? Why the non-response?

Is there some reason you aren't willing to state whether these reports refer to any specific treatment Barrett was receiving? As we know (despite "FDC's" medical misinformation) dialysis can be temporary and does not inevitably lead to a transplant.

So let me repeat my question.

Do the reports of Feb 1996 that you mentioned refer to any specific medicine or treatment that Barrett was receiving for his "kidney failure"? Does it give any additional information about his condition?

I'll make it easy. No long post is needed. Simply answer:

a) yes, the refer to X treatment.
b) no, they do no refer to any treatments.
c) I don't know and/or decline to answer.

Thanks!

It's rather a minor point, isn't it? There are many reasons for Barrett's crazy talk, the most obvious being that he was trying to walk back his confession, since behind the scenes his solicitor was begging him to stop strangling "the golden goose." (And a goose is an appropriate "spirit animal" for the Maybrick Diary, don't ya think?)

Mike would hardly have been the first ex-con to disarm his interrogators by using crazy talk. That stunt is as old as the hills. Just throw in a few gibes about the IRA and slapping around bloody kidneys and the Diary Faithful will be suddenly reassured that there's no use worrying about Mike and Anne buying blank Victorian diaries.

Anyway, many thanks in advance for any clarification. I'll pop back in twelve days with another reminder if it again slips your mind.

RP

See you in 12 days!

[rjpalmer]

Folks, I'm not going to bother to respond to all the recent comments. Instead, let me give only one example of why it is best to steer clear of any discussion of the Maybrick Hoax:

How can that be true, when it is an undeniable fact that Dr Fuller's words to Maybrick in 1889, as they appear in the diary, cannot be found in Ryan's book?

Here’s the passage from the Diary:




Here is the passage from Bernard Ryan’s “A Poisoned Life” about Fuller's examination.




Yet we are told that it is an “undeniable fact” that Fuller’s words cannot be found in Ryan’s book.

It's the same five words! "VERY LITTLE THE MATTER WITH" (him/me)


Caz seems to have confused herself and can no longer remember her own original argument--not that it made the least bit of sense.

Let me help.

What RJ failed to appreciate or care about is the fact that if Mike had tried to do this, Ryan's words would only need to have differed by a single syllable from Dr Fuller's back in 1889, and the game would have been up as soon as anyone compared the two.

What Caz seems to be suggesting is that the same hoaxer who didn't bother to imitate Maybrick's handwriting, who invented a non-existent 'Mrs. Hammersmith,' who has Abberline the lead detective in the Eddowes investigation, who used a dodgy photo-album with pages missing, etc.etc. wouldn't be willing to take the 'dangerous risk' of writing that Dr. Fuller had found "very the little matter with him" because the hoaxer wouldn't know whether or not Ryan was accurately quoting Dr. Fuller!

There is no kind way to say this, but I’ll try: this is an exceedingly unconvincing argument. It rivals the weird suggestion that Maybrick had reassured his wife that he would never strike her again by telling her that it was a "one-year-old horse instance."

Folks, we are talking about Mike Barrett---the same bloke who couldn’t come up with a better provenance than he got the diary from a dead guy down the boozer and who used an alias when he first contacted his literary agent.

Evidence that Mike WOULD be willing to cop a phrase directly out of Bernard Ryan without knowing whether or not it was accurate can be found in his bogus research notes where he refers to Jim and Florrie meeting on the “Brittanic.”

It was an error—he had the wrong ship---and further it was an error straight out of Ryan. As David Barrat has demonstrated, this error is not in Moreland, not in Christie, not MacDougall, etc. It is only in Ryan.

So much for Mike not being willing to take such a ‘dangerous risk’!

Caz also seems to think that Ike and his fellow believers would have instantly thrown in the towel had Fullers said "very little wrong with him" instead of "very little the matter with him." Ike looks past the dodgy handwriting and the dodgy provenance, etc., but would consider this a fatal blow?

You've got to be pulling my leg.

Let’s hope we’ve heard the last of this convoluted suggestion.

[caz]

Not being a sadist, I would hope that Barrett wasn't suffering from kidney troubles, but the references to the records we have seen suggests otherwise. At least three different physicians between 1982 and 1996 refer to Barrett having either a 'non-functioning kidney' or even renal/kidney 'failure.'

That wasn't really the point though, was it, RJ?

