Who were they?

[Scott Nelson]

Why would Mike care if a "surrogate" diary had writing on some of the pages, or was full, or had a date of 1891 or anything else that was inconsistent with his scrapbook, if all he was attempting to do was pass it off as the book EL was supposed to have sold him?

[erobitha]

Why would Mike care if a "surrogate" diary had writing on some of the pages, or was full, or had a date of 1891 or anything else that was inconsistent with his scrapbook, if all he was attempting to do was pass it off as the book EL was supposed to have sold him?

If I could give you a virtual high five Scotty I would. Bang on the button.

[caz]

I should have asked you this yesterday, RJ. Where exactly is it on the record that Mike said to Doreen, "I need to go to York"?

Hi Ike,

Let's follow Mike and RJ's example and 'buy some time' in York, shall we?

It was Doreen who mentioned this upcoming trip in a letter to Shirley, dated 10th March 1992, saying that 'Our Ripper friend' had promised to get back in contact about the diary on his return.

Like RJ, I suspect it was Mike's way of buying more time, but I don't buy RJ's reasoning for why he needed it. I don't believe Mike was in the process of sourcing an unused or partly used 1880s "diary" to house a hoax he would first need to bully his wife into handwriting for him, and then stop her burning it on the kitchen stove when she twigs what he plans to do with it.

Mike didn't leave Doreen a contact number, so he could take his sweet time and only call again if and when he was good and ready. Why would he renew contact with Doreen "post-York" without having made any progress with this hoax? If he doesn't even have a physical diary to describe if asked, it would be a pointless exercise discussing his availability for showing it to her in person, only to have to think up fresh excuses for further delays if he still has nothing to deliver. He might be searching indefinitely for the right book, for all he knows. If and when he manages to find one and get the hoax transferred, there would only be one shot to get it right. Any fatal continuity errors, such as a sentence accidentally repeated here or skipped there, which could not be corrected invisibly, might require a third book and starting all over again. That would be the time to get back in touch with Doreen and arrange a meeting, with fulsome apologies for some personal or family drama cropping up immediately on his "return from York". It's not as if Mike was ever stuck for one of those, whether real or imagined.

As with Lechmere, supposedly admitting to a 'time gap', which gave him the opportunity to commit murder in Buck's Row, so we have Mike Barrett, with his own time gap while "in York", supposedly giving him the opportunity to get on with creating his hoax. But then he blows it by getting back in touch with Doreen too soon, with nothing to show for the time gained: 'no diary, no diary...'

On the other hand, Mike may simply need a bit more time to persuade Eddie that he can find the right buyer for his "old book" or, if he is already looking after it for that purpose, more time to study its contents and, with luck, identify Jack the Ripper before confirming his availability for meeting Doreen. After all, Michael 'Williams' has just given her the false impression that he has had Jack the Ripper's diary in his possession for several months.

On 10th March 1992, Doreen writes to Shirley to report that Michael and his wife have decided to entrust them with the diary to check it out.
'So we must wait and see what happens. He's off to York on Thursday or Friday, and promises to make contact again, on his return.' [After Eddie helps out in Dodd's house on Monday 9th March, he goes absent from work without explanation from the Friday, when the ongoing contract for which he was originally taken on in December 1991, resumes. He could have joined Mike "in York".]

On 3rd April [just three days after Mike's theoretical auction find on 31st March] Doreen is again writing to Shirley, this time looking forward to hearing about their arrangements with Michael Barrett.
'I could organise a lunch I suppose…'
'But then if you weren't going to be doing it until the week after next, that Friday is in fact Good Friday…'

On 8th April 1992 [even as the diary is supposedly still in the process of being created] Doreen writes a letter addressed this time to Michael Barrett, to confirm their meeting for 11.30-12 on Monday 13th, with herself, Mike, Shirley and Sally Evemy. Doreen suggests taking a photocopy of the diary at her office to avoid the original going into any other hands.

