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[Iconoclast]

cmon Kattrup, its the law of probability, the more provenances it has the more chance it has of being authentic! lol
thats how the silly diary defender mind works.

Perfect example. Confirmation bias. Kattrup was wrong in his interpretation of my comments about provenances (as I recall them), and Abnormal jumps on the bandwagon before it's even got out of the compound. I don't believe that I said that more provenances make something more likely to be authentic.

[caz]

barrett trying to buy a victorian diary with blank pages is a red herring? hahaha. yeah right. more like the elephant in the room. that everyone IS talking about.
the foolishness never ends

Ah, you too have missed all the recent posts on the subject, Abby. Quelle surprise.

Bongo did try to obtain one, yes, and when Martin Earl tracked down an example for him, he said yes please, Mr Earl, I would very much like you to order this fine specimen of Victorian diaryhood for me. With its bijou dimensions, together with its 3 or 4 printed dates to a page for the year 1891 - which I didn't actually ask for but no matter - and its distinct deficiency in blank pages - of which I distinctly recall stipulating a requirement of at least a score, but 'twill serve - this diminutive little fellow will make the ideal vehicle for my fake - er - genuine DAiry of a blackguard who expired two years before it was manufactured. Send the bill to my wife, if you would be so kind, as I am a trifle impecunious just now and only have the readies for my lunchtime pint.

Love,

Caz
X

[Kattrup]

The blank Victorian diary - with its perfect paper trail back to Bongo in Goldie Street - has been dealt with, Kattrup. It is a dead red herring. Perhaps you haven't been keeping up with the posts, considering your stated lack of interest in the subject or learning more about it.

And whose curiosity are you seeking to satisfy? Not your own, surely, considering your stated lack of interest in the subject or learning more about it.

Oddly, I had Trevor Marriott seeking to satisfy someone's curiosity over the same matter a week or two ago. Must be one of those strange coincidences, eh?

Otherwise it would be called a fishing expedition.

I told Trev to put his rod away.

Love,

Caz
X

I cannot actually see an answer to my question, does that mean you do not know or you prefer not to answer?

[Kattrup]

Ah, you too have missed all the recent posts on the subject, Abby. Quelle surprise.

Bongo did try to obtain one, yes, and when Martin Earl tracked down an example for him, he said yes please, Mr Earl, I would very much like you to order this fine specimen of Victorian diaryhood for me. With its bijou dimensions, together with its 3 or 4 printed dates to a page for the year 1891 - which I didn't actually ask for but no matter - and its distinct deficiency in blank pages - of which I distinctly recall stipulating a requirement of at least a score, but 'twill serve - this diminutive little fellow will make the ideal vehicle for my fake - er - genuine DAiry of a blackguard who expired two years before it was manufactured. Send the bill to my wife, if you would be so kind, as I am a trifle impecunious just now and only have the readies for my lunchtime pint.

Love,

Caz
X

Not sure what this novella is meant to show. MB wanted to buy a blank Victorian diary, and afterwards he happens to come by Jack the Ripper’s diary.

That’s not a red herring that has been dealt with. It’s a frigging neon-flashing whale!

[caz]

I think the perspicacious reader would have spotted that actually you answered your own question there, Kattrup.

You wrote that the scrapbook has a lack of provenance, and then you noted that I had then pointed-out that it actually had two provenances. You answered your own question.

Did I ever imply that having two provenances makes the scrapbook more likely? If I did, I was a complete idiot, but I'm not convinced that I would have done, and -if I did - what I should have said was having two provenances obviously increases the probability that an accurate provenance could potentially be established (especially as they both carried with them an astonishing coincidence if either or both were incorrect versions).

So you then build on that by implying that having two disputed provenances is a convenient means of obfuscating before the possibility that MB simply forged it. I don't think anyone else would have made that logical leap. I think most people realise that MB's complete inability to forge this document was rather self-evident independent of any distractions caused by likely true provenances.

I don't know what the problem is for some people, Ike. The diary came from somewhere, and given Mike's complete inability to write anything coherently, plus his complete inability to lie straight in bed, plus his complete inability to produce a single credible scrap of evidence to save any of his 'confessions' from the scrap heap, it follows that if anyone really wants to know where it came from, they are strongly advised to look beyond Goldie Street and Bongo's BriAn for the answer.

I still don't understand the urge to keep coming back here with their 'Barrett dunnit' mantra, as if it will one day break the spell and everyone will roll over and believe it. They pretend not to give two hoots about the subject while repeatedly throwing themselves at it like flies against a window pane.

Love,

Caz
X

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hi Al,

The main problem here is that the Battlecrease provenance has the diary not emerging until many months after Tony Devereux died, so it could not have entered the Barretts' home before 9th March 1992. This means that for Anne to believe Mike could have got it from his dead mate, he'd have needed to persuade her that he had actually had it hidden somewhere in their house since before August 1991, and then researched it, all without breathing a word to her about its existence until he was ready to contact Doreen Montgomery. I can't see Anne swallowing a lie like that, but in any case it's not the story she went along with. There was no suggestion that Mike suddenly whipped out the diary one day in March 1992 and then told Anne he'd had it since the previous summer. And of course, that could not have worked with her story two years later, in July 1994 [a month after Mike's first forgery claim], that she knew Tony had given it to Mike in 1991 because she had asked Tony to do so!

