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[caz]

I didn't ignore the 1885 example at all, Caz. In fact, it's pertinent to my observation about capitalization. You will note that the headline of the letter is "RAILWAY BUMBLE" not "RAILWAY BUMBLING". Why is that? The letter writer speaks of "bumbling" not "bumble". Except that a poem is included in the letter which says, "And placid sits old Bumble/While all the people grumble". Old Bumble appears to have been a well known caricature based on the Mr Bumble character of Dickens to represent the type of fussy official pomposity that has always been the definition of Bumbledom. So my reading of the letter is that the writer is complaining about the railway officials who didn't get people home on the train and the newspaper understood this. I'm suggesting, therefore, that the "bumbling" of the letter writer carried a different meaning to the way we would understand it today. I'm also suggesting that Maybrick wouldn't have thought to use it about Dr Hopper because he wasn't an official in any sense of the word.

There now. And to think I might have got some sort of grudging apology for the bollocking I got for even daring to suggest that the humble word 'bumbling' might have been used in 1888 as a direct or indirect nod - however misplaced - to Mr Bumble and Bumbledom.

Instead I find Herlock still trying to claim he was right all along, and that black is really white, when the letter from 1885 is staring out at us both in black and white, and its headline [hello!] has the impertinence to be in capital letters: RAILWAY BUMBLE, as if that has any relevance to anything. It's clear that if the author of the letter, EYE WITNESS - also in capitals signifying sod all - used the word 'bumbling' [with a small b] as a direct nod to the Old Bumble in the adage just four lines above, whose name Herlock himself concedes was arguably based on Mr Bumble, then I was not so far wide of the mark with my original observation.

I'm not saying that Maybrick himself would have used the same word to describe Dr Hopper's bedside manner, but the diary author evidently thought he could have done, and it now appears that they were not wrong, as we have an example from 1885 of a complaint about the way the day trippers were treated by the railway staff.

I'm not sure it matters whether the intended meaning of 'bumbling' in either case was 'bumptious' or 'bungling' or a combination of both: officious railway staff herding passengers onto a train to the wrong destination, or a family doctor pulling rank over a patient by loftily dismissing their genuine aches and pains as merely imagined. The sentiment appears to be much the same. 'Sir Jim' also writes about Dr Hopper's meddling, when complaining of 'too many interfering servants'. Any more of it and the buffoon would 'soon feel the edge' of his 'shining knife'. The doctor was there to serve the patient, not dictate to him - just like any bumptious council official or station-master getting - er - above their station.

Harold Shipman is a prime example of a family doctor who pulled rank over his patients to treat them to an immediate death sentence.

I think you misunderstand my question about how the diary got into Barrett's hands. That question is premised on the fact that the diary was written after 1945. See my question to you in #161 of the "Hoax" thread on 29th January to which I've yet to receive a response. (It said: But the evidence is overwhelming that the diary is a late twentieth century forgery so how for the live of all that is pure and holy did such an item get into Mike Barrett's grubby hands?)The explanation I've seen is that it was taken from Battlecrease by Eddie Lyons on March 9th, 1992, which is usually on the basis that Maybrick or someone else in the late 1880s put it under the floorboards. What I want to know is how did it get there at some point after 1945? I'm aware of what you said to Mike JG in #174 of the Hoax thread but it's not clear what time period you were referring to. So I would welcome an answer from you to my question.

Please have some manners and wait for me to get round to catching up with all the active threads. I do have a life away from this place. If there is a question there that has not been addressed before and merits an answer from me, I will do my best, but where did you get the impression that the Battlecrease evidence is 'usually' explored on the basis that Maybrick or someone else in the late 1880s put it under the floorboards? The evidence 'does what it says on the tin' but no more, and it all relates to the double event of 9th March 1992 and the documented events thereafter. There is literally nothing known about the diary before that date, but if we are meant to ignore all the evidence we do have, because what went before is completely unknown, why does that not apply to the Barrett Hoax theorists, who also have no evidence for what went on before that date, and make up for their lack of evidence afterwards with speculation and suspicion?

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

There now. And to think I might have got some sort of grudging apology for the bollocking I got for even daring to suggest that the humble word 'bumbling' might have been used in 1888 as a direct or indirect nod - however misplaced - to Mr Bumble and Bumbledom.

