What if the watch is real but the document isn't?

[Iconoclast]

Translation: I'm not going to bother trying to address any of that because it doesn't mesh with my preferred narrative.

To be clear, Graham does not believe the scrapbook to be that of James Maybrick so I'm not clear why you are being so hostile towards him as though he does.

[Iconoclast]

This tends to imply that you don't fully grasp what science is or how it's used.

So far as I know, the watch has not been scientifically proven to be anything other than a curious addition to an already silly story involving a cotton merchant who apparently often frequented post offices for a jar of ale while penning his letters, according to Ike, lol.

Much like the pages of a faked diary can be artificially aged, the scratches/marking on said watch can also be artificially or even accidentally aged. To deny this is what I truly find ironic. The basic lack of understanding of science on these forums is startling.

I suspect this argument hinges profoundly on the underlying detail underpinning your "So far as I know".

Maybe, just maybe, you don't know enough?

[Iconoclast]

So far as I know, the watch has not been scientifically proven to be anything other than a curious addition to an already silly story involving a cotton merchant who apparently often frequented post offices for a jar of ale while penning his letters, according to Ike, lol.

You appear to have access to a computer, therefore to Wiki, so here you go - I'll save you both the effort of looking for it and of perpetuating your apparent ignorance of it:

Post house (historical building)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jump to navigationJump to search This article is about the building used in the past for mail and passenger services. For the mail delivery centre, see Post office.
A post house, posthouse, or posting house was a house or inn where horses were kept and could be rented or changed out. Postriders could also be hired to take travellers^[1] by carriage or coach and delivered mail and packages on a route, meeting up at various places according to a schedule. Routes included post roads. A postmaster was an individual from whom horses and/or riders known as postilions or "post-boys" who might help a coachman drive coaches could be hired. A postilion might also travel on a coach to take back his employer's horses. The postmaster would reside in the post house.^[2]
Post houses functioned as the Post offices of their day as national mail services came later.

[Graham]

In the same manner that mine doesn't with yours. We are all, each and every one of us, entitled to our opinions. Which, having read some of your previous posts, is a concept with which you appear very uncomfortable. I've laid out my feelings about Mike Barrett, as you have with yours. If you don't agree with mine, tough ****. And vice versa.

Graham

[Mike J. G.]

Yawn..........

Translation: I'm not going to bother trying to address any of that because it doesn't mesh with my preferred narrative.

[Graham]

Yawn..........

[Mike J. G.]

And where and when was this infamous confrontation between Robbie Johnson and Anne Graham? And he lied to Paul Feldman? What lies did he tell him? Where did Paul Feldman record these 'lies'? You tell me what he meant by "all this", please, because I haven't a clue. Can you be a little more specific if possible? I asked you a fairly direct question, so a fairly direct rather than a mysterious response would be appreciated.

Discuss the Diary again?? But you and others on these boards have never discussed the Diary - you have just stated your opinions and totally refused to accept some of those held by others who do not necessarily agree with your opinions. That, my friend, is not a 'discussion' as I understand the meaning of the word.

And regarding Mike Barrett. That piece you showed in a recent post. Can you please tell us how you know it was written by Mike, word for word, punctuation for punctuation? I do have some slight experience of writing articles (for technical publications, as it goes) and as I am not a professional journalist in the accepted sense of the expression as I understand it, my articles were invariably 'improved' by the full-time journalists employed by those publications. I didn't mind. And I don't think Mike even was a journalist in any sense of the word - rather, he liked to interview 'celebrities' and then base his articles around those interviews. And once he'd got his famous word-processor, how do you know that it was Mike who wrote up his notes into an acceptable article, and not the far more literary Anne? Was he an acceptable typist? I repeat - my understanding of Mike is that he wasn't completely illiterate, but his literacy was of a low level.

Graham

I hope you're not being serious.

You're now doubting that Mike Barrett wrote any articles? David Orsam pretty much covered all of this in his article. Mike clearly did write articles, ergo, he was a writer. Simply doubting this fact despite the truth being, quite literally, committed to ink for all to see, is just plain weird, IMO.