Three things you need to get to grips with regarding the provenance stories: chronology, chronology, chronology.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Ain't chronology a bitch when no one can stick to a straight story for any length of time. It's this aspect that always has me forgetting who gave what version of an event at any time.

Anyhow, I was trying to reconcile Anne's story while giving her the benefit of the doubt, rather than just call her a liar. I wasn't implying Anne gave Tony the diary, just that she could have used that as a cover story and that that story wouldn't rule out Battlecrease as an origin. Neither Mike nor Anne had seen the diary prior to March '92, but assuming Anne was in no way involved and knew beyond doubt that Mike didn't forge it himself, the Deveraux line was the only one open to her, hence she embellishes what she has as 'facts'. Other than this scenario, Anne must have known full well what she and Feldman were doing, unless the diary really did come from her family, in which case Battlecrease is out. But, it is possible to keep Battlecrease and limit the contradictions of Anne's statement. Anne wouldn't change her story in light of Portus and Rhodes house clearing services, because that would be as damaging as Mike's affidavit. After all, it was damage limitation. I think if someone was to support the Battlecrease origin, Anne's story can be circumvented without too much controversy, but not vice versa.

[Trevor Marriott]

I don't know what the problem is for some people, Ike. The diary came from somewhere, and given Mike's complete inability to write anything coherently, plus his complete inability to lie straight in bed, plus his complete inability to produce a single credible scrap of evidence to save any of his 'confessions' from the scrap heap, it follows that if anyone really wants to know where it came from, they are strongly advised to look beyond Goldie Street and Bongo's BriAn for the answer.

I still don't understand the urge to keep coming back here with their 'Barrett dunnit' mantra, as if it will one day break the spell and everyone will roll over and believe it. They pretend not to give two hoots about the subject while repeatedly throwing themselves at it like flies against a window pane.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
Let's broaden the horizons and go back and take it a step at a time. Staying just with Michael Barrett in this first instance. Do you accept that Barrett along with person or persons unknown was involved in a conspiracy to produce a diary purporting to be the diary of Jack the Ripper?

A yes or no will suffice !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[caz]

I cannot actually see an answer to my question, does that mean you do not know or you prefer not to answer?

I cannot actually see where you addressed your question to me, Kattrup. You were quoting and responding to a post by John G at the time, who has not answered it either to my knowledge. But if that curiosity is still burning, you could always write to Robert Smith and address your question to the right person.

In the same way that I hang up on anonymous cold callers working for potentially dodgy characters, I'm hanging up on what looks to me like someone's fishing expedition, on a matter that is no concern of mine and I suspect, no real concern of yours either. You have the wrong number.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Not sure what this novella is meant to show. MB wanted to buy a blank Victorian diary, and afterwards he happens to come by Jack the Ripper’s diary.

That’s not a red herring that has been dealt with. It’s a frigging neon-flashing whale!

Right you are then. So Mike ordered a bleedin' postage stamp dated 1891 in the expectation of using it for Maybrick's diary for 1888-9.

Kattrup's solved it folks. You can all bugger off now.

Others will be bitterly disappointed they didn't get there first.

Do you want to give your exclusive to the papers, or shall I get Ike to do it?

Love,

Caz
X

PS Can anyone smell fish?

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Ain't chronology a bitch when no one can stick to a straight story for any length of time. It's this aspect that always has me forgetting who gave what version of an event at any time.

Anyhow, I was trying to reconcile Anne's story while giving her the benefit of the doubt, rather than just call her a liar. I wasn't implying Anne gave Tony the diary, just that she could have used that as a cover story and that that story wouldn't rule out Battlecrease as an origin. Neither Mike nor Anne had seen the diary prior to March '92, but assuming Anne was in no way involved and knew beyond doubt that Mike didn't forge it himself, the Deveraux line was the only one open to her, hence she embellishes what she has as 'facts'. Other than this scenario, Anne must have known full well what she and Feldman were doing, unless the diary really did come from her family, in which case Battlecrease is out. But, it is possible to keep Battlecrease and limit the contradictions of Anne's statement. Anne wouldn't change her story in light of Portus and Rhodes house clearing services, because that would be as damaging as Mike's affidavit. After all, it was damage limitation. I think if someone was to support the Battlecrease origin, Anne's story can be circumvented without too much controversy, but not vice versa.

You got it, Al! I believe the Devereux line was the only one open to Anne, after going along with it in 1992. Yes, she'd have known full well what she was doing, in giving Feldman what he had pretty much come to believe anyway - that the diary had originated with the Maybricks and come down through the Graham family. The only thing I don't believe is that their was any 'collusion' between Anne and Feldman to produce an account he knew to be false.