I was disputing that Mike's kidneys [in any condition] could have temporarily affected his memory for what was happening in March/April 1992 when preparing and signing off on his affidavit on 5th January 1995, given that there was nothing wrong with it by 18th January 1995. If you agree that his kidneys had nothing to do with it, perhaps you could move on and consider whether you believe alcoholism can produce this kind of off/on memory effect, and if so, whether it would make the affidavit less reliable in general, if he was struggling - and failing - to recall what was or wasn't going on around him between early 1990 and 13th April 1992.

No, folks, I am certainly not willing to take Barrett's word for it (unlike Caz. All Barrett had to do was write 'nothing to date' on his bogus research notes and she believes him and thinks this doesn't mean he had The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick in his lap. At least Ike had the sense to realize Orsam was right)

Nice try, RJ. If you didn't grasp the point about Gladys just say so. You don't know how Mike went about compiling his notes any more than I do, or Orsam does. You don't even know if they were typed up in the same chronological order as they were compiled. I never suggested he didn't consult Ryan's book at some point during his research efforts, but cause and effect would still need to be demonstrated: that he saw the [incorrect] date of birth Ryan gives for Gladys on page 27 and then made the note, pretending he couldn't find a date anywhere. It doesn't sit comfortably with his apparent lack of concern over noting the Britannic detail [on page 15], when he had no need to compile any notes from Ryan's book, if he then had to pretend he hadn't. There is no source attached to the Britannic note, which you pounced on as a 'death-blow'. You couldn't say where Ryan got the ship's name from, other than it was 'evidently' guesswork. So while we've got you back again, perhaps you could find a better example - something Mike could only have read in Ryan's book, but attached an incorrect source to it.

I've now waited 12 days since my post of 2-10-2022, 8:50 p.m., when I asked for clarification about the medical reports you alluded to; you have apparently seen the originals and not merely abstracts, since you refer to Barrett having jotted down a note to Shirley Harrison on one of them.

So why the mystery? Why the non-response?

Sorry, but I thought you said it was not your 'immediate concern', and then you disappeared again, giving the distinct impression of someone in no hurry to return, so I was in no hurry to provide you with any further clarification.

Is there some reason you aren't willing to state whether these reports refer to any specific treatment Barrett was receiving? As we know (despite "FDC's" medical misinformation) dialysis can be temporary and does not inevitably lead to a transplant.

So let me repeat my question.

Do the reports of Feb 1996 that you mentioned refer to any specific medicine or treatment that Barrett was receiving for his "kidney failure"? Does it give any additional information about his condition?

I'll make it easy. No long post is needed. Simply answer:

a) yes, the refer to X treatment.
b) no, they do no refer to any treatments.
c) I don't know and/or decline to answer.

I still don't see the relevance, or how Mike's benefit claims from early 1996 [the medical report for disability living allowance and a brief sick note] can tell us anything useful about why he got his dates wrong on purpose in January 1995, when accusing Anne of faking the diary with him in early 1990.

But since you must have some other reason for wanting to know, there are no references to any treatment for kidney problems. The extent of Mike's 'disability' was put down as 100% due to the consequences of his road traffic accident at age 14, causing incontinence and stiffness in his lower back and hip, and the injury to his wrist from late 1994.

Clinically there is no evidence of renal failure.

Good memory.

Excellent balance.

No evidence of any neurological deficit.

Current medication: Librium, and one other which is barely legible but looks like Paracetamol Tabs.

No other therapy or equipment for which help is needed from another person eg: inhaler, nebuliser, injections, physiotherapy, dialysis, TPN etc.

Slow to near normal walking speed.

Slight limp right leg.

Can cope independently with the incontinence problems.

Fully mentally competent.

In Mike's own statement, he says he is not on dialysis.

Mike would hardly have been the first ex-con to disarm his interrogators by using crazy talk. That stunt is as old as the hills. Just throw in a few gibes about the IRA and slapping around bloody kidneys and the Diary Faithful will be suddenly reassured that there's no use worrying about Mike and Anne buying blank Victorian diaries.

