The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[rjpalmer]

Of course, this is pure speculation.

I should rephrase that. Hardly pure speculation, as Barrett does claim that Feldman had threatened his life over the phone.

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

He's not necessarily describing cutting, Ike. The Stanley knife could have been used as a sort of pallet knife to manipulate the oil. Now that we can see the kidney shape, there is an odd pattern of dripping surrounding it, as if 'by design.' IMHO.

[Iconoclast]

A message in a bottle, as it were.

More a message out a bottle?

[rjpalmer]

More a message out a bottle?

Now it's my turn to chuckle. Good one, Ike.

[rjpalmer]

Why did Tony Devereux have to borrow Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool?

Anyone want more tea?

[Scott Nelson]

Anyone want more tea?

I've spent the last few days pondering this comment. It must be an inside joke, right?

Common sense would have told me that it was Mike who borrowed Tony's book, not the other way around.

[rjpalmer]

I've spent the last few days pondering this comment. It must be an inside joke, right?

Yes, it was a joke, Scott, but not at your expense.

In an earlier post, Ike transcribed a conversation between Anne Graham, Keith, and Shirley back in 1995.

KS: I asked, erm, when you were out of the room about ‘O costly intercourse of death’, the Hillsborough disaster –
SH: Yes, yes, yes.
KS: - in which, erm –
AG: Anyone want more tea?
KS: Oh, yes.
[General discussion about tea, cake, staying over that evening, and a book which Skinner and Harrison hoped to take a photocopy from.]

It struck me that just as things were becoming interesting--the Crashaw quote--Anne Graham redirected the conversation to tea, cake, and sleeping arrangements.

Similarly, as Ike didn't seem to be particularly interested in engaging with your commentary about Tony D and Mike's copy of Tales of Liverpool, I thought I'd help him out by asking the same question.

Anyone want more tea?

I suppose I can be a bit of a smart-ass.

[Scott Nelson]

Not at all, thanks. I should have read back more carefully.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ike.

I’ve only now learned that your good friend, Lord Orsam, has retired.

It seems like an appropriate time to join him outside the slings and arrows of Maybrickian warfare.

And so, with a heavy heart, let me leave you with a small update on some experiments I’ve been running, concerning the curious oily patterns of damage on the diary’s inside cover.

Since I’ve written it up, I might as well pass it along.

Concerning the alleged strong odor of linseed oil, unnoticed by the nostrils of Shirley and Doreen…oft mentioned by FDC and other illuminaries....

As previously noted, linseed oil and flaxseed oil are the same thing. There are different grades of flaxseed oil and sometimes additives are introduced, depending on the intended use.

We have no way of knowing what Barrett used, or allegedly used, but pure flaxseed oil only becomes rancid and strong smelling if it is left out and exposed to oxygen for several days or weeks. The following scientific study will be of interest to you because it describes standard olive oil being used as a 'blind' for flaxseed oil in a clinical trial, and the participants couldn't tell the difference nor identify what they were using. Note also the reference to the flaxseed/linseed oil being odorless.

Effects of Flaxseed Oil and Olive Oil on Markers of Inflammation and Wound Healing in Burn Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial - PMC


Anyway, a month ago I took an old unwanted book cover, detached from the book, and allowed a tablespoon of 'new' flaxseed oil to soak into the endpaper for two hours in an attempt to replicate the pattern of damage we see in the photographs. More on this in a moment.

After two hours I mopped it up and let it dry. It's been a month and there is no discernable odor. Indeed, there was never more than a very faint odor. I can hand the cover to people to examine, and no one notices any scent. If one presses their nose directly against the stain and inhales like a winded racehorse or even like Tonali in the closing minutes of a regulation match against Man City, there is a very slight smell, but it's not at all unpleasant and it's impossible to know what it is.

No one would notice it.

Thus, we have another busted myth.

The main thing that worries me--and I think this is very bad news for you--is that what I think we are seeing in the dark brown area in the center of the stain in the upper left corner is the ‘board’ peeking through. (Marked between the red arrows below). In other words, the endpaper has been so worn away by rubbing while the oil was still wet that 'board' is exposed.

(The board is what the bookbinders call the stiff composite to which the fabric and the endpaper are glued. The board is darkish brown, and the endpaper is glued over it).

I tried to replicate this and found it was impossible from mere soaking in oil. One must rub and scrape rather vigorously after the oil has soaked in, and when it is still damp and fresh.



The point here is that I find it impossible to believe that this could have happened accidently. If, for some bizarre reason, a person was holding a bottle of oil over an open photograph album, and accidently spilled it on the inside cover, they would want to daub it off immediately. Further, the pattern of splashing would have been entirely different. They wouldn't let it soak for some minutes and then brush and scrape to the extent that it would damage the end paper. Someone was trying to remove something. That's my conclusion.

Couple this with the location of the damage—in the exact spot one would expect to find an unwanted signature or maker’s stamp or ‘Ex Libris’ sticker--we are left with very suspicious wear & tear. And as your good friend Lord Orsam, now in musical retirement has pointed out more than once, unexplained wear & tear & damage is a well-known characteristic of fakes.

Again, my conclusion is that someone must have done this deliberately. This, of course, would leave a suspicious tell-tale sign, so as an act of misdirection, I further hypothesize that the hoaxer next made an additional glaring stain in the middle of the cover --the kidney shaped patch seen below--even going so far as to dribble oil around it as if pouring it in that spot. Again, this doesn’t look consistent with an accidental spill.





