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

[John Wheat]

It's clearly a modern hoax that was odds on written by the Barretts.

This is still the case despite the amount of bilge on this thread.

[Iconoclast]

These are not the words of someone who believes the Maybrick Diary is authentic.

How so? Why do these words mean that Anne did not believe the Maybrick scrapbook to be authentic in 1992?

For even if one is convinced of her saintly nature, it raises the possibility that if Anne believed the diary was such an obvious fake that no rational person could take it seriously and publish the damn thing, she might have helped Mike to keep 'peace' in the house under the assumption that it would never amount to a hill of beans anyway.

Can't argue with that possibility. I think it's low in the list of the possible, but it's still possible.

That's an entirely rational reading of her attitude ...

No, that's an entirely biased reading of her attitude, RJ. My dear readers are not stupid, you know.

... but I've been accused of "reading Anne's mind" when all I'm doing is reading Anne's own words.

And reading considerably more in to those words than she ever did.

[Iconoclast]

It's funny how these little coincidences keep cropping up in support of the Barrett Believer Conspiracy Theory.

Come on, RJ - at least be accurate when you're making stuff up.

Of course, anyone with two braincells worth rubbing together would realize that the introduction of these synthetic fibres dated to the late 1940s, yet the new argument is that Barrett would have been terrified that 1890 paper would be distinguishable from 1888-1889 paper under forensic testing and so he wouldn't have taken the risk ...

Not terrified, no - just careful to check that the paper doesn't have '1890' emblazoned across every page. The same would apply if someone offered him a - I don't know - let's say an 1891 diary.

... (because they can read Barrett's mind, you see, and also know that hoaxers and criminals don't take risks) ...

Risk is a relative thing but stupidity is an absolute thing: you can't cut out risk but even a stupid person can cut out stupidity.

... thus we must reject any suspicion that Mike Barrett, ex-con, secret journalist, and future inventor of the Loot Magazine scam, could have been up to no good.

There's no doubt that there is a parallel universe somewhere in the cosmos where Mike and Anne Barrett created the Maybrick scrapbook, but it wasn't in this one. It wasn't impossible but you would need a huge number of universes to ensure it finally happened.

Any port in a storm, I guess.

In a storm have any port, I guess. Be careful with your actions and resources and you'll be sipping the fine stuff, happy in the knowledge you've reduced risk and maximised your chances of success.

Let's me be blunt. Any belief in the Maybrick Hoax requires a healthy dose of self-deception and self-administered mental fog from the participants, so it is not surprising that we see such outlandish arguments.

We aren't talking about belief in the Maybrick scrapbook, are we, RJ? I thought you were talking about your belief in the Barrett Hoax? It's a false dichotomy to assume it's one or t'other.

I write 'participant' because it is increasingly clear that those who take the diary seriously are active participants in their own deception.

Dear readers, 'increasingly clear' is another Barrett Believer straw man - it claims that you are unequivocally increasingly likely to be seen as self-deceiving if you even dare to consider the possibility that James Maybrick wrote the James Maybrick scrapbook. It's that ugly passive-aggressive implication of inadequacy by mere dint of keeping your mind open when all around others are firmly closing theirs.

It's strange and not a little frightening how the logical portion of the human brain can be so completely enslaved by our own desires.

Rearrange these words, dear readers: kettle, black, calling, pot. Tell you anything you really ought to know?

[rjpalmer]

Anne - if you believe RJ - thought he'd be rightly sent packing

It's funny how Ike coyly attributes these words to me, that you must believe me.

But you need not believe me. They are not my words; they are Anne Graham's own.

Harrison, American Connection, p. 188:



These are not the words of someone who believes the Maybrick Diary is authentic.

My contribution is to merely point out that this attitude of Anne's entirely undercuts the argument that Anne would never, not in a million years, have helped Barrett create a hoax.

For even if one is convinced of her saintly nature, it raises the possibility that if Anne believed the diary was such an obvious fake that no rational person could take it seriously and publish the damn thing, she might have helped Mike to keep 'peace' in the house under the assumption that it would never amount to a hill of beans anyway.

That's an entirely rational reading of her attitude, but I've been accused of "reading Anne's mind" when all I'm doing is reading Anne's own words.

Have a great day.

[rjpalmer]

If Barrett or anyone else did intend to forge the Maybrick diary it would be very strange if they were not aware of the Hitler diaries which were all over the news in the 1980s
They would have taken into their consciousness from press photos and news reports that these diaries were written on blank pages and surely they would also be aware that one of the reasons they were debunked was because the paper dated later than 1945.
So with that in mind, a natural starting point would be to request a diary with an amount of blank pages that contained paper that would be dated as from the JTR era by an expert and that’s exactly what was requested.

