Barrett and the Diary.

[Chris George]

Maybe Keith has to keep it secret because legally it belongs to Bruce?

otherwise whats his problem?

i willing to give keith the benefit of the doubt, because he's not a sod or anything

i quite like him!

Hi Jen

Of course it is also known that Keith has been working for Patricia Cornwell, so the continuing work on the Diary that Keith has been doing might have been on her behalf. And talking about benefit, if the documentation that Keith possesses does show the Diary was done after Maybrick's 1889 demise that might help end Maybrick's candidacy, which means there is one less suspect to rival her favored suspect, Walter Sickert. Another thing is that the ongoing research might conceivably show Maybrick was at an event or meeting with someone on one or more of the nights of the murders. More squirrel nuts, anyone?

Chris

[Scott Nelson]

You know, I've always thought there may be a diary conduit through Mike's scrap metal business.

[Jenni Shelden]

Maybe Keith has to keep it secret because legally it belongs to Bruce?

otherwise whats his problem?

i willing to give keith the benefit of the doubt, because he's not a sod or anything

i quite like him!

[Omlor]

My lord,

To read some of the prose around here, one would think we were discussing covert intelligence and international intrigue.

Really, Caroline. It's just a bit of information about a cheap hoax.

And if Keith was so bent on keeping the whole thing mum while the ongoing investigation was ongoing (as it has been for so very long), if keeping it secret was really as vital as you make it sound in your post above, and he is the careful and cautious man you always tell us he is, then why would he blab about it in a public forum?

I'm sure nations won't fall if he simply backs up his public claims and puts up the goods.

--John

[Victor]

(for those gullible enough to believe Mike's version of events re his battered old Sphere book - even though he told Feldy's secretary how he was going to fool people into believing he had the book all along and therefore must have forged the diary)

Can anyone explain this quote?

Does the sphere book exist?

Is the quote in it and in the diary?

Did Mike Barrett own a copy of the Sphere book?

Did it fall open on the page with the quote?

That seems like a fair place to start

[Callyphygian]

Hi Caz,
Can you confirm that Keith's Battlecrease documentation has been subject to rigorous scientific testing to ensure that it is genuine?

Love,
Callyphygian

[Ally]

Caz,

It sank in for me. So basically Keith has researched, gone and talked to people, now he has super secret evidence that no one is allowed to see but which he is allowed to make pronouncements on and keep closeted away.

What's he waiting for? For all the key players to die so no one can follow up after he puts forth his "proof"

Yeah people who sit on the evidence and while making public claims about it...naughty. And as for the whole "court of history" bullsht that's trying to currently whitewash what Keith said: He was sitting in a mock legal trial and discussing the evidence when he made his claims. Let's not let facts get in the way of attempts to mitigate his culpability in making claims about evidence he's holding that he refuses to share while making claims of the Diary's authenticity, which once again, is something you have soundly condemned others for doing. For years.

[caz]

I read Caroline's post above.

Oh good.

Shame none of it actually sank in.

But we can't have everything.

You don't do an awful lot of actual investigating, with real live people, do you John? If you did, I guess you would report everything you found out, as you found it out, and in public, even if it meant buggering the whole thing up, because at least you'd be doing the right thing by some self-important twit on the internet who kept insisting he had a right to know the current state of play.

Love,

Caz
X

[Omlor]

I read Caroline's post above.

Then I scrolled up and re-read this:

Instead, we get people making claims to have secret evidence that would convince us of the diary's origins but not showing it anyone and not even saying why they won't show it to anyone, we get promises of cooperation but no meaningful tests on the document (in fact, the book isn't even being shown to experts so that they might at least tell us what is and is not possible using the latest technologies), we get turf wars and secrecy and inaction and general paranoia and claims of an interminable "ongoing investigation" but nothing new or real ever.

So it's not surprising that one might find the talk of relegating the whole issue to the "court of history," while not surprising, certainly depressing.

Anyway, it's all the same old thing and the diary still sits where it sits, still a cheap hoax like the watch, and nothing ever really changes.


Well, there's nothing like a good old-fashioned demonstration.

Same as it ever was,

--John

[caz]

The thing ought to be resolved while Barrett, Graham, and Johnson, et. al., are still drawing breath. Half the problem with 'Ripper Studies' is that no one went around and quizzed Abberline, Anderson, Swanson, and Littlechld circa 1912--ie., while they still had vocal chords.

Good God, RJ! I thought it was Keith posting for a moment there. His whole philosophy is the importance of talking to people while they are still alive, and getting as much as possible down on record for future generations to get their teeth into. It's just a pity it has taken so long for you to finally get the message. You never uttered a word when others, including Melvin Harris, were positively shying away from every opportunity they had to quiz people like 'Barrett, Graham, and Johnson, et al'.

What the blazes do you think Keith has been doing all along, if not trying to set down on record as much as possible of what those still alive have to say about the diary and watch? He is extremely critical of people who pontificate from their armchairs about people they don't know and have never met, and have no intention of ever confronting with their questions or their suspicions.

I really could not be more pleased that you, for one, are so actively endorsing Keith's own tried and tested methods for getting at the truth while there are people alive who know it and have evidence of it.

But to go back to your comments about Abberline, Anderson, Swanson and Littlechild not being quizzed: would you have expected the results of that quizzing to appear on a public message board while the ripper investigation was still in progress, or while there might be people around with relevant information, if such a public broadcasting might easily jeopardize a successful outcome?

That's what certain people around here seem to be calling for with regard to the investigation into the origins of the diary and watch, ie who created them, when, how and why, and how they emerged when they did.

I don't know what all the fuss is about, because Omlor would be beside himself with joy if he really thought that the wait for evidence to be made public (in a case involving people who are still alive) indicated that the evidence itself didn't exist or was nothing for him to worry his sweet head about.

By the way he goes on and on and on and on about it, anyone would think that he would equate the diary coming out of Maybrick's house with it being real.

It is on the pro-diary camp to prove the diary is real, otherwise there is only one logical conclusion...

Absolutely, Gatsby.

Now then, where's this pro-diary 'camp' who are busy claiming the diary is real? Come out, come out, wherever you are - someone wants a word with you.....

Meanwhile nobody can come up with any evidence for who is supposed to have completed the thing between April 1989 (for those gullible enough to believe Mike's version of events re his battered old Sphere book - even though he told Feldy's secretary how he was going to fool people into believing he had the book all along and therefore must have forged the diary) and April 1992.

Love,

Caz
X

[Omlor]

Hi Chris,

I'm not sure what you are suggesting about Mike and Anne not being "fine and upstanding," but if I got hold of an old diary, I would see no reason to lie about how I got it.

And I am suggesting that if they did see reasons to lie, that should tell us something both about them and about the possible origins of the book, especially given the fact that it has no verifiable provenance to speak of, there is no record of it having even existed before the 1980s, the text indicates numerous times that it was composed in modern times and the people that first produced it for inspection have never come clean about its origins.

But of course all of this is ancient news by now and nothing new has happened with the book or is likely to happen with the book for years and years and years.

I think that's what RJ was commenting on originally, when he talked about resolving this while the principal players are at least still around.

Instead, we get people making claims to have secret evidence that would convince us of the diary's origins but not showing it anyone and not even saying why they won't show it to anyone, we get promises of cooperation but no meaningful tests on the document (in fact, the book isn't even being shown to experts so that they might at least tell us what is and is not possible using the latest technologies), we get turf wars and secrecy and inaction and general paranoia and claims of an interminable "ongoing investigation" but nothing new or real ever.

So it's not surprising that one might find the talk of relegating the whole issue to the "court of history," while not surprising, certainly depressing.

Anyway, it's all the same old thing and the diary still sits where it sits, still a cheap hoax like the watch, and nothing ever really changes.

So at least there is a certain peace in the routine.

And I'm off to the links.

Have a fine afternoon and evening,

--John

[Chris George]

Hi Chris,

I see your point (sort of), but I don't think I would tell people that I wrote it, which Barret has said.

Hi Gatsby

If you are looking for attention, you might claim you wrote it.

Chris

[Gatsby]

Hi John

Let's put it this way, if a fishy document came into your hands, a kind of windfall, and you were not the fine upstanding Floridian we know you to be, might you not tell various stories about how you came to possess the document? So in other words, I don't think the lies or the contradictory stories per se necessarily denote that the Barretts were involved in hoaxing the Diary or that they necessarily know where it came from.

All the best

Chris

Hi Chris,

I see your point (sort of), but I don't think I would tell people that I wrote it, which Barret has said.

[Chris George]

Hi Chris,

Look at it this way...

We only know of two people in the whole history of the world who had their hands on the diary before it went public -- Mike and Anne.

Both of them eventually told self-contradictory stories about how they got it. Consequently, we know that at some point they were lying about its origins.

If they were, as you suggest, "merely trying to grapple with the meaning of a mysterious document," then why the lies?

--John

Hi John

Let's put it this way, if a fishy document came into your hands, a kind of windfall, and you were not the fine upstanding Floridian we know you to be, might you not tell various stories about how you came to possess the document? So in other words, I don't think the lies or the contradictory stories per se necessarily denote that the Barretts were involved in hoaxing the Diary or that they necessarily know where it came from.

All the best

Chris

[Omlor]

Hi Chris,

Look at it this way...

We only know of two people in the whole history of the world who had their hands on the diary before it went public -- Mike and Anne.

Both of them eventually told self-contradictory stories about how they got it. Consequently, we know that at some point they were lying about its origins.

If they were, as you suggest, "merely trying to grapple with the meaning of a mysterious document," then why the lies?

--John