This does suggest rather strongly that Mike was happy to renew his contact with Doreen following his "return from York", using his real name, and to begin discussing arrangements for London, without yet having obtained the equivalent of an unused or partly used 1880s "diary" from which to create Maybrick's diary.

York was almost certainly a lie told by Mike to buy himself time, but how much time did it buy him, and to what end, exactly, if he got back to Doreen sans a diary?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Why would Mike care if a "surrogate" diary had writing on some of the pages, or was full, or had a date of 1891 or anything else that was inconsistent with his scrapbook, if all he was attempting to do was pass it off as the book EL was supposed to have sold him?

Hi Scotty,

Mike cared enough to ask for at least 20 blank pages, so I suspect he wanted a neutered version of the "old book", with some pages removed [which he could do himself] and only blank pages surviving, in case anyone missed the one signed by Jack the Ripper and got a tip-off that Mike had recently acquired a similar looking old book.

In any event, he forgot that size matters.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

To make my point even better.....


Weekly Dispatch (London) - Sunday 07 April 1912

Even better than that, ero, Gary Barnett found a similar example of topping oneself by hanging in an article from 1878 - which he posted several years ago.

[Edited to correct my error - it was even earlier than that: 1877.]

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

"Topping oneself" was not exactly a victorian expression either, the author of the article had to explain it to the readers...

It was originally claimed, with considerable appeal to authority, that the expression, referring to suicide by hanging, did not exist in print before 1958.

It would be really rather refreshing if, for once in their lives, the Barrett hoax conspiracy theorists did not shift the goal posts to try and raise the dead, but would concede with good grace that this was an error to the tune of eighty years. Newspapers were meant to be read, even back in 1878, when all four of my grandparents were babes in arms, so it's not as though the article posted by Gary Barnett would only have been digested by two or three interested readers when it first appeared.

By contrast, Gary might just as well not have posted it on a 21st century message board, for all the notice taken of it by those who like to claim a decent working knowledge of the various issues here.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

You may.

I had already made it abundantly clear that I would welcome polite remarks rather than those of the kind to which I have become accustomed.

The fact that someone else previously pointed out something does not mean that it is somehow wrong when I point it out.

As for your description of me as 'Johnny-Come-Lately', it was made clear to me before anyone said anything about my 'discoveries' having been made long before that my presence on this thread is not welcome.

I refer to:

'But some friendly advice, you might simply want to say "oops, wrong room. Sorry about that" ' (#286 from c.d.)

the friendly advice which obviously is not as friendly as it purports to be, and


'You might regret stepping foot into this world.' (# 288 from erobitha)

which seems considerably less friendly, and


'So, be as smarmy as you want, but you are not up on all the facts.' (# 301 from erobitha)

and

'I assume that he or she is confused...That's what happens when you don't think things through.' (# 329 from Iconoclast)

or

'Can anyone help him or her make sense of the conundrum they just wandered into there?' (# 338 from Iconoclast)


I thought the whole point of a discussion forum is to welcome new contributors, not to tell them that they are unwelcome.

But what is your purpose?

Is it to establish the truth about the so-called Maybrick diary, or is it that you see yourself as

'The one whose mission in life is to defend the Maybrick scrapbook (and the Maybrick watch) against all stupidities, ill-thought out 'arguments', and fashionable misunderstandings.'

I ask why you defend the Maybrick scrapbook by writing

'PS The expression one-off was almost certainly in some sort of nascent use by 1888...'

without offering any evidence in support of your assertion.

As for your description of me as 'Johnny-Come-Lately', if one of us is a 'Johnny-Come-Lately', it is you - a latecomer to the world of polite discussion.

God, save and preserve us from the paper-thin skinned poster. You can expect a 'polite discussion' when you learn to bloody well disagree politely.

