The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Iconoclast]

Oh, I don’t know, Ike. I think it would require “at least twenty blank pages.”

Very good, RJ - made me chuckle ...

[Iconoclast]

Face it Ike. The diary wasn't written by Maybrick. Also Mike and Anne Barrett are the clear favourites to have created the scrapbook. If you have actual evidence that stacks up to refute this please provide it?

I would not demur that the vast majority of posters prefer the odds of Mike and Anne Barrett having created the scrapbook, but they are only preferring the odds. How do I know this? Well, it's simply because there is no evidence whatsoever that they did. All there is is Mike making facile affidavits that he was a great hoaxer (having previously made one that he wasn't but this one gets ignored because it's jolly awkward). We certainly do not have Anne claiming to have created a hoax. Never once does she suggest it. So it all comes from Mike and Mike could not produce the evidence when it should have been the easiest thing for him to do if he ws telling the truth. You will know this because you will presumably have listened to the infamous Alan Gray-Mike Barrett tapes in which Mike endlessly leads Gray up the garden path on the subject of his 'proofs' which he never, ever produces. You will have heard him at the Cloak and Dagger Club claiming he had the receipt for the scrapbook in his pocket and heard him making a particularly weak excuse for not producing it there and then - but, no worry, because he was more than willing to show it to Andy Aliff after the show was over, but didn't.

I fully understand that believing the claims of Mike Barrett after June 1994 are a very convenient way of not having to give thought to who actually hoaxed the scrapbook or whether or not it is actually authentic, but that will never, ever be enough for me because I have digested so much information on this case that I can see clearly that Mike Barrett was innocent of his own claimed crime and thus so was his wife Anne - if you reason according to the evidence not to any highly subjective opinion which Mike Barrett (or others) may offer us.

[John Wheat]

I would not demur that the vast majority of posters prefer the odds of Mike and Anne Barrett having created the scrapbook, but they are only preferring the odds. How do I know this? Well, it's simply because there is no evidence whatsoever that they did. All there is is Mike making facile affidavits that he was a great hoaxer (having previously made one that he wasn't but this one gets ignored because it's jolly awkward). We certainly do not have Anne claiming to have created a hoax. Never once does she suggest it. So it all comes from Mike and Mike could not produce the evidence when it should have been the easiest thing for him to do if he ws telling the truth. You will know this because you will presumably have listened to the infamous Alan Gray-Mike Barrett tapes in which Mike endlessly leads Gray up the garden path on the subject of his 'proofs' which he never, ever produces. You will have heard him at the Cloak and Dagger Club claiming he had the receipt for the scrapbook in his pocket and heard him making a particularly weak excuse for not producing it there and then - but, no worry, because he was more than willing to show it to Andy Aliff after the show was over, but didn't.

I fully understand that believing the claims of Mike Barrett after June 1994 are a very convenient way of not having to give thought to who actually hoaxed the scrapbook or whether or not it is actually authentic, but that will never, ever be enough for me because I have digested so much information on this case that I can see clearly that Mike Barrett was innocent of his own claimed crime and thus so was his wife Anne - if you reason according to the evidence not to any highly subjective opinion which Mike Barrett (or others) may offer us.

Total garbage get real.

[caz]

Yes, John. In my ever so 'umble opinion, Mike's affidavits - from April 1993 and January 1995 - were both total garbage [at least one must have been, so take your pick], but the man never could 'get real' because he just wasn't built that way.

I don't understand why others are so willing to trust this man to have told the truth, even once in his life, about how he acquired the scrapbook, given his legendary capacity for telling lies.

The diary handwriting remains just as much of a problem for the most passionate Barrett hoax believer as it is for the most ardent Maybrick theorist.

Without a positive identification, how can anyone know for a fact that the diary was written by their favourite suspect, and not by an unknown individual at some point before 9th March 1992?

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

Yes, John. In my ever so 'umble opinion, Mike's affidavits - from April 1993 and January 1995 - were both total garbage [at least one must have been, so take your pick], but the man never could 'get real' because he just wasn't built that way.

I don't understand why others are so willing to trust this man to have told the truth, even once in his life, about how he acquired the scrapbook, given his legendary capacity for telling lies.

The diary handwriting remains just as much of a problem for the most passionate Barrett hoax believer as it is for the most ardent Maybrick theorist.

Without a positive identification, how can anyone know for a fact that the diary was written by their favourite suspect, and not by an unknown individual at some point before 9th March 1992?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz

The Diary could so easily and probably was written by the Barretts. It reads like the words of a child. I fail to see how the Barretts couldn't have written this. You go on as though it's some literary masterpiece. It really isn't. To say it's unlikely to be the words of a second rate conman and his then wife is foolish at best. I don't know why you persist in your view that Mike and Ann Barrett couldn't have written the diary. You've spent years on this but you have no proof whatsoever that they didn't write the diary.