Why ‘Maybrick’ would do such a thing is unfathomable, but it is even more debilitating to the ‘old hoax’ theory, since any Victorian or Edwardian contemporary would have no trouble finding a more suitable book that didn’t need to be doctored.

No doubt you will not lose any sleep over this and conclude that these strange patterns of staining pre-dated Barrett's ownership of the album, and he used them to good effect when constructing his non-circulating confessional affidavit, but I don't think this helps your cause. The stains are inherently of great suspicion and point to someone --who might as well have been Barrett--being up to no good.

That’s it, chief. That's my observation.

I plan on running a few more test using a gas oven, but those will be for my own amusement only.

Shalom!

[rjpalmer]

oft mentioned by FDC and other illuminaries....

err...that should read luminaries, unless FDC belongs to a certain Bay Area band!....

AG: - that he was going to get the bloody thing published –
SH: Yes, yes.
KS: Yes.
AG: You see, I had to be very subtle in my approach in as much that I couldn’t say to him, we don’t get it published, we write a story around it. I just sort of give it to him bit by bit to try and make him understand it’s come from his idea, it was his idea. But I couldn’t do it! I had managed to manipulate him every, years, so many things, I just [inaudible] this one [laughs ruefully].

Thanks, Ike--a most fascinating exchange.

This is a final comment for Caz.

Anne Graham has made several very intriguing statements over the years, but this one takes the cake. Ever since it was posted, I've mulled over its meaning, and not without the beginnings of a smile.

Rhetorical question: Is this the closest Anne has ever come to describing the creation of the typescript? That is, if we throw out the part about the photo album already existing?

Gone is Anne's previous claim of Barrett himself writing a story about Maybrick-as-Ripper, now it is 'we'...a collaborative effort between Mike and Anne.

"We write a story around it."

Much like I’ve been suggesting to Caz for years--to no avail--but this time coming from the horse’s mouth.

(Somewhere--in either one of Shirley's books or in Inside Story--Anne was asked pointblank if she helped Mike hoax the diary and she denied it, claiming that their marriage was in such a sorry state that the idea of them collaborating on anything was out of the question. Yet here Anne makes an obvious enough contradiction, describing a joint project).

Equally remarkable, Anne describes that 'it' will be given to Mike 'bit by bit.' What on earth does she mean? What does she give to Mike 'bit by bit'? The ‘idea,’ evidently---but that hardly makes much sense.

The physical diary is either handed to him in one piece or not at all. The idea of writing a story about it is either suggested or it isn't suggested. Bizarrely, it seems (to me) that Anne can only be alluding to the idea of the story of Maybrick-as-Ripper--the plotting, the 'ideas,' being given to Barrett bit by bit---that she is the one who will be writing the story but manipulating Mike into thinking all the ideas are his.

If Anne is describing in a sideways fashion the creation of the typescript, then it is little wonder that when Barrett began spilling the beans in 1994, he described himself as the diary's author--the greatest forger in history!--even though his own writing talents were meager.

Because Anne is telling us that Mike would be manipulated into believing this was so.

People who lie will often incorporate the truth--or an approximation of the truth--into their accounts.

But who has ever listened to me?

No one.

Peace.

[John Wheat]

err...that should read luminaries, unless FDC belongs to a certain Bay Area band!....




Thanks, Ike--a most fascinating exchange.

This is a final comment for Caz.

Anne Graham has made several very intriguing statements over the years, but this one takes the cake. Ever since it was posted, I've mulled over its meaning, and not without the beginnings of a smile.

Rhetorical question: Is this the closest Anne has ever come to describing the creation of the typescript? That is, if we throw out the part about the photo album already existing?

Gone is Anne's previous claim of Barrett himself writing a story about Maybrick-as-Ripper, now it is 'we'...a collaborative effort between Mike and Anne.

"We write a story around it."

Much like I’ve been suggesting to Caz for years--to no avail--but this time coming from the horse’s mouth.

(Somewhere--in either one of Shirley's books or in Inside Story--Anne was asked pointblank if she helped Mike hoax the diary and she denied it, claiming that their marriage was in such a sorry state that the idea of them collaborating on anything was out of the question. Yet here Anne makes an obvious enough contradiction, describing a joint project).

Equally remarkable, Anne describes that 'it' will be given to Mike 'bit by bit.' What on earth does she mean? What does she give to Mike 'bit by bit'? The ‘idea,’ evidently---but that hardly makes much sense.

The physical diary is either handed to him in one piece or not at all. The idea of writing a story about it is either suggested or it isn't suggested. Bizarrely, it seems (to me) that Anne can only be alluding to the idea of the story of Maybrick-as-Ripper--the plotting, the 'ideas,' being given to Barrett bit by bit---that she is the one who will be writing the story but manipulating Mike into thinking all the ideas are his.

If Anne is describing in a sideways fashion the creation of the typescript, then it is little wonder that when Barrett began spilling the beans in 1994, he described himself as the diary's author--the greatest forger in history!--even though his own writing talents were meager.

Because Anne is telling us that Mike would be manipulated into believing this was so.

People who lie will often incorporate the truth--or an approximation of the truth--into their accounts.

But who has ever listened to me?

No one.

Peace.

I disagree with your last point. I think a lot of sensible posters listen to what you say RJ. Why wouldn't they? The diary was clearly written by Anne and Mike Barrett.

Cheers John