If you eliminate the impossible

[Ben]

James Maybrick is eliminated as the author of the Diary because it's not his handwriting.

Right you are, Roy.

It really is as simple as that.

Best regards,
Ben

[caz]

Hi All,

Well you wouldn't think it was 'as simple as that', judging by the way everyone's been duped into dancing frantically around the Maypole on the other recently active diary thread that I've just been catching up with for the first time in ages.

Maria is stark raving mad. I'm serious.

You're not wrong, GM. But from very personal experience, I don't think even she could ever top the Maypole for creepy obsessions.

Extracted from t'other thread:

Never mind the bollocks, who agrees with me that Soothsayer writes in the most readable, flowing, sweetly composed and, frankly, best prose on this entire website?

Your servant, gentles all,

Graham.

Ah, but whose bollocks are people busy tickling over there? Shall I give them a clue?

Perhaps I speak with the zeal of a convert, because I've wasted as much time as anyone "discussing" it, but there really are any number of more interesting aspects of the Whitechapel Murders than the "Diary".

Even if your interest is purely in picking arguments with people, you'll find it far more productive to post an opinion - I suspect any opinion will do - about George Hutchinson, and then defend it when it's challenged.

Congratulations on your success so far in getting people to respond to your provocative assertions, but you must know that in the long run you're just flogging a dead horse.

Blimey it's like old times, Chris. But since when was the diary an 'aspect' of the Whitechapel Murders? And since when did Soothy ever show an interest in discussing any aspect of those murders, apart from a brief flirtation with Carrie Maxwell if memory serves? And flogging dead horses always came naturally to him - the more people he could get to watch him in action with his whip out the better.

"Caz Linder-Skinner"?

This really is all just a leg-pull, isn't it?

You're quick.

Of course someone whose intention is to keep the argument going, will do his best to be as irritating as possible.

This game has been going on for years. Decades even.

I have a feeling you still don't know just how ironic that is (and I don't mean you here either). It's a game he can't bear to give up. And it's always been just that to him - a game. He never did care whose time he was eating up. He's back to eating up yours again. He ain't having any more of mine after this post.

It seems pretty unlikely that he'll read any comment you may post about him here.

You want a bet?

Believe me, he'll be back ...

He'd have to go away first.

Well, this is Mr Omlor's house...

Anyone found the light switch yet?

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris]

I have a feeling you still don't know just how ironic that is ...

Ooh! Mysterious ...

[Jane Welland]

I wonder..

..Is it the hoax that's simple? Or the people who believe in it? Hmm..Jane x

[Soothsayer]

You're not wrong, GM. But from very personal experience, I don't think even she could ever top the Maypole for creepy obsessions.

And since when did Soothy ever show an interest in discussing any aspect of those murders, apart from a brief flirtation with Carrie Maxwell if memory serves? And flogging dead horses always came naturally to him - the more people he could get to watch him in action with his whip out the better.

It's a game he can't bear to give up. And it's always been just that to him - a game. He never did care whose time he was eating up. He's back to eating up yours again. He ain't having any more of mine after this post.

Hi Caz,

There is a wonderfully sardonic moment in Feldman where he has Mike Barrett so bamboozled over his (Mike's) 'actual' identity that Mike actually starts to believe that he himself is not Mike Barrett after all.

I had that moment myself on reading your post.

I rarely (I sometimes can't help myself - for example, this very reply) post anywhere other than on the thread from which you have quoted - I figure that if people really dislike my tongue-in-cheek ways, they need only avoid the one thread rather than the many, and that by posting on the many I would genuinely be disrupting the more serious purpose of the Casebook.

I had wondered why I couldn't entice a significant name like yourself to even briefly join the fray (with my references to marrying you, etc.) and humour me with a cheeky wee rejoinder, but I wonder no more as your post makes evident that you have had some kind of encounter which most of us would not welcome.

I am definitely not whoever you imagine me to be, and it saddens me that you have believed it to be so, and evidently for so long. At first - like poor Mike - I imagined that you actually were referring to me, but thankfully (for me if not for you) the latter half of your post gave away enough for me to realise you have me at a disadvantage, and definitely one I don't deserve.

Best wishes,

Soothsayer

[Chris]

I am definitely not whoever you imagine me to be, and it saddens me that you have believed it to be so, and evidently for so long.

It's no use trying to wriggle out of it. I'm sure Caroline Morris knows who you are, even if you think you're somebody else.

Does that make sense? Does anything make sense here?

[caz]

..Is it the hoax that's simple? Or the people who believe in it? Hmm..Jane x

Hi Jane (and welcome by the way! ),

No, I don't think we are all simple for believing in the hoax. It definitely exists - or did when I saw it last.

Assuming nobody has managed to chuck the hoax on a bonfire yet, I suspect it is one that will continue to grab the more vulnerable in our tiny community by the throat and keep twisting the knife in their guts (if you will excuse my 'orribly graphic way with words). I have yet to get my extraordinarily pretty head round how a fugly old scrapbook ever got the power to do that to anyone, but I've seen it happen too often over the years to doubt it.