Instead I find Herlock still trying to claim he was right all along, and that black is really white, when the letter from 1885 is staring out at us both in black and white, and its headline [hello!] has the impertinence to be in capital letters: RAILWAY BUMBLE, as if that has any relevance to anything. It's clear that if the author of the letter, EYE WITNESS - also in capitals signifying sod all - used the word 'bumbling' [with a small b] as a direct nod to the Old Bumble in the adage just four lines above, whose name Herlock himself concedes was arguably based on Mr Bumble, then I was not so far wide of the mark with my original observation.

I'm not saying that Maybrick himself would have used the same word to describe Dr Hopper's bedside manner, but the diary author evidently thought he could have done, and it now appears that they were not wrong, as we have an example from 1885 of a complaint about the way the day trippers were treated by the railway staff.

I'm not sure it matters whether the intended meaning of 'bumbling' in either case was 'bumptious' or 'bungling' or a combination of both: officious railway staff herding passengers onto a train to the wrong destination, or a family doctor pulling rank over a patient by loftily dismissing their genuine aches and pains as merely imagined. The sentiment appears to be much the same. 'Sir Jim' also writes about Dr Hopper's meddling, when complaining of 'too many interfering servants'. Any more of it and the buffoon would 'soon feel the edge' of his 'shining knife'. The doctor was there to serve the patient, not dictate to him - just like any bumptious council official or station-master getting - er - above their station.

Harold Shipman is a prime example of a family doctor who pulled rank over his patients to treat them to an immediate death sentence.



Please have some manners and wait for me to get round to catching up with all the active threads. I do have a life away from this place. If there is a question there that has not been addressed before and merits an answer from me, I will do my best, but where did you get the impression that the Battlecrease evidence is 'usually' explored on the basis that Maybrick or someone else in the late 1880s put it under the floorboards? The evidence 'does what it says on the tin' but no more, and it all relates to the double event of 9th March 1992 and the documented events thereafter. There is literally nothing known about the diary before that date, but if we are meant to ignore all the evidence we do have, because what went before is completely unknown, why does that not apply to the Barrett Hoax theorists, who also have no evidence for what went on before that date, and make up for their lack of evidence afterwards with speculation and suspicion?

Love,

Caz
X

The point was that if "bumbling" was a nod to Mr Bumble and Bumbledom in 1888, it would have related to the pretentious inefficiency of petty, pompous officials because that's what Bumbledom means. With Dr Hopper not being an official, it wouldn't explain its use by the diary author in 1888.

But you might have missed that I said on more than one occasion that it doesn't matter. And this was for two reasons:

1. The inherent implausibility of the diary author in 1888 being the first known person in history to use the expression "bumbling buffoon" which is not then known to have been used again for over fifty years in circumstances where we can see that the word "bumbling" (which probably didn't even exist in the United States at the time) was popularized by Timemagazine in the 1920s and was then suddenly used a lot in the UK due to Stanley Baldwin having been described as the "bumbling Baldwin".

2. The use of "one off instance" by the diary author proves that the diary is a modern fake, so it's a waste of time and space discussing the theoretical use of the other anachronisms in the diary, just as it's a waste of time and space discussing all the factual errors made by the diarist.

To answer your question about the floorboards. I got the impression that the Battlecrease evidence is "explored on the basis that Maybrick or someone else put it under the floorboards" largely from reading the posts on this Forum but also from Robert Smith's book. You surely can't be denying that there is a widely held belief that the diary was found under the floorboards by an electrician on 9th March 1992. For that to be true someone must have put the diary under the floorboards in the first place. If you don't believe this theory yourself perhaps you might want to say so to avoid confusion.

I do have manners incidentally, Caz. When I said that I had yet to receive a response to #161 of the Hoax thread (which I posted on 29th January), it was a statement of fact, not a complaint or criticism. You have, however, replied in that thread to posts I've made after29th January (for example you replied to my #165 in your #186 and my #184 in your #254) so it seemed a reasonable thought that you weren't ever going to reply to my #161, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt in suggesting that you might still get round to it. It strikes me as a critical question. If the diary is a modern forgery, which we know it is because of the inclusion of "one off instance", how did it get into Michael Barrett's possession in 1992? It's something that I've never seen a plausible answer to. The floor is yours, however, if you want to do it now.