Special Announcement

[caz]

"Modern hoaxer/old hoaxer"

Simple and painless.

You asked who I thought wrote the diary, Harry D.

The above is not even a question.

But if you're now asking me when I think the diary was written, I'll give you the answer I've given many, many, many, many times before.

I DON'T KNOW WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN.

NOBODY KNOWS. SOME ONLY THINK THEY KNOW.

I DON'T ACCEPT THE LUDICROUS ARGUMENT THAT IT WAS WRITTEN AS LATE AS APRIL 1992.

FOR ALL I KNOW, GIVEN THE UNIDENTIFIED HANDWRITING AND THE INCONSISTENT AND INCONCLUSIVE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS, PEN COULD HAVE BEEN PUT TO PAPER AT ANY TIME BETWEEN LATE 1889 AND 8TH MARCH 1992, THE DAY BEFORE I BELIEVE BONGO SAW IT FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Yeah, I'd like to know caz's position on the diary. She clearly doesn't believe it was a hoax by Barrett and co, so who DOES she think wrote it?

I DON'T KNOW WHO WROTE IT.

NOBODY KNOWS.

IF THEY DID WE WOULDN'T STILL BE HERE - NOW WOULD WE?

Good grief, how hard can this be, people???

If The Baron has cracked it and will be identifying the diary's handwriting in three days from now, I will be full of admiration and looking forward to reading more of those unread books on the shelf, finally sort out the mess of old family photos and what have you currently under the bed, and even start a new hobby. Lobster extraction is looking like a definite possibility.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Bongo?? So let me get this straight. you think someone other than Barrett and his wife wrote the diary? We know Maybrick didn't write it. So the diary is a fake and you still care who wrote it?

Of course I care who wrote it, Columbo. This isn't an effing game of Cluedo.

You would actually lock someone up and throw away the key on Bongo's say-so - Bongo the Biggest Liar in the World - presumably because you don't care who actually wrote it?

The real Columbo would be scratching his head in despair.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Very good, Caz (I wondered where you were going with that one until I realised that you were going 'Way beyond Barking')!

Now, the challenge is to make 'Way beyond Barking' a euphemism for something ...

Hmmm.

PS I do hope you don't mind my asking you all of these questions but you are - it seems to me - seen by many (e.g., Observer) on this site as some kind of Maybrick apologist/aficionado, and I always thought that was just me (historically) and now me, erobitha, and Aussie Ven. Did you not once write an entire book lauding Maybrick to the high heavens more or less saying "He's your man, Iconoclast was right all along, praise the Lord, pass the lobster, it's game over for the Ripperologists?". Well, I'm sorry to tell you but apparently it was all some kind of hoax thing created by any simian other than the one that was once James Maybrick, possibly a Scouser, possibly dripping piss from his trouser legs, probably saying "... and what have you and what have you, no-one understand me, I wrote the diary, of course I didn't write the diary, this is how I wrote it, it was Anne what wrote it, in Tony D's handwriting, why's the money dried up all of a sudden and what have you and I emphasise that ...". It seems that confirmation of all this is coming our way this Saturday, served up on a plate for us all by some character called Lord Boresome and what have you. Just letting you know in case the loss of Maybrick as a candidate for Jack really will bother you that much. Listen, try to bear it. You can always shift your allegiance to Robert Louis Stevenson who I definitely think was the killer because he was alive in 1888.

Morning Mr I,

I feel like Piggy in the middle [something for Observer to sink his teeth into there, although my crackling is tough as old boots these days].

You feel Sir Jim makes the best ripper suspect.

Keith feels Monty makes the best ripper suspect. [Just as ridiculous. Monty is my cat and swears he isn't old enough. I believe him.]

I feel all ripper suspects lack the proper substance.

When Mike's DAiry goes to its final resting place on LOBSTER Day, I'll raise a glass or three of fizz to it, for all the wonderful friendships I've made because of it, and best of all, for the love of my life, working diligently in his home office down the hall as I type, who came to his first meeting of the Whitechapel Society in August 2010 and swept me clean off my feet. My only quibble is that he is currently beating me at Scrabble. Unlike Bongo Barrett, who was the guest interviewee at my first meeting in April 1999, and did a star turn at living down to my expectations.

Love,

Caz
X

[Harry D]

How is Caz supposed to know the answer to that?

"Modern hoaxer/old hoaxer"

Simple and painless.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Or else, of course, we'll all just off and do something more valuable and productive with our lives ...

Ike

Stable doors and missing horses and all that....

[Iconoclast]

Yeah, I'd like to know caz's position on the diary. She clearly doesn't believe it was a hoax by Barrett and co, so who DOES she think wrote it?

How is Caz supposed to know the answer to that?

How are any of us supposed to know the answer to that (if it wasn't James Maybrick)?

It is not for Caz or anyone else to answer that question for you.

If she ventured something more than simply opinion, I for one would be demanding to know how on earth she could have known it.

In the post-lobster new normal here on the Casebook, the debate will grow ever more intense. Without Maybrick as possible author, and the sane amongst us knowing that it wasn't Bongo or any of his intimates, the struggle to understand who created this mesmerising document will fill many a screen for many a year.

Or else, of course, we'll all just off and do something more valuable and productive with our lives ...

Ike

[Harry D]

Bongo?? So let me get this straight. you think someone other than Barrett and his wife wrote the diary? We know Maybrick didn't write it. So the diary is a fake and you still care who wrote it?

Yeah, I'd like to know caz's position on the diary. She clearly doesn't believe it was a hoax by Barrett and co, so who DOES she think wrote it?

[Columbo]

What has any of this to do with your belief in Bongo as the diary's author, Columbo? Are you saying there have only ever been two people on the planet who could possibly have written it? Maybrick or Barrett? Two people whose handwriting bears no resemblance to what's in the diary?