You may have missed it, Yabs, in the voluminous posts about the Maybrick Hoax, but David Orsam has established that when Mike Barrett was a regular contributor to Celebrity in the mid-1980s, the magazine ran a piece on the Hitler Diaries that even mentioned that non-period paper with synthetic fibres was one of the downfalls, which, of course, perfectly explains not only Barrett's request for forensically 'safe' paper from 1880-1890, but, as you say, his belief that a blank diary is indeed a blank diary, despite Tom's internal conviction that 'everyone' has the same understanding as he does.

It's funny how these little coincidences keep cropping up in support of the Barrett Believer Conspiracy Theory.

Of course, anyone with two braincells worth rubbing together would realize that the introduction of these synthetic fibres dated to the late 1940s, yet the new argument is that Barrett would have been terrified that 1890 paper would be distinguishable from 1888-1889 paper under forensic testing and so he wouldn't have taken the risk (because they can read Barrett's mind, you see, and also know that hoaxers and criminals don't take risks) thus we must reject any suspicion that Mike Barrett, ex-con, secret journalist, and future inventor of the Loot Magazine scam, could have been up to no good.

Any port in a storm, I guess.

Let's me be blunt. Any belief in the Maybrick Hoax requires a healthy dose of self-deception and self-administered mental fog from the participants, so it is not surprising that we see such outlandish arguments.

I write 'participant' because it is increasingly clear that those who take the diary seriously are active participants in their own deception.

It's strange and not a little frightening how the logical portion of the human brain can be so completely enslaved by our own desires.

[Iconoclast]

If Barrett or anyone else did intend to forge the Maybrick diary it would be very strange if they were not aware of the Hitler diaries which were all over the news in the 1980s
They would have taken into their consciousness from press photos and news reports that these diaries were written on blank pages and surely they would also be aware that one of the reasons they were debunked was because the paper dated later than 1945.
So with that in mind, a natural starting point would be to request a diary with an amount of blank pages that contained paper that would be dated as from the JTR era by an expert and that’s exactly what was requested.

I was hoping that we wouldn't get sidetracked from the 1891 diary debate, Yabs, but I feel compelled to also ask of you what you feel was going through Barrett's mind when he claimed he used pre-1992 Diamine Manuscript Ink in the writing of the text of the scrapbook? Specifically, how could he have any confidence that it wouldn't be immediately identified as non-Victorian? He may not have known about chloroacetamide in modern inks, but - if he had - he would have known he was using an inappropriate ink and that it might very quickly be exposed.

What was going through his mind, then, when he was spending £132 on what he could tell was an Edwardian scrapbook (because he said the maker's seal said 1908 or 1909) and when he gave Anne a bottle of Diamine MS ink to write the text of the scrapbook? An inappropriate document coupled with an inappropriate ink being presented as an historical document by someone with a background in scrap metal. What do you think he thought would happen? Anne - if you believe RJ - thought he'd be rightly sent packing (or off to chokey for a ten stretch) but what was going through Mike's mind when he just kept going on despite the obvious implausibility of success if he genuinely did what he claimed in his January 5, 1995, affidavit (you know, the one where he was a brilliant hoaxer as opposed to the earlier one where he defo got the scrapbook from Tony Devereux)?

Why are there so many questionable aspects to his story if it was essentially what actually happened?

[Iconoclast]

If Barrett or anyone else did intend to forge the Maybrick diary it would be very strange if they were not aware of the Hitler diaries which were all over the news in the 1980s.

Of course - it is highly unlikely that an adult in the early 19909s had not at least heard of the Hitler diaries (it is one of the reasons why so many so-called intelligent people then and now still refer to the Jack the Ripper diaries instead of diary - 'diaries' have become part of the folklore just like the ever-'enterprising' journalist who wrote the second 'Dear Boss' letter).

They would have taken into their consciousness from press photos and news reports that these diaries were written on blank pages and surely they would also be aware that one of the reasons they were debunked was because the paper dated later than 1945.

I could not agree with you more, Yabs. It's one of the many reasons why I doubt that Barrett would have risked the equivalent of £132 in today's money on a document that some claim was Edwardian not Victorian. If there really were photographs of WW1 in there, I would expect him to query it if the auction house claimed the document was Victorian, but he evidently didn't. Doesn't make sense, does it, that he bought it as if it were Victorian but later claimed in his affidavit that it was from 1908 or 1909 (I forget which) so very firmly Edwardian. If he knew that and he knew the issue which had felled the Hitler diaries, did he also miraculously know that paper manufacture had not changed so dramatically between 1888 and 1908 that he was not wasting his money to potentially buy a document for so much money that would be exposed immediately as a fraud?

