The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[Herlock Sholmes]

Just out of interest, if you approached me to find you a diary suitable for what you know is to be a hoaxed 1888 record of someone's thoughts, and I came back to you and said I had found you a small 1891 diary, would you just say, Excellent, I'll take it?

Let's not play the 'proof' game when you don't have any proofs, mate - that's just a dense argument.

Look, you can keep being a bit dense, but no-one's falling for it. We can see you're being dense. The question is, are you being dense or just pretending to be dense?

The question you are asking me is a silly question which bears no relationship to the factual scenario we are dealing with.

We are not dealing with a situation where someone has found me a small 1891 diary. The scenario we need to imagine is that I know nothing about Victorian diaries but I'm in desperate need of one with blank pages to create my forgery and I'm told over the telephone by a dealer, who I don't know and have only spoken to once before in my life, but who I've instructed to find me a Victorian diary with blank pages, that an 1891 diary has been found with nearly all blank pages. I can't see the diary, and I know that the dealer hasn't seen it, but, apart from being outside my preferred decade, it would seem that he has found what I've asked him to find. I badly want the diary as soon as possible so I tell him to send it to me so I can get it my hands on it and I'll worry about payment later. (In fact I never even pay for it, I run to my wife to do so.)

The other reason why your question is silly is because it ignores all the psychological pressures that would have existed during the telephone call.

Let me give you an example. The comedian Paul Smith tells a story of how he went into a luxury high end car dealership simply to browse and ended up purchasing a very expensive car which he could in no way afford simply because he felt insulted by someone else in the shop who implied he couldn't afford it (which he couldn't). Would I do the same thing? I very much doubt it. But you just can't say that everyone will do the same thing in the same situation especially in one where there must be some degree of psychological pressure.

So what I would do or would not do is of no consequence. But if the question is: Have I made bad purchasing decisions in my life? I certainly have. Could I see myself getting it wrong when buying a diary unseen over the telephone? Absolutely I can. Might I have said in Mike's position that I would take that 1891 diary? Yes, I can envisage doing so if I'd pictured in my mind a diary with totally blank pages which is entirely plausible. For me, as I've said many times, personal diaries are written in exercise books or notebooks without printed dates.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Look, the sheer lack of support for your position regarding the small 1891 diary is proof positive that everyone reading these posts is thinking, Why does he keep pretending that Mike Barrett wouldn't have checked if the 1891 diary had '1891' printed throughout it?

Or people are wondering how you can possibly even begin to say what Mike Barrett would or would not have done in the unusual and unprecedented situation he found himself in one day in March 1992.

I also have to say that the supposed "sheer lack of support" for my position exists in your imagination only.

[Lombro2]

Then how come the "support" for your position isn't enough for you to say that Michael Barrett definitely wrote it.

Do you only have abundant or sufficient evidence to say that "maybe" he wrote it? And that anyone who says he definitely didn't do it s a fantasist? What kind of a "position" is that? Socratic, anyone?

It's like arguing with water as to whether it's wet. I can't seem to pin it down.

[Iconoclast]

So finally, and let me capture this for posterity:

"Obviously, no-one other than Mike knew what Mike Barrett thought about or was aware of regarding dated diaries in 1888"

That, my friend, is somewhat different from your previous bombastic claims that "everyone" knew that an 1888 or 1891 diary would have had printed dates.
...

The problem for you is that you do need to prove what Mike thought about Victorian diaries because you do attempt to make a positive point about the red diary but that just brings us back to the now famous quote:

"Obviously, no-one other than Mike knew what Mike Barrett thought about or was aware of regarding dated diaries in 1888"

You must be truly dense if you think we can't see through what you are doing here. You are (apparently deliberately) ignoring the crucial point and homing-in on an irrelevant point for distraction purposes.

'Everyone' aged around 40 in 1992 would have seen at some point in their lives a few, tens, scores, even hundreds of dated diaries. This is rather crucial so if you disagree with me, please clarify why you feel this statement is incorrect so that we can address it in logical order.

Assuming that you will accept that that was the case, my point is made: whatever anyone knew or did not know about dated diaries in 1888 becomes an irrelevant distraction - they do not need to know anything whatsoever to still be alert to the possibility that what existed in the 1950s-1990s might have existed in 1888. They don't need to do any research. They don't need to check. They just need to be aware of the possibility that dated diaries existed in 1888 by dint of knowing they exist in 1992.