If the example of 'topping oneself' is anything to go by, resulting in an example from 1877 topping the original 'earliest' one from 1958, then a 1934 instance of a 'one-off' ['one off' in the diary] could well indicate that the phrase was both known and used in some form and in certain contexts considerably earlier than we have been led to believe.

Interestingly, just as 'topping oneself' is explained for the readers of the 1877 article, 'Sir Jim' describes in the diary how he explained his own use of a 'one off instance' to Florie. Take another look. He apologised for hitting his wife, brushing it off as 'a one off instance', which he regretted, then 'assured' her it would 'never happen again'.

It's as if she wasn't expected to grasp what he was talking about, so he said it but then had to spell it out for her.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

The way it has turned out is that my detractors here are unable to produce any evidence that the adjective 'one-off' was in use in 1889.

That means that the 'Maybrick' diary is a forgery - or had you not noticed?

The way it has turned out is that a small group of posters on this thread who seem to think they own it, and that anyone who sees things otherwise is unwelcome, have been making bitchy comments about me and to me.

Like them, you make it look as though my participation in this discussion has been a disaster.

So let us look at what has actually happened during the 49 hours since I dared to enter this discussion about the Maybrick diary's authenticity.

My very first comment, # 284, received a vote of approval.

My # 298 also received a vote.

So did my # 306.

So did my # 311.

So did my # 317.

So did my # 320.

So did my # 325.

So did my # 332.

So did my # 352.

So did my # 378.

My # 387 received two votes.

RJ Palmer in # 389 wrote about me: 'Actually, he's right.'

In # 406, Abby Normal accepted that I was right on the very point that my detractors here insisted I was wrong.


It appears that you are not correct.

It's all about you, isn't it?

If I whinged on about all the 'bitchy' comments that have come my way since my first ever post in 1999, it would completely drown out any discussion about the diary, polite or otherwise.

But do carry on bitchin' 'bout the bitchin', because I'm sure many people would like the discussion to be drowned out by fair means or foul.

Love,

Caz
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[rjpalmer]

I just noticed from one of Keith’s posts /emails that there is some inside info which hasn’t been made public and won’t be for a while. So I think it’s pointless to debate the diary and it would best to hold off the debate until such time this info is made public, no??

If Keith really had convincing evidence that the diary was sold to Mike Barrett by Eddie Lyons--he informed us he could prove it to the 'court of history' many years ago--why wouldn't he simply call Anne on the phone and present this evidence to her and allow her a chance to admit it or deny it or give a full and candid account of what really happened?

Doesn't he think she deserves the opportunity?

Why has this candid conversation never taken place? Why is he evidently hesitant to make the call? It is such an obvious thing to do.

Instead, nothing ever happens. The saga of the diary just goes on year after year, boring everyone to tears--even the tiny group of people--pro and con--who would be interested in seeing a resolution.

For all we know, Vlad Putin could blow the world into a nuclear winter next week, but still...no phone call to Anne. Yet even Anne, in her long tape to Feldman said that Ripperology is trite and doesn't matter in the face of the threats of nuclear annihilation, global warming, etc., so why wouldn't she simply reveal the mundane and trite facts of the origins of an obvious hoax and be done with it? She is hardly a 'one dimensional' person, and the perspective of twenty years may have changed how she thinks about it.

But I'm guessing that phone call will never happen.

See you on the outside.

[erobitha]

If Keith really had convincing evidence that the diary was sold to Mike Barrett by Eddie Lyons--he informed us he could prove it to the 'court of history' many years ago--why wouldn't he simply call Anne on the phone and present this evidence to her and allow her a chance to admit it or deny it or give a full and candid account of what really happened?

Doesn't he think she deserves the opportunity?

Why has this candid conversation never taken place? Why is he evidently hesitant to make the call? It is such an obvious thing to do.

Instead, nothing ever happens. The saga of the diary just goes on year after year, boring everyone to tears--even the tiny group of people--pro and con--who would be interested in seeing a resolution.