Not this again! Mike's 'crazy talk' as it relates to what you describe as 'slapping around bloody kidneys' was for Alan Gray's ears, and for Gray to pass on to Melvin Harris, whose Christmas wish list for 1994 included a credible confession. Mike's claim that Anne had dropped a real kidney on the diary causing the kidney-shaped stain was only made to Gray, the one person he was trying to persuade. That was in November 1994, just a day after he had told Gray the stain was his own work, signifying his own kidney problems. Little wonder the story changed again in time for the affidavit, typed up by Gray, where it became:

"I then made a mark 'kidney' shaped, just below centre inside the cover with the Knife."

The irony is that Mike's childishly unbelievable lies about the stain, as told to Alan Gray, could not have 'suddenly reassured' the Diary Faithful, since they were kept in the dark about them! None of these recorded conversations or the affidavit were made by Mike for their ears or eyes. Or did you forget?

[caz]

What Caz seems to be suggesting is that the same hoaxer who didn't bother to imitate Maybrick's handwriting, who invented a non-existent 'Mrs. Hammersmith,' who has Abberline the lead detective in the Eddowes investigation, who used a dodgy photo-album with pages missing, etc.etc. wouldn't be willing to take the 'dangerous risk' of writing that Dr. Fuller had found "very the little matter with him" because the hoaxer wouldn't know whether or not Ryan was accurately quoting Dr. Fuller!

No, that is NOT what I was suggesting. Not remotely. I see you still haven't got the foggiest idea what the problem is with your argument that the diary only reflects an actual five-word phrase used by Dr Fuller himself in 1889 because a hoaxer who was wholly dependent on Ryan's narrative - no quotes, no signposts, just paraphrasing - accidentally chose five of his words which just happened, by pure chance, to match five of Fuller's. There was no way for even the most sophisticated hoaxer to know that Ryan and Fuller had a single word in common, so what you are suggesting is that if Ryan had written anything else, it would have been his words in the diary, and not Fuller's, and none of us would be here now arguing the toss.

Folks, we are talking about Mike Barrett---the same bloke who couldn’t come up with a better provenance than he got the diary from a dead guy down the boozer and who used an alias when he first contacted his literary agent.

And? How is that remotely relevant? If Mike had no idea where the diary had come from or when, that would explain why he had to make up a story and why he initially used an alias.

Evidence that Mike WOULD be willing to cop a phrase directly out of Bernard Ryan without knowing whether or not it was accurate can be found in his bogus research notes where he refers to Jim and Florrie meeting on the “Brittanic.”

It was an error—he had the wrong ship---and further it was an error straight out of Ryan. As David Barrat has demonstrated, this error is not in Moreland, not in Christie, not MacDougall, etc. It is only in Ryan.

I've already addressed this one, but again it's not relevant to the chances of anyone hitting on Fuller's words by copying any phrase directly out of Ryan's book. It's not that Mike wasn't stupid enough to try; it's the chances of anyone succeeding if that's how they went about it.

Once again, if the Britannic had appeared in the diary itself, Orsam could have awarded himself a gold star, and you could have basked in the sunshine of his success. As it is, there would be nothing spectacularly incriminating if Mike got the tip about Ryan from Shirley while he was working on the Maybrick angle between the spring and summer of 1992, and just didn't bother putting the name of the book beside the relevant notes, as he was compiling them for her benefit in any case.

Caz also seems to think that Ike and his fellow believers would have instantly thrown in the towel had Fullers said "very little wrong with him" instead of "very little the matter with him." Ike looks past the dodgy handwriting and the dodgy provenance, etc., but would consider this a fatal blow?

You've got to be pulling my leg.

Let’s hope we’ve heard the last of this convoluted suggestion.

Oh I bet you hope you've heard the last of this one. It's not convoluted in the slightest. It's black and white. Unlike the mental gymnastics you have to perform to make the note about Gladys consistent with the argument about the Ryan notes.

I can assure you, if Ryan's choice of words had appeared in the diary, where Fuller's or anyone else's should have been, I'd have ripped Ike a new one if he failed to acknowledge this was not just 'dodgy' but absolute proof of a modern fake.

It still wouldn't make the Barretts guilty of doing the faking, any more than a 'dodgy' Monet at the Antiques Roadshow would imply that the old dear who brought it along had painted it herself. Or a certain 'dodgy' ticker still in the Johnson family would imply that a Johnson brother had made the engravings.