I don't think any of this is so far controversial, but - again - if you disagree, please raise it so we can discuss it in logical order.

So, if it was inconceivable that Mike Barrett had never in his entire lifetime seen dated diaries, then when he wanted a diary for his 1888 hoax (as you believe he did) he must have done so from a position of knowing it was a possibility that dated diaries for 1888 existed at some point in the past. Clearly, this would then imply that he must have done so from a position of knowing it was a possibility that dated diaries for 1889-1891 existed at some point in the past. This is my position. If you disagree, please raise it so we can discuss it in logical order.

I think - if we have got this far - my point is then rather obvious. To be frank, I feel that one has to be astonishingly dense to have forced me to have made these rather obvious points, but - there you go - you have.

So, just in case you still don't see where this has all led to: Mike Barrett in 1992 must have been aware of dated diaries in his lifetime so - on being offered a diary for 1891 - he must have immediately realised the danger to him of not asking the obvious question, "Is it dated '1891' throughout?", and if the answer came back that Earl did not know, then the obvious question then becomes, "Could you make a quick 'phonically and check because £66 is a lot of money to me on my invalidity benefits?".

The fact that Barrett just accepted the tiny 1891 diary therefore tells us that he was not bothered about whether it contained '1891' throughout it or not.

I don't think I can make this any simpler, and - honestly - I think I'm possibly the victim of a childish wind-up, but we'll see soon enough when we get the inevitable distraction reply.

[Iconoclast]

So what I would do or would not do is of no consequence. But if the question is: Have I made bad purchasing decisions in my life? I certainly have. Could I see myself getting it wrong when buying a diary unseen over the telephone? Absolutely I can. Might I have said in Mike's position that I would take that 1891 diary? Yes, I can envisage doing so if I'd pictured in my mind a diary with totally blank pages which is entirely plausible. For me, as I've said many times, personal diaries are written in exercise books or notebooks without printed dates.

How psychologically compromised (some might just call it 'dense') would you or Mike Barrett (now that we seem to be conflating the two) have to be to not be able to ask the question, "Does it have '1891' printed throughout it?".

Remember, in our hypothetical situation, you are considering accepting an 1891 diary for an 1888 hoax. Did you remember that bit?

It feels like you're saying that - if you wanted a bag of walnuts - you'd go into the local grocer's shop and ask, "Do you sell bags of nuts?". If the grocer then said, "Yes", you'd just say "Okay, I'll take one, please".

Maybe you would. But how dense would you feel when you got outside, opened the bag, and found that it was a bag of Brazil nuts?

This - if you haven't already worked out - is a truly dense discussion as far as I am concerned. There is no reasonable, realistic, plausible scenario in my head whereby a man requiring what Mike Barrett required would make so little effort to find out whether so inappropriate a diary could possibly be suitable for his needs. But you clearly do, and I suspect that's where we will always differ.

I'll remind you that no-one is coming to your defence with this facile position you are taking. Or - more to the point - your Love Dad's position now that he has retired from all public life. Being a lone voice in the wilderness is no crime (I should know), but - if I were you - I'd give some thought to whether that lone voice of yours in the wilderness sounds to the rest of us like you're howling at the Moon.

[Iconoclast]

Or people are wondering how you can possibly even begin to say what Mike Barrett would or would not have done in the unusual and unprecedented situation he found himself in one day in March 1992.

Well, there it is. Your argument boils down to, "I know it makes absolutely zero sense but who knows what anyone else might do in any given situation regardless of how easy it would be to ask a couple of timely questions prompted by the blindingly obvious need to clarify if that pesky tiny 1891 diary is being called an '1891 diary' for a really good reason?". Me auntie has finally opened her Home Gonad-Transformation Surgery box from Twat Toys and is now me Uncle Derek.

I also have to say that the supposed "sheer lack of support" for my position exists in your imagination only.

Well, there it is. Your definition of evidence excludes the logic of one's own eyes, I should have known. Normally on these threads (ah - you might not have known this, obviously), a Barrett Believer can expect to get a series of timely motivational one-liners from the usual suspects - little pick-me-ups to keep you going during yet another interminably long and dense debate. In Wheato's case, that would be 'Ridiculous post' repeated every 24 hours, for example.

But not you with this 1891 diary 'debate'. It is clear that everyone else can see the facile nature of your most tenuous suggestion and very wisely has decided to stay well clear of it for fear of being thought of as equally dense.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Then how come the "support" for your position isn't enough for you to say that Michael Barrett definitely wrote it.