For all we know, Vlad Putin could blow the world into a nuclear winter next week, but still...no phone call to Anne. Yet even Anne, in her long tape to Feldman said that Ripperology is trite and doesn't matter in the face of the threats of nuclear annihilation, global warming, etc., so why wouldn't she simply reveal the mundane and trite facts of the origins of an obvious hoax and be done with it? She is hardly a 'one dimensional' person, and the perspective of twenty years may have changed how she thinks about it.

But I'm guessing that phone call will never happen.

See you on the outside.

Maybe Chris Jones has already answered that question for you RJ.

[rjpalmer]

Maybe Chris Jones has already answered that question for you RJ.

No, he hasn't.

Chris Jones didn't work with Anne for years, write letters in her defense to the Ripperologist, announce that he believed her provenance story, recommend her employment to Bruce Robinson as a researcher, write a forward to her book, or coauthor an entire book sympathetic to her account of events. Nor does Jones claim he has information outside the public domain that would 'prove to the court of history' that Anne is lying.

Why not make that phone call? I'd do it myself, but don't you think it would be more valuable coming from a friend, or former friend, and a celebrated researcher rather than just some random 'mudlark' on the internet?

Seems like an obvious enough course of action. I'll check back in two years to see if it has happened yet, provided Vlad hasn't blown us to hell before then.

[rjpalmer]

I can only speak for myself, but if I had a friend that I once believed and defended in the face of public ridicule, and did so for years, and later found evidence to prove that this friend had been lying and lying repeatedly, I'd certainly want to hear her explanation and give her a chance to defend herself against what has since become a very public accusation. That this has not (apparently) been done strikes me as odd.

The only explanation I can think of is that the 'evidence' of his counter-provenance is so weak that he dare not confront her with it.

[erobitha]

No, he hasn't.

Chris Jones didn't work with Anne for years, write letters in her defense to the Ripperologist, announce that he believed her provenance story, recommend her employment to Bruce Robinson as a researcher, write a forward to her book, or coauthor an entire book sympathetic to her account of events. Nor does Jones claim he has information outside the public domain that would 'prove to the court of history' that Anne is lying.

Why not make that phone call? I'd do it myself, but don't you think it would be more valuable coming from a friend, or former friend, and a celebrated researcher rather than just some random 'mudlark' on the internet?

Seems like an obvious enough course of action. I'll check back in two years to see if it has happened yet, provided Vlad hasn't blown us to hell before then.

She has made it abundantly clear to anyone who has attempted to discuss the diary with her that she does not want to talk about it. Chris Jones will testify the same, as will his co-author Daniel Dolgin. I can only assume Keith has respected that very vocal opinion and has left her alone. That is a testament to his character, I believe.

I would personally drag Anne over the coals the minute I could, but I am pretty sure she would slam the phone down on me in seconds. I can only assume Keith being Keith, will only take that step if he wishes to when he feels the time is right and in the manner he feels is appropriate.

This is not about placating an impatient baying mob on the internet (of which I am a member). It is about doing things properly and thoroughly.

[rjpalmer]

She has made it abundantly clear to anyone who has attempted to discuss the diary with her that she does not want to talk about it. Chris Jones will testify the same, as will his co-author Daniel Dolgin. I can only assume Keith has respected that very vocal opinion and has left her alone. That is a testament to his character, I believe

Dolgin & Jones' book came out last year, buttercup, or there abouts.

Keith made his 'court of law' and 'court of history' comments many, many moons ago. He could have called her then.

But all we get is excuses. You're giving another.

[caz]

All in the best possible taste, c.d..

(Thank you, Kenny Everett.)

Reminds me of how some people will take offence over the relatively trivial, but then forget to take offence over something much worse.

When Cuddly Ken introduced his famous character, Cupid Stunt, he got away with it. He said he had originally wanted to call her Mary Hinge, but had to change it when Auntie Beeb had a fit of the vapours.

Love,

Caz
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