So with that in mind, a natural starting point would be to request a diary with an amount of blank pages that contained paper that would be dated as from the JTR era by an expert and that’s exactly what was requested.

Well, if the document he ordered was too specifically Victorian (that is, it was clearly from later than 1888), it would be useless to him. Thus, such a document with '1891' emblazoned on every page is rather obviously going to require a lot of Typp-Ex to cover up and it's always possible that an expert (or a complete idiot) might notice what he had done. So the obvious thing to do when being offered an 1891 diary is to clarify with the seller if it said 1891 on every page. Two quick 'phone calls - one to the seller and then one back to the buyer, and everyone is happy.

And - all of that said - what does it say to you about how seriously Barrett was taking the hoaxing process that he ultimately paid £132 for a document from 1908 (as he claimed in his fantasy account of a hoax)?

You were doing so well, Yabs, but then blew it with the same old tired and worn-out cliched canards that you've heard other people use so you cited without thinking it through properly.

I somethimes think you lot mistreat my genius as an excuse for you all to think lazily: you all just assume I'll correct your indolence, and - of course - I always do. I am a fool to myself in this regard (but no other).

[Iconoclast]

The claim that entirely blank books only become diaries when someone uses them for that purpose is demonstrably false. I've seen entirely blank books specifically sold as DIARIES and they have specific features that distinguish them.

Ornate leather bindings that make them keepsakes; straps, often with a small lock, to keep out the prying eyes of siblings or spouses; blank pages with a space at the top to handwrite a date (sometimes even printed, such as DATE: )

When all else fails, the section in the bookstore declaring DIARIES is a pretty good clue!



This could certainly have been what Barrett had in mind. It's nonsense to pretend otherwise.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
No, Virginia, Tom Mitchell cannot read Mike Barrett's mind.

I made it clear in one of my posts yesterday that amongst the pantheon of undated books I would still class as diaries were those ones where they are created with no year in mind (and the user simply fills them in for themselves). They are clearly intended as diaries but they are not what we all instinctively think of as diaries. If Barrett was seeking such a document, he had only to request 'a notebook or a diary with no fixed dates in it' as well as his 'at least twenty blank pages'.

There is no real debate about what form diaries can take nor what function non-diaries can ultimately play, The issue is simply that Barrett's advert specified a 'diary' and everyone knows what a diary looks like in their mind when they think of the word so his accepting an 1891 diary without asking for clarification regarding its structure communicates to us very clearly that he was NOT seeking a document to write hoaxed thoughts of James Maybrick into.

Boss [on 'phone to secretary]: Oh, and can you check if there's a sanity clause, please?
Thirty seconds later, 'phone rings ...
Boss: No, I said sanity clause.
[Thank you Bill Forsyth]

[Yabs]

If Barrett or anyone else did intend to forge the Maybrick diary it would be very strange if they were not aware of the Hitler diaries which were all over the news in the 1980s
They would have taken into their consciousness from press photos and news reports that these diaries were written on blank pages and surely they would also be aware that one of the reasons they were debunked was because the paper dated later than 1945.
So with that in mind, a natural starting point would be to request a diary with an amount of blank pages that contained paper that would be dated as from the JTR era by an expert and that’s exactly what was requested.

[rjpalmer]

The claim that entirely blank books only become diaries when someone uses them for that purpose is demonstrably false. I've seen entirely blank books specifically sold as DIARIES and they have specific features that distinguish them.

Ornate leather bindings that make them keepsakes; straps, often with a small lock, to keep out the prying eyes of siblings or spouses; blank pages with a space at the top to handwrite a date (sometimes even printed, such as DATE: )

When all else fails, the section in the bookstore declaring DIARIES is a pretty good clue!



This could certainly have been what Barrett had in mind. It's nonsense to pretend otherwise.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
No, Virginia, Tom Mitchell cannot read Mike Barrett's mind.

[Iconoclast]

and that is why he is a prime suspect for being involved in forging what is known to be a fake diary.

I meant to add that this is a hardly an incontrovertible truth coming from a man who accepts less than 100% 'proof' as absolute proof.

When it's been proven to be a fake or hoax, we'll all know about it and it'll be 100% not 99% or 33% or even 3% in Herlock's case.