Do you only have abundant or sufficient evidence to say that "maybe" he wrote it? And that anyone who says he definitely didn't do it s a fantasist? What kind of a "position" is that? Socratic, anyone?

It's like arguing with water as to whether it's wet. I can't seem to pin it down.

I appreciate you find it difficult to follow the discussions in this thread, Lombro, but the "support" for my position that Ike was talking about was in respect of the narrow question of whether Mike knew what a Victorian diary looked like which has nothing to do with the different question of whether Mike wrote the Maybrick diary.

[Herlock Sholmes]

You must be truly dense if you think we can't see through what you are doing here. You are (apparently deliberately) ignoring the crucial point and homing-in on an irrelevant point for distraction purposes.

'Everyone' aged around 40 in 1992 would have seen at some point in their lives a few, tens, scores, even hundreds of dated diaries. This is rather crucial so if you disagree with me, please clarify why you feel this statement is incorrect so that we can address it in logical order.

Assuming that you will accept that that was the case, my point is made: whatever anyone knew or did not know about dated diaries in 1888 becomes an irrelevant distraction - they do not need to know anything whatsoever to still be alert to the possibility that what existed in the 1950s-1990s might have existed in 1888. They don't need to do any research. They don't need to check. They just need to be aware of the possibility that dated diaries existed in 1888 by dint of knowing they exist in 1992.

I don't think any of this is so far controversial, but - again - if you disagree, please raise it so we can discuss it in logical order.

So, if it was inconceivable that Mike Barrett had never in his entire lifetime seen dated diaries, then when he wanted a diary for his 1888 hoax (as you believe he did) he must have done so from a position of knowing it was a possibility that dated diaries for 1888 existed at some point in the past. Clearly, this would then imply that he must have done so from a position of knowing it was a possibility that dated diaries for 1889-1891 existed at some point in the past. This is my position. If you disagree, please raise it so we can discuss it in logical order.

I think - if we have got this far - my point is then rather obvious. To be frank, I feel that one has to be astonishingly dense to have forced me to have made these rather obvious points, but - there you go - you have.

So, just in case you still don't see where this has all led to: Mike Barrett in 1992 must have been aware of dated diaries in his lifetime so - on being offered a diary for 1891 - he must have immediately realised the danger to him of not asking the obvious question, "Is it dated '1891' throughout?", and if the answer came back that Earl did not know, then the obvious question then becomes, "Could you make a quick 'phonically and check because £66 is a lot of money to me on my invalidity benefits?".

The fact that Barrett just accepted the tiny 1891 diary therefore tells us that he was not bothered about whether it contained '1891' throughout it or not.

I don't think I can make this any simpler, and - honestly - I think I'm possibly the victim of a childish wind-up, but we'll see soon enough when we get the inevitable distraction reply.

Don't make silly comments like "we can see through you" as if you speak for anyone other than yourself. All I've been doing is answering your strange questions to the best of my ability.

I most certainly do disagree with you that everyone aged 40 in 1992 will have seen tens of diaries, let alone scores or hundreds of them I can't fathom how you've got this idea into your head. If someone doesn't keep one, in what circumstances in your mind does a person see tens of other people's diaries?

But, as I've already said, this is irrelevant for two reasons. Firstly, plenty of modern personal diaries don't have any printed dates. Roger's friend is absolutely correct about this. Secondly, Mike wasn't seeking a modern diary, he was seeking a Victorian one. As you've accepted, we can't possibly know what Mike thought Victorian diaries looked like and whether they had printed dates.

Please don't call me "dense" as a substitute for your total lack of empirical evidence to support a single thing you've said.

The claim that Mike Barrett "must" have been aware of dated Victorian diaries - if that's what you're saying - is so absurd and so unsupported by anything other than your fervid desire for the diary to be genuine that it has to be treated with the contempt it deserves.

[caz]

Or people are wondering how you can possibly even begin to say what Mike Barrett would or would not have done in the unusual and unprecedented situation he found himself in one day in March 1992.

Which unusual and unprecedented situation are you talking about?

How did Mike, 'one day in March 1992', suddenly find himself in the 'unusual and unprecedented' situation of needing a Victorian diary for 1889 or 1890 - let alone 1891 - if James Maybrick's private thoughts from 1888-9 had been sitting on his word processor, bored to tears while waiting to see if Bongo would ever get up off his hairy arse and start looking for the raw materials he would need for his "mortgage fund", so they wouldn't be repossessed and have their locks changed before Christmas?