[rjpalmer]

No, that is NOT what I was suggesting. Not remotely. I see you still haven't got the foggiest idea what the problem is with your argument that the diary only reflects an actual five-word phrase used by Dr Fuller himself in 1889 because a hoaxer who was wholly dependent on Ryan's narrative - no quotes, no signposts, just paraphrasing - accidentally chose five of his words which just happened, by pure chance, to match five of Fuller's.

No, you're right, Caz. I don't have the foggiest idea what you're going on about, because your argument doesn't make the least bit of sense. It's madness.

Now you are suggesting that those five words matched Fuller's words by "pure chance?" Or, in other words, it is such a mind-blowing coincidence that it means the hoaxer couldn't have been using Ryan even though he uses the exact same wording?

What?!??

The reason that Ryan has Fuller telling Maybrick that there was "very the little matter with him" is for the obvious reason that that is EXACTLY what Fuller deposed at the inquest:






There is no 'pure chance' involved. It's not a coincidence. It isn't even close to a shadow of a coincidence.


Ryan, like every other historian of the Maybrick case, was working from the trial transcripts.

He's quoting Fuller albeit without quotation marks. (Or to be technical, he is actually paraphrasing Fuller, based on the trial transcript's paraphrase). Historians do it all the time, so as not to disturb the flow of their writing, yet to remain historically accurate.

So, this is your suggestion? Just because Ryan doesn't use quotation marks--even though he uses EXACTLY the same phrase that is in the Maybrick Hoax--this means Barrett and Graham couldn't have been pinching this wording from him?

What a waste of time.

[rjpalmer]

I still don't see the relevance, or how Mike's benefit claims from early 1996 [the medical report for disability living allowance and a brief sick note] can tell us anything useful about why he got his dates wrong on purpose in January 1995, when accusing Anne of faking the diary with him in early 1990.

But since you must have some other reason for wanting to know, there are no references to any treatment for kidney problems. The extent of Mike's 'disability' was put down as 100% due to the consequences of his road traffic accident at age 14, causing incontinence and stiffness in his lower back and hip, and the injury to his wrist from late 1994.

To be clear, I'm referring to the benefit claims from February 1996 that you mentioned in your post of 1-28-2022 3:46 pm:

Regarding Mike’s kidneys, it appears that the doctors differ. While ZZZZ reports a ‘non-functioning (L) kidney’ under ‘Other conditions present’, he follows this up with ‘clinically there is no evidence of Renal Failure’. However, the doctor signing the sick pay form five days later diagnoses Mike with renal failure.
Source: copy of report sent by Mike to Shirley

If the doctor who actually signed the sick pay refers to 'renal failure' (kidney failure) how does this have anything to do with a traffic accident when he was 14? Are you suggesting he had kidney problems for all those years?

And, to be clear, you're stating this sick pay form made "no references to any treatment for kidney problems'? Even though it refers to "renal failure"?

My apologies for the simple-minded, repetitive questions, but yes, I do have a reason for asking, because the information I've seen suggests otherwise.

By the way, I am not insisting that Barrett's kidney problems had any relevance to his strange behavior; I am just seeking the truth of what treatment he may or may not have received in 1994-1996, since a trustworthy commentator said they had seen a medical report referring to Barrett receiving dialysis, and further informed me that dialysis can affect one's mental state and memory--as of course, can Korsikoff's Syndrome and "alcoholic psychosis.

As far as I am concerned, this is somewhat of a side issue because, properly considered, Barrett demonstrated inside knowledge of the hoax's creation and there is abundant evidence that it was a recent fake.

I'm not even insisting that Barrett played much of a role in writing it. In fact, I doubt very much that he did. Personally, I don't think the author was the type who put on trousers in the morning, but I suspect you and Ike know that, and just use Barrett as a convenient hobby horse.

RP

[rjpalmer]

Well, I guess I'll cut to the chase.

The claim that Barrett received dialysis has been met with universal scorn and skepticism.

Ike all but said that it was imaginary bollocks and 'FDC' even suggested that Barrett hoaxed documentation.

Caz informs us that Mike's benefit claims of 1996 were attributable to a very old traffic accident when Mike was 14 and made no reference to kidney treatment, even though she admits that the form refers to "renal failure."

But unless I am very much mistaken directly below the reference to "renal failure," it seems to state "on dialysis."

The copy is difficult to read, I admit, but 'dialysis' is quite unmistakeable' and the word next to it seems to be 'on.'



As far as I am concerned, Birchwood's statement stands unrebutted.