[Iconoclast]

Whenever you're ready, by the way....

When we've settled the 1891 diary debate. We all see what you're trying to do but we'll address other issues later. Right now, I'm off to bed.

PS The cacophony of support for your position is starting to give me tinnitus. Give those Barrett Believers their due - they might be wrong but they sure ain't stupid!

[Iconoclast]

It's all in my #984 from 3rd July, Ike. Here's what I wrote by way of reminder, just to be helpful:

And this certainly was indeed helpful because I couldn't be arsed to look for it - but knew you would for me (ahead of your attempting to spin it, of course). You ain't let me down.

"There is only one thing we know for an absolute fact about Mike's knowledge of 19th century diaries. It is that he believed a 19th century diary could be written in an old undated book without any date on the cover or printed dates on the pages, with the only date being handwritten by the diarist.
How do we know this?
Simple. Because he told Doreen Montgomery on 9th March 1992 that he was in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary before presenting her on 13th April 1992 with an old undated book without any year on the cover or printed dates on the pages, with the only date being handwritten by the diarist."

It doesn't logically follow, does it? He didn't have the Maybrick scrapbook in his possession (according to you) on March 9 so when he told Doreen Montgomery he had the diary of Jack the Spratt McVitiie, he couldn't possibly be referring to the one he took to London on April 13. For the record, though (if it makes you feel better), I don't have an issue with him calling the Maybrick scrapbook a 'diary' because that was what its function had become. The only real issue is whether that was by the hand of Maybrick or some other. Either way, there's absolutely no evidence that he didn't have it in his hands when he rang Doreen on March 9.

Let me just add that there is a total flaw of logic in what you are trying to argue at the moment.

Let me just add that there is no way you can anti-logic your way out of the bind you've put yourself in. You thought he had the Maybrick scrapbook on March 9 and and therefore thought Barrett thought that was the very definition of a 'diary'. But he couldn't have and still bought it at the O&L auction of March 31. Hmmm, real problem for you. Please see my post of earlier, by the way, as I really don't want to laboriously repeat myself at your whim and - frankly - childish desperation to avoid being seen to have been wrong. Caught with your pants down, no less!

If you start off an argument by saying, "In your version of events Mike hasn't seen Jack the Ripper's diary on 9th March 1992....." then the premise is that my version of events is correct, which means that we don't need to bother to go on consider what Mike thinks about Victorian diaries. We already know, in this scenario, why he was seeking one.

But if your version of events is the true one then he hasn't set eyes on the Maybrick scrapbook yet so his comments to Doreen on March 9 have no relevance to what he eventually took to London on April 13. Come on - you're in a bind - let it go. I know, try to change the subject, that should get you out of this.

Conversely, if I start off my argument by saying, "In your version of events Mike has seen Jack the Ripper's diary on 9th March 1992 yet still calls it a diary...." then the premise is that your version of events is correct, which means that the diary already exists and, again, we don't need to bother to consider what Mike thinks about Victorian diaries. We know that, in this scenario, he wasn't seeking a Victorian diary to do the forgery.

Correct. In my version of events, no-one needs to worry about what Mike thinks of Victorian diaries because none of that matters regarding why he attempted to buy one from 1889 or 1890 and eventually settled for the absolutely impossibly crazy year of 1891.

This is why, for the purpose of this argument, we need to take a neutral approach and all we can say is that Mike told Doreen on 9th March 1992 that he had Jack the Ripper's diary and then turned up at her office with Jack the Ripper's diary on 13th April 1992, thus providing evidence that he believed a 19th century diary could bewritten in an old undated book without any date on the cover or printed dates on the pages, with the only date being handwritten by the diarist.

No, no. no. He took what he had on April 13, but he can't have been describing it on March 9 if the 1891 diary is evidence that he was plotting a hoax. So he took what he took on April 13, and that's all we can know about what he thought Victorian diaries looked like.

Ultimately though, Ike, none of this matters because the bigger picture is that you cannot possibly discount Mike, as at 9th March 1992, as having a belief that Victorian diaries didn't have printed dates.

Correct - but that doesn't alter the fact that Martin Earl described an 1891 diary to him in late March and he lapped it up. Must be a different reason than the one you’re so badly trying to sell, I suggest.

Your bizarre argument seems to be that "everyone" knows that Victorian diaries had printed dates, hence Mike knew that Victorian diaries had printed dates.

No, only that the 1891 one he was offered must have caused him to dig deeper and find out more about its suitability for a hoax, but he did not so he