Of course, if anyone were to pretend to 'believe in it', not as a practical joke (and the gift that keeps on giving), but as the penmanship of either JM or JtR, to see who they could attract, and succeeded in getting a few posters to argue the toss (and maybe anything would be better for such a pretender than being Billy No Mates), that would take 'simple' to a different and rather disturbing level.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Chris,

Well, my guess (from the most recent posts, which I had only just read) was that the posters already contributing must either be in the know or being stitched up like a kipper.

Love,

Caz
X

[Soothsayer]

It's no use trying to wriggle out of it. I'm sure Caroline Morris knows who you are, even if you think you're somebody else.

Does that make sense? Does anything make sense here?

It would all be a bit of good-natured fun if there clearly wasn't some undercurrent which only she understands.

I shan't respond to it because it should be blindingly obvious from the t'other thread that she has me confused with some other, and certainly no gentleman by the sound of it. In responding to her comments, I could only fuel her misguided view of the source of them.

As it happens, I am a complete Billy Nae Mates, but I can assure you, sir (if not her) that I am not the 'obsessive' one she imagines me to be. My obsessions are unnatural (by definitions, all of our obsessions are unnatural, else we wouldn't name them thus), but nothing whatsoever to do with her.

[Chris]

I shan't respond to it because it should be blindingly obvious from the t'other thread that she has me confused with some other, and certainly no gentleman by the sound of it. In responding to her comments, I could only fuel her misguided view of the source of them.

I really wouldn't worry about it. She used to think I was somebody called Nick, and I've never managed to get her to say which Nick she thought I was.

[Soothsayer]

I really wouldn't worry about it. She used to think I was somebody called Nick, and I've never managed to get her to say which Nick she thought I was.

Then, ironically, despite the gnawing injustice and general confusion of her claims, I shall find comfort in the likelihood I am not the first to feel it.

Nevertheless, she has pricked me, and I reserve my right to bleed awhile.

[Jane Welland]

Hi Caz..

I don't know so much about the 'Diary' quite honestly - I'm sure you know far more than I - my knowledge is probably equivalent to any held by the fairly interested observer, that's all.

There seem at first sight to be obvious things that would declare the thing a hoax, and I think some of them must be difficult to get around, else we would all know by now that the diary was for real and Maybrick was JTR.

But not so. Equally, though, it doesn't dissipate into the history of hoaxes, which indicates that some people, at least, continue to have faith in its veracity.

I wonder if the trouble is that many of the pertinent questions cannot be proven one way or the other - and thus, as so often in the field of all things Ripper, it seems - speculation and attendant theorising might easily go on ad infinitum.

Maybe it's the Mystery at the end (or not) of the day.

Jane x

[caz]

...it doesn't dissipate into the history of hoaxes, which indicates that some people, at least, continue to have faith in its veracity.

I wonder if the trouble is that many of the pertinent questions cannot be proven one way or the other - and thus, as so often in the field of all things Ripper, it seems - speculation and attendant theorising might easily go on ad infinitum.

Maybe it's the Mystery at the end (or not) of the day.

Jane x

Hi Jane,

It seems that it only takes one poster to claim to have faith in its veracity, for others who should, and probably do know better (I'm not including you here in case you think Mr Strawman is for real) to suddenly find time to waste, responding to a shadow ad infinitum - which may actually be stopping the diary dissipating into the history of hoaxes.

Think about it - does anyone really want to hold the faith of one absent author and one dead one responsible for their own contribution to keeping the kettle boiling on these boards?

Hi Chris,

My guess is 'in the know'. Am I warm?

Either way it's up to you how you choose to spend your own time here. If you find it productive to prolong the latest piece of nonsense that Stephen has had to host on these boards by responding to it, fill your boots. But I'll have none of it.

The devil really does make work for idle hands, doesn't it?

Love,

Grown Up Caz
X

[caz]

Old Nick's in good nick

She used to think I was somebody called Nick, and I've never managed to get her to say which Nick she thought I was.

Afternoon Chris,

I see you sensibly kept your head down after your previous comment (see above).

In case anyone stopped by and wondered what on earth you were talking about, I suppose it's only fair for them and us if I explain that I only had cause to wonder who you might be when you popped up as 'Whitechapel Student' many moons ago and chose not to reveal for a time that you were just Chris.

I knew that WS was not someone whose writing was completely new to me, but not being able to place it immediately, and you being unwilling initially to come out of your self-imposed closet, I thought I'd have a little harmless fun guessing. It didn't take much longer before it became as clear as day who you were, and at least your position on the diary as WS was exactly the same as it has always been as CP, so it all ended well.

But really, it's a little hard to ridicule anyone for taking stabs in the dark at one's identity if they have chosen to snuff the candle out to play hide and seek.

Love,

The Caz, the whole Caz and nothing but the Caz
X

[Chris]

Caroline Morris

I was simply pointing out that your making wild assumptions about the identities of posters - and getting it completely wrong - was nothing new.

But for someone who wasn't going to waste her time here, aren't you posting rather a lot on this thread? More than anyone else in the last few days, in fact - Soothsayer included!