If you mean the genuinely unusual and utterly unprecedented situation of Mike finding himself one day in March 1992 with what appeared on the surface to be Jack the Ripper's personal diary for 1889, and no sodding clue whether it's a fake or fortune jobbie, I'd say you had a point.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How psychologically compromised (some might just call it 'dense') would you or Mike Barrett (now that we seem to be conflating the two) have to be to not be able to ask the question, "Does it have '1891' printed throughout it?".

Remember, in our hypothetical situation, you are considering accepting an 1891 diary for an 1888 hoax. Did you remember that bit?

It feels like you're saying that - if you wanted a bag of walnuts - you'd go into the local grocer's shop and ask, "Do you sell bags of nuts?". If the grocer then said, "Yes", you'd just say "Okay, I'll take one, please".

Maybe you would. But how dense would you feel when you got outside, opened the bag, and found that it was a bag of Brazil nuts?

This - if you haven't already worked out - is a truly dense discussion as far as I am concerned. There is no reasonable, realistic, plausible scenario in my head whereby a man requiring what Mike Barrett required would make so little effort to find out whether so inappropriate a diary could possibly be suitable for his needs. But you clearly do, and I suspect that's where we will always differ.

I'll remind you that no-one is coming to your defence with this facile position you are taking. Or - more to the point - your Love Dad's position now that he has retired from all public life. Being a lone voice in the wilderness is no crime (I should know), but - if I were you - I'd give some thought to whether that lone voice of yours in the wilderness sounds to the rest of us like you're howling at the Moon.

As I've said repeatedly, Ike, if Mike didn't think that printed diaries existed in the Victorian era - and you've already accepted that we can't know what he thought about Victorian diaries - he obviously wouldn't have thought to ask the question that you have formulated with your perfect 20/20 hindsight, having seen the 1891 diary with your own eyes.

Yes, I'm perfectly aware that we are considering accepting an 1891 diary for an 1888 hoax. Have you forgotten that you've already accepted that an 1891 diary could be used for an 1888 hoax?

If I bought a bag of Brazil nuts thinking it was a bag of walnuts I'd be annoyed but what does that have to do with the situation we are discussing whereby Mike agreed to buy an 1891 diary with blank pages and received an 1891 diary with blank pages?

With the greatest respect Ike, it doesn't matter one jot if you don't think that Mike would have agreed to purchase the 1891 diary without asking the question you think he should have asked. Your opinions cannot stand as evidence. As you are trying to make a positive case about the 1891 diary, the onus of proof is entirely on you but you clearly can't prove a single thing.

[caz]

And now for something completely different, before I head off into town for my routine eye test...

RJ Palmer has told us often enough that he can't consider the possibility that the Barretts were not responsible for putting the diary in his Diary World, because it would leave him on a sticky wicket and stumped at the crease without his bat. What would the poor thing do then?

I, on the other hand, would be tickled pink to see someone – anyone - topple the Darwinian bricks of Battlecrease, crushing the bones of any previous existence, put there to test our faith in the Lord, before leading me out of the leper colony towards the light and the nativity scene in humble Goldie Street, where Anne "Mary" Graham is having labour pains, while Mike "Joseph" Barrett is urging her to push the miracle baby out - having played no part in its conception - and the wee donkey watches on, braying softly.

It would be a thrill to see the arrival of the three wise men, Awesome, Banksy and Roger Rabbit, bearing their gifts of Told You, Frank Insight and "Meh!"

But when I get to that part of the dream I always wake up and smell the coffee...

Why can't I be sure and share the good news?

A true story [with just the food items slightly modified for anyone with allergies]:

A strange little girl came to tea once when we were both about seven, and when my mother asked her if she was "sure" she didn't want Dream Topping on her bowl of Angel Delight, she came out with words I have never forgotten:

"How can I be sure when I haven't got a sure to be sure with?",

which is quite profound when you think about it.

Until I have a sure, I'll remain a leper who can't change her spots, or join in the chorus of Neil Diamond's "I'm A Believer", while monkeeing around with the likes of Circus Boy Micky "Dolenz" Barrett, Peter "Birchwood" Tork, Chris "Davy" Jones and Mike "Wool Hat" Banks.

I'll just have to sit it out for now and listen to the Lionesses belting out that other Neil Diamond classic, the name of which escapes me.

Where it began
I can't begin to know when...