You see, Al, if Anne managed to hoodwink Feldy, it was because he had already primed himself for the hoodwinking.

Just as people had primed themselves for the thorough hoodwinking I believe they were given by Bongo, when he made their beliefs come true by 'confirming' the diary was a fake and that he was the silly faker.

You can only hoodwink someone with a desire or need to be hoodwinked. But then it's easy. And they will stay hoodwinked, because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz
Let's broaden the horizons and go back and take it a step at a time. Staying just with Michael Barrett in this first instance. Do you accept that Barrett along with person or persons unknown was involved in a conspiracy to produce a diary purporting to be the diary of Jack the Ripper?

A yes or no will suffice !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

No - I don't accept that Mike had anyone egging him on to 'produce' that diary. Quite the reverse in fact.

You expected me to give you a one-word answer? Are you quite mad, Trev?

Love,

Contrary Caz
X

[erobitha]

I get the sense from the interviews and footage I have seen and heard with Mike that he was in a constant state of confusion. He wanted to appear ahead of the game at every step of the way due to his own insecurities and personal issues, but he kept changing his tune on everything - becoming less and less credible every step of the way. In the end the scrapbook was a curse to him - a juggernaut he never had control over from day one. I actually feel a little sorry for him. The story was far bigger than he was able to cope with. I do not doubt for one moment he over-egged his writing credentials after a whiskey or two in The Saddle to anyone who would listen. One fateful day in March 1992, an electrician was to change Mike's life forever with the promise of fame and fortune. Turned out to be infamy and poverty in the end.

[Iconoclast]

Right you are then. So Mike ordered a bleedin' postage stamp dated 1891 in the expectation of using it for Maybrick's diary for 1888-9.
Kattrup's solved it folks. You can all bugger off now.
Others will be bitterly disappointed they didn't get there first.
Do you want to give your exclusive to the papers, or shall I get Ike to do it?

I'd be taking it to Broadmoor before I took it to the broadsheets, Caz.

I can well understand why the story works for the likes of Lord Orsam, RJ, Kattrup, Observer, and other ward mates up to the point at which Mike must realise it is pointless continuing with the process. When he gets to that point, he should fold, but no he twists and twists again until he's got a busted flush in the form of a truly useless 1891 postage stamp to put in his Christmas 1965 postage stamp album.

If the Boys from Broadmoor are correct, Mike has to fold not twist. So why does he twist?

Hard to say why he continues even though it's nothing like what he appeared to need.

All I can conclude with any great certainty is that maybe 'what he appeared to need' was not what he actually needed?

In that event, we turn back to the possibility that he truly did want to see what a Victorian DAiry looked like and was willing to shell out someone else's cash to do so. It still begs the question why he would seek at least 20 blank pages (as blatantly as that, by the way!) but - as he twisted rather than folded - I for one do not feel the need to understand it. I can rationalise it, but I can't be certain I'd then be right. Simpler to leave it to others to explain his inexplicable behaviour.

We don't know why he did what he did but we do know that he continued to do what he did even though it ran entirely contrary to that which conspiracy theorists 20 years later would claim he was trying to do and yet they continue to claim that in the face of his quite unnecessary twisting when they know that he should have folded.

Hence Broadmoor before the broadsheets for Kattrup and the Gang.

Ike

[Trevor Marriott]

No - I don't accept that Mike had anyone egging him on to 'produce' that diary. Quite the reverse in fact.

You expected me to give you a one-word answer? Are you quite mad, Trev?

Love,

Contrary Caz
X

I knew that a one word answer would not be forthcoming! lol

You are ducking and diving a little bit, no one has suggested he had anyone egging him on.

For the purpose of this discussion a conspiracy is two or more people who agree to embark on an act which they know to be illegal !

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

You got it, Al! I believe the Devereux line was the only one open to Anne, after going along with it in 1992. Yes, she'd have known full well what she was doing, in giving Feldman what he had pretty much come to believe anyway - that the diary had originated with the Maybricks and come down through the Graham family. The only thing I don't believe is that their was any 'collusion' between Anne and Feldman to produce an account he knew to be false.

You see, Al, if Anne managed to hoodwink Feldy, it was because he had already primed himself for the hoodwinking.

Just as people had primed themselves for the thorough hoodwinking I believe they were given by Bongo, when he made their beliefs come true by 'confirming' the diary was a fake and that he was the silly faker.

You can only hoodwink someone with a desire or need to be hoodwinked. But then it's easy. And they will stay hoodwinked, because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

Love,

Caz
X

Caz,

I'd say we're eye to eye on those points. Definitely Feldy. It was in his best interest to be hoodwinked, in which case it's more a case of going where the wind blows.

I actually started these musings believing I was on the "incontrovertible" thread, but hey ho, it can stay on the "Pierre's Chagrin" thread as I affectionately call this one.