Many writers are not literate. This fixation you have with Mike not being a good speller is frankly baffling. Do you know anything about Agatha Christie? "She is best known for her detective novels and short story collections. But at the same time, she couldn’t even balance her own checkbook due to her learning disability, believed to be dysgraphia. She had a hard time spelling correctly, as a self proclaimed “extraordinarily bad speller” and was not good about remembering numbers, but her learning disability did not hold her back."

What about F. Scott Fitzgerald? " F. Scott Fitzgerald is believed to have had a learning disability which was mostly likely dyslexia. It’s reported that he was kicked out of school at the age of 12 for not focusing or finishing his work, and he had a very hard time spelling, but he succeeded as a writer despite his disability."

I could go on, but I don't think it's at all a fruitful discussion, seeing as how many people who write often struggle to spell... I could once again point to the large number of hack Ripper authors...

[Mike J. G.]

The scientific analysis, by world-renknowned experts in this field, all claimed the aged brass particles at the base of the engravings could not be faked without advanced technical knowledge and the markings were at LEAST decades old - in 1993 - long before the diary was discovered.

The watch remains an incnovenient truth, dismissed because of timing and not science. The irony.

This tends to imply that you don't fully grasp what science is or how it's used.

So far as I know, the watch has not been scientifically proven to be anything other than a curious addition to an already silly story involving a cotton merchant who apparently often frequented post offices for a jar of ale while penning his letters, according to Ike, lol.

Much like the pages of a faked diary can be artificially aged, the scratches/marking on said watch can also be artificially or even accidentally aged. To deny this is what I truly find ironic. The basic lack of understanding of science on these forums is startling.

[Mike J. G.]

RJ, listen. I do not, never did, and never will believe that Michael John Barrett wrote the Diary. He had not the wit. If he was personally responsible for 100% of that article you show in your post, then call be Hans, 'cos I'll be a Dutchman. No way. At best, he may have had something of an input, but if the Diary originated in 12 Goldie Street, then it wasn't Mike who produced it. If he did, then why did he not pursue a lucrative and glamorous career in journalism? Mike apparently always wanted to be a writer, and told as much to anyone who would listen, but he never made it, did he? Too pissed? Too crap?

The fact remains that, unless Anne ever cares to speak up (and who would believe her even if she did, given the degree of universal cynicism on these boards) we shall never know.

I find it significant and somewhat illuminating that the two responses so far to my post have failed to mention the Watch, which is actually also the subject of this thread. The Watch seems not to attract the same degree of pulpit-hammering as the Diary, possibly because the forensic analysis is much more difficult to shoot down, and almost certainly because it is beyond the grasp of mere mortals such as we.

So.....about the Watch, gentlemen?

Graham

You're falling for the oldest trick in the book, Graham. You simply cannot allow yourself to believe that Barrett had anything to do with faking the "diary" merely because you don't believe he could read, write, or think in a manner that you find suitable for writing a book. Well, frankly, the amount of nonsense books out there on the Ripper, and Maybrick, written by similarly inept authors should prove how wrong you are.

I've waffled on about other hoaxes before, and how people were unable to accept that they were the work of everyday blokes simply because they were everyday blokes, as if these hoaxes simply must be the work of staggeringly wise sages, lol.

People who create literature, art, music, aren't all musing over black coffee, wearing black turtlenecks and berets, discussing the fall of Rome. Quentin Tarantino can neither spell, nor understand how words are even basically formed, choosing to write his scripts phonetically. Now, I'm not comparing Barrett to Tarantino, I'm merely pointing out the fact that being behind a hoax such as "the diary" does not require a person to be channeling the literary genius of Charles bloody Dickens. The sooner some of you lot grasp this fact of reality, the less likely you are to be mugged off in the future by laughable pranks.

[Mike J. G.]

Well, I was, perhaps forlornly, hoping for something of a discussion, but possibly out of the question.

I never suggested that I believed the Diary came from Battlecrease (note the spelling). Whatever it was that Paul Feldman thought had been taken to Liverpool University by some of the workmen, it wasn't the Diary. Feldman never actually discovered what it was, but later came to the conclusion that it wasn't the Diary.