Cheers John

[Iconoclast]

Hi Caz
The Diary could so easily and probably was written by the Barretts. It reads like the words of a child. I fail to see how the Barretts couldn't have written this. You go on as though it's some literary masterpiece. It really isn't. To say it's unlikely to be the words of a second rate conman and his then wife is foolish at best. I don't know why you persist in your view that Mike and Ann Barrett couldn't have written the diary. You've spent years on this but you have no proof whatsoever that they didn't write the diary.
Cheers John

"It reads like the words of a child" is simply factually incorrect. Whether you think it is authentic or inauthentic, it does not read like the words of a child. This is just one of a number of tropes which get hauled out whenever a proper (syllogistic) argument is lacking. Mike definitely could not have written the scrapbook: I'm sitting here with folders of his letters from the mid-1990s and it is clear to me that Mike had some form of dyslexia ('skope' instead of 'spoke' shows his brain knew the word but was unable to articulate it on every occasion - a few words later spelling it correctly), so he may well have prepared the text but he did not write it down. And yet he claimed (to Alan Gray who was about to catch him in a lie) that it was "fifty-fifty" between him and Anne. It is for these reasons that the evidence does not support Mike Barrett as physical creator of the text in the scrapbook - it may have been the case but you would have to stretch credulity beyond reason to conclude it, however much you may feel entitled to do so.

Anne has never once claimed she had any involvement in the creation of the scrapbook. Indeed, other than Mike Barrett, no-one has ever claimed to have created the scrapbook. So your 'conclusions' (I'm being generous here) are based upon that which you really would like to be true not on that which is demonstrably (or even argumentatively) true. Evidence is entirely lacking against Mike Barrett other than a hopelessly inane affidavit which you like (1995) which attempts (badly) to contradict the affidavit you don't like (1993).

"It reads like the words of a child" harks back to our mooted thirteen year old inspired to write a blockbuster one wet weekend in Liverpool. Of course, no-one actually argues that because it is patently not the case given the internal content and language of the scrapbook. It's a bit like saying "Total garbage get real" and imagining that that somehow represents a valid argument based upon the available evidence.

[John Wheat]

"It reads like the words of a child" is simply factually incorrect. Whether you think it is authentic or inauthentic, it does not read like the words of a child. This is just one of a number of tropes which get hauled out whenever a proper (syllogistic) argument is lacking. Mike definitely could not have written the scrapbook: I'm sitting here with folders of his letters from the mid-1990s and it is clear to me that Mike had some form of dyslexia ('skope' instead of 'spoke' shows his brain knew the word but was unable to articulate it on every occasion - a few words later spelling it correctly), so he may well have prepared the text but he did not write it down. And yet he claimed (to Alan Gray who was about to catch him in a lie) that it was "fifty-fifty" between him and Anne. It is for these reasons that the evidence does not support Mike Barrett as physical creator of the text in the scrapbook - it may have been the case but you would have to stretch credulity beyond reason to conclude it, however much you may feel entitled to do so.

Anne has never once claimed she had any involvement in the creation of the scrapbook. Indeed, other than Mike Barrett, no-one has ever claimed to have created the scrapbook. So your 'conclusions' (I'm being generous here) are based upon that which you really would like to be true not on that which is demonstrably (or even argumentatively) true. Evidence is entirely lacking against Mike Barrett other than a hopelessly inane affidavit which you like (1995) which attempts (badly) to contradict the affidavit you don't like (1993).

"It reads like the words of a child" harks back to our mooted thirteen year old inspired to write a blockbuster one wet weekend in Liverpool. Of course, no-one actually argues that because it is patently not the case given the internal content and language of the scrapbook. It's a bit like saying "Total garbage get real" and imagining that that somehow represents a valid argument based upon the available evidence.

How can my opinion "that it reads like the words of a child" be factually incorrect? Ann Barrett could quite clearly have had a hand in the creation of the Diary wether or not she admitted it. The onus is on the Diary defenders to show evidence that Maybrick wrote the diary. I've said this before but the provenance of the Diary is terrible. It's clear to all but the most misguided that Mike and Ann Barrett are the obvious and logical candidates for having written the diary.