Love,

Caz
X

edited for minor typos

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, there it is. Your argument boils down to, "I know it makes absolutely zero sense but who knows what anyone else might do in any given situation regardless of how easy it would be to ask a couple of timely questions prompted by the blindingly obvious need to clarify if that pesky tiny 1891 diary is being called an '1891 diary' for a really good reason?". Me auntie has finally opened her Home Gonad-Transformation Surgery box from Twat Toys and is now me Uncle Derek.



Well, there it is. Your definition of evidence excludes the logic of one's own eyes, I should have known. Normally on these threads (ah - you might not have known this, obviously), a Barrett Believer can expect to get a series of timely motivational one-liners from the usual suspects - little pick-me-ups to keep you going during yet another interminably long and dense debate. In Wheato's case, that would be 'Ridiculous post' repeated every 24 hours, for example.

But not you with this 1891 diary 'debate'. It is clear that everyone else can see the facile nature of your most tenuous suggestion and very wisely has decided to stay well clear of it for fear of being thought of as equally dense.

Please don"t categorise my argument as being "I know it makes zero sense" when I have said nothing of the sort. It merely demonstrates your desperation in circumstances where you are well aware that you can't support a single thing you are saying.

What I am saying makes perfect sense. Anyone can make a mistake when shopping over the telephone or online and buy something which turns out not to be suitable. Roger even posted recently that 1.5 billion Amazon customers are disappointed with what they receive every year. This shows that your opinions on the matter are so detached from reality as to be laughable.

Your over-the-top posts are reeking of sheer desperation and are self-evidently devoid of any sensible content.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Which unusual and unprecedented situation are you talking about?

How did Mike, 'one day in March 1992', suddenly find himself in the 'unusual and unprecedented' situation of needing a Victorian diary for 1889 or 1890 - let alone 1891 - if James Maybrick's private thoughts from 1888-9 had been sitting on his word processor, bored to tears while waiting to see if Bongo would ever get up off his hairy arse and start looking for the raw materials he would need for his "mortgage fund", so they wouldn't be repossessed and have their locks changed before Christmas?

If you mean the genuinely unusual and utterly unprecedented situation of Mike finding himself one day in March 1992 with what appeared on the surface to be Jack the Ripper's personal diary for 1889, and no sodding clue whether it's a fake or fortune jobbie, I'd say you had a point.

What a strange question, Caz. How many times had Mike been shopping for a Victorian diary over the telephone prior to March 1992? None, obviously. So of course he found himself in an unusual and unprecedented situation when Martin Earl offered him the 1891 diary.

The question of how he found himself in this situation seems to be because he had only just received an expression of interest in the diary from a literary agent in London but that's a totally different question, and one which has no bearing on what Ike was asking me.

[Iconoclast]

Please don't call me "dense" as a substitute for your total lack of empirical evidence to support a single thing you've said.

In my book, dense is as dense does, mate.

The claim that Mike Barrett "must" have been aware of dated Victorian diaries - if that's what you're saying - is so absurd and so unsupported by anything other than your fervid desire for the diary to be genuine that it has to be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Feel free to treat it with the contempt it deserves because - you were right - I wasn't saying that. What I have stated (perhaps not brilliantly) is that Mike Barrett must have known about dated diaries in 1992. Knowing that, and given his objective, you would have to be very determined to imagine he'd just accept any old bag of general nuts when he specifically needed walnuts.

[Iconoclast]

With the greatest respect Ike, it doesn't matter one jot if you don't think that Mike would have agreed to purchase the 1891 diary without asking the question you think he should have asked. Your opinions cannot stand as evidence. As you are trying to make a positive case about the 1891 diary, the onus of proof is entirely on you but you clearly can't prove a single thing.

Ah - another poster who doesn't understand the burden of proof!

You've made so many claims about what Mike Barrett would have done or thought that the burden of proof now has your name on it so please don't attempt to throw off your yolk in my direction.

The only firm statement that I will make regarding Mike Barrett is that it is inconceivable in 1992 for a 40-year old person to not be aware of dated diaries.

If I'm wrong to assume that, then I am wrong. It isn't evidence-based in the traditional sense, but - then - that doesn't seem to have bothered you unduly whilst densely sticking to your very unpopular theme.

If you are dense enough to want walnuts but not check that the bag of nuts you're being offered contains walnuts, then that's on you. I don't have a particularly high opinion of the gobshite that was Mike Barrett, but I at least give him sufficient credit to check what he's about to commit £66 to.