What 'unknown writer' was I supposed to be offering up? I said that there is a slight possibility that Anne had more to do with the Diary's production than she evwer admitted. I also repeated the old tale, which Anne put about, that she found it behind a cupboard and that it had been in her father's possession since 1940. This was never proved, and Anne never went into much more detail.

Barret was a writer?? You what? Ever seen any of his productions? he could hardly sign his name!

And the Watch? You've not given me the benefit of your considered and esteemed opinions regarding this. Don't you have any, then?

Graham

Why're you taking my post so personally Graham? My post was in response to yours, not in retaliation, mate, calm down, lol.

I don't believe anything was taken to any university, I believe that was just another bit of nonsense designed to try and help bolster an already ludicrous story. You don't just ring up a university and tell the receptionist you've found something interesting and ask can you see any random professor who may just happen to be passing the desk if they can book you in for an appointment asap. I strongly doubt that this occurred at all.

Barrett (note the spelling) was a writer, meaning, he wrote, he was paid for doing so. The level of skill in that writing isn't even a matter in this discussion, seeing as the writing in the diary isn't something I'd put on par with Mark bloody Twain, it's clumsy, dramatic and obviously nonsensical.

What would you like to discuss regarding the watch? Frankly, Graham, if you buy any of this rubbish then I've got a bridge to sell you, mate.

[c.d.]

Hello Sam,

Where have you been hiding all this time? We have been looking all over for you. Nice to see you back posting again. Hope all is well.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

And science has not yet devised an instrument sensitive enough to measure gullibility.

In Britain, we call such instruments "General Elections"

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ike - as long as bongobarrettitis is running rampant, forcing me into quarantine, I can’t promise that I won’t re-infect your arguments, though I try to be a good citizen by not coughing in your direction.

Who is disputing Turgoose and Wild? Not I. I fully agree with their conclusions!! Scratches in metal can’t be dated. My fever doesn’t prevent me from reading English.

The Wild Turgoose Chase team could only give the relative chronology of the scratches…no absolute date. (You know that, old chum, so why are you playing dumb?) They did not say “1888” and they did not say “1993.” They said “A comes before B and B comes before C and C comes before D, thus A came before D.”

If you struggle with this concept, let me help.

Imagine a peanut-butter and jam sandwich. The bottom layer is a slice of bread. On top of this is a layer of peanut-butter. On top of this is a layer of strawberry jam. On top of this is another slice of bread.

Professor Wild-Turgoose Chase, even without an electron microscope, and even without the insights of a Robbie Johnson, tells me that the peanut-butter was applied before the jam, and the top slice of bread was applied after the jam.

He can’t tell me if the jam was made two weeks ago, or if it came from a jar hiding in the back of a certain pantry in Aigburth for the past 131 years. And science has not yet devised an instrument sensitive enough to measure gullibility.

Now imagine Wild-Turgoose also finding a small grain of pre-Cambrian rock in the jam. He can suggest that the fragment is millions and millions of years old, but he can’t tell me if it found its way into the jam last week or whether it was eons before even the fearsome tyrannosaurus rex roamed the earth.

And since the jam cannot be dated, maybe a better question to ask is this: who seems to have had his fingers in the jam jar?

Hope this helps.

Now I'm off to watch some paint dry, or maybe a piece of fruit ripen. Or maybe I'll try to track down that reference to James Maybrick being the part-owner of a brothel that I happened to stumble across a couple of years ago. (Not a joke; it exists, I just can't find it again). Cheerio! Stay safe.

[Graham]

Ike, you're right. I just signed in to see what's happening. And the way the Villa were playing I rather think they'd already got the bloody virus at the start of the season.

Must go and finish sellotaping my copy of Feldman back together.

Graham

[Iconoclast]

The first symptoms are a new and persistent belief in the Maybrick Diary, lasting longer than two weeks, and a highly fevered approach to promoting those beliefs.
Unfortunately, no cure has yet been found, despite the best efforts of some eminent specialists, namely Dr Orsam.

AB'sE, If only we could persuade Admin to allow retired medics to come out of retirement whilst we fight this dreadful virus.

PS Typo in last paragraph - obviously my second reference to BBVID-92 was mistyped. Can't think what I may have had on my mind at the time ...