Words fail me - almost.

Love,

Caz
X

Bongo?? So let me get this straight. you think someone other than Barrett and his wife wrote the diary? We know Maybrick didn't write it. So the diary is a fake and you still care who wrote it?

[Iconoclast]

For me, it's Shoeburyness all day long.
Way beyond Barking.

Very good, Caz (I wondered where you were going with that one until I realised that you were going 'Way beyond Barking')!

Now, the challenge is to make 'Way beyond Barking' a euphemism for something ...

Hmmm.

PS I do hope you don't mind my asking you all of these questions but you are - it seems to me - seen by many (e.g., Observer) on this site as some kind of Maybrick apologist/aficionado, and I always thought that was just me (historically) and now me, erobitha, and Aussie Ven. Did you not once write an entire book lauding Maybrick to the high heavens more or less saying "He's your man, Iconoclast was right all along, praise the Lord, pass the lobster, it's game over for the Ripperologists?". Well, I'm sorry to tell you but apparently it was all some kind of hoax thing created by any simian other than the one that was once James Maybrick, possibly a Scouser, possibly dripping piss from his trouser legs, probably saying "... and what have you and what have you, no-one understand me, I wrote the diary, of course I didn't write the diary, this is how I wrote it, it was Anne what wrote it, in Tony D's handwriting, why's the money dried up all of a sudden and what have you and I emphasise that ...". It seems that confirmation of all this is coming our way this Saturday, served up on a plate for us all by some character called Lord Boresome and what have you. Just letting you know in case the loss of Maybrick as a candidate for Jack really will bother you that much. Listen, try to bear it. You can always shift your allegiance to Robert Louis Stevenson who I definitely think was the killer because he was alive in 1888.

[Ven]

as i said ... Ohhh. I can't wait for 2pm (UK time) on August 1st, for the big announcement!! Do i decorate a tree...a scarecrow!! what...I'm Australian.. what's the custom??!

C'mon... how do we decorate our houses? Splatter our our houses in cotton? give Arsenic laced lolly bags to the kiddies?

LOL, I'm a Maybrick fan.. but will yield with otherwise proof... can't wait for Saturday!

[caz]

Hmmm. So are you saying, Caz, that it is perfectly plausible that a Liverpool scally like Mike Barrett - skilled as he was in 'knowing well the vine' - could well have decided to pay off the mortgage by buying a greenhouse and did so by suddenly becoming The World's Greatest Forger, researching everything he could about Jack the Ripper, coming to the conclusion that local celebrity victim James Maybrick would make the ideal foil 200 miles away from the crimes, whilst hunting down every single copy of the Mary Kelly death scene photograph to scratch Florence Maybrick's initials onto in order to make sense of his questionable doggerel whilst holding down the full-time roles of father, househusband, village idiot, and utter lush?

Ike

Not in so many words, Ike. My BRiAn hurts.

But I would say this: with Mike being a full-time househusband, local loco Coco, semi-literate scally, walking whisky distillery and purveyor of the tallest tales known to mankind, Anne would have had to be clinically insane to ever think of embarking on such an enterprise with him, unless one of her multiple personalities had the balls of Eddie the Eagle Edwards.

For me, it's Shoeburyness all day long.

Way beyond Barking.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Just wanted to add. If your sole ambition when going to a solicitor, and submitting a legal oath of an affidavit, is designed to make a statement of truth, then why has none of the elements within the statement ever been backed up with hard evidence? Confess properly - give us the actual source materials for how each page was constructed and what measures you took to jump over many, many lasers - we are intrigued. Show us the receipts of the books, pens, inks and materials. Show us the magic dear wizard. Surely that’s its purpose, but yet we are and where we have always been, bereft of hard evidence.

In that same sworn affidavit, erobitha, Mike claimed he had wanted to expose the diary as a fraud as early as December 1993. He failed miserably to achieve this six months later in June 1994, so then came the affidavit seven months later in January 1995. He then had another 21 years to prove his affidavit had been truthful. So who was preventing him from ever doing so? If he didn't want to prove it for fear of getting nicked for fraud, who was forcing him to swear that affidavit in the first place? Who was forcing him to say anything at all, when he went to Harold Brough with his 'hold the front page' story in June 1994?

I wonder what was happening in December 1993, that made Mike want to expose his own hoaxed diary as a fraud? This was just two months after co-authoring the first diary book with Shirley Harrison, when it was in The Times best seller list.

Make any sense to you?

No, nor me.

But here in DAiry World, even the most arrant nonsense can appear to make sense to the Bongo Believers if they shut their eyes and ears and just believe hard enough.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

I think we should have a street party.

Caz can bring the sprouts; Ike can bring the wit; and I’ll bring the blanket:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZEEgIti8sM

Oh, and we may need a bit of humble pie - just in case.

Now that's my kind of church!

[Iconoclast]

Is it a mere coincidence that the same people who have fallen hook, line and sinker for Bongo Barrett's nonsense are also likely to fall hook, line and sinker for LOBSTER?

Hmmm. So are you saying, Caz, that it is perfectly plausible that a Liverpool scally like Mike Barrett - skilled as he was in 'knowing well the vine' - could well have decided to pay off the mortgage by buying a greenhouse and did so by suddenly becoming The World's Greatest Forger, researching everything he could about Jack the Ripper, coming to the conclusion that local celebrity victim James Maybrick would make the ideal foil 200 miles away from the crimes, whilst hunting down every single copy of the Mary Kelly death scene photograph to scratch Florence Maybrick's initials onto in order to make sense of his questionable doggerel whilst holding down the full-time roles of father, househusband, village idiot, and utter lush?

Ike