[Iconoclast]

How can my opinion "that it reads like the words of a child" be factually incorrect? Ann Barrett could quite clearly have had a hand in the creation of the Diary whether Barrett couldor not she admitted it. The onus is on the Diary defenders to show evidence that Maybrick wrote the diary. I've said this before but the provenance of the Diary is terrible. It's clear to all but the most misguided that Mike and Ann Barrett are the obvious and logical candidates for having written the diary.

Anne Barrett could quite clearly have had a hand in the creation of the scrapbook but - if you follow that logic - so could millions of other people. None of that makes your proposition more or less likely as the proposition is unknowable due to a complete lack of evidence.

If we are just playing Idea Tennis, any notion at all potentially scores a point. I’m not playing that game. I’m after the truth and the truth can only ever be established by the evidence.

Do people not want the truth based upon the evidence?

[John Wheat]

Anne Barrett could quite clearly have had a hand in the creation of the scrapbook but - if you follow that logic - so could millions of other people. None of that makes your proposition more or less likely as the proposition is unknowable due to a complete lack of evidence.

If we are just playing Idea Tennis, any notion at all potentially scores a point. I’m not playing that game. I’m after the truth and the truth can only ever be established by the evidence.

Do people not want the truth based upon the evidence?

So you think Anne Barrett the wife of a Mike Barrett the man who claimed to have written the diary is as likely to have been involved in writing the diary as millions of other people. That's not remotely logical. You are not after the truth at all you just desperately want the diary to have been written by Maybrick.

[rjpalmer]

So you think Anne Barrett the wife of a Mike Barrett the man who claimed to have written the diary is as likely to have been involved in writing the diary as millions of other people. That's not remotely logical. You are not after the truth at all you just desperately want the diary to have been written by Maybrick.

Michael John Barrett is the Lee Harvey Oswald of Ripperology: the lone penman theory. One would think Anne Graham was living on the dark side of the moon in 1992.

[Iconoclast]

Michael John Barrett is the Lee Harvey Oswald of Ripperology: the lone penman theory. One would think Anne Graham was living on the dark side of the moon in 1992.

At least there was some rather obvious evidence against Oswald (planted or otherwise, you can take your pick).

Where is the evidence against Anne Graham?

Clue: "Hic ... hic ... cam down, cam down, oh, av peshed mesel, get uz a bollle o'whisgee un al say anything, wac. Howz that sound, Mishter Harriz?"

I can hear the police sirens now tearing down Anne's street in January 1995 with a Black Maria packed with indignant polis seeking to right the terrible wrongs of a woman who had committed the unforgivable crime of the century the day she married MJB.

[John Wheat]

At least there was some rather obvious evidence against Oswald (planted or otherwise, you can take your pick).

Where is the evidence against Anne Graham?

Clue: "Hic ... hic ... cam down, cam down, oh, av peshed mesel, get uz a bollle o'whisgee un al say anything, wac. Howz that sound, Mishter Harriz?"

I can hear the police sirens now tearing down Anne's street in January 1995 with a Black Maria packed with indignant polis seeking to right the terrible wrongs of a woman who had committed the unforgivable crime of the century the day she married MJB.

This is utter bullshit. Its clear to all but the ill informed that Mike and Ann Barrett wrote the diary.

[Mike J. G.]

I've said it before, but in my opinion, I feel that it's only fair to say that the handwriting in the scrapbook doesn't match Mike or Anne's any more than it matches Maybrick's.

That being said, it's only fair to say that the scrapbook was introduced to the world by Mike, so the question remains of where and when he came into its possession.

Chris Jones, to my mind, did a pretty good job of dismantling the Riversdale provenance.

[Kattrup]

I've said it before, but in my opinion, I feel that it's only fair to say that the handwriting in the scrapbook doesn't match Mike or Anne's any more than it matches Maybrick's.

Hi Mike

In my opinion, I feel that it’s only fair to say that examples of Anne’s undisguised handwriting show close similarities to the handwriting in the scrapbook.

[Mike J. G.]

Hi Mike

In my opinion, I feel that it’s only fair to say that examples of Anne’s undisguised handwriting show close similarities to the handwriting in the scrapbook.

Hi, Kattrup. I'm not entirely opposed to the idea that she had a hand in writing it, mind. If someone on here has a few examples of her handwriting compared to the diarists then I'd be interested in seeing it. I'm sure it's probably been posted before but my memory isn't the best!

I mentioned on one of the other threads that Anne's story has never really sat well with me, and her Radio Merseyside interview just seemed a bit tongue in cheek.

I do think that if Mike penned it, and could prove it, then he would have done so. I'm still in the modern hoax camp, though, as there's too many "coincidences" for my liking which rule out it being a much older document, including but not limited to the infamous list of items and the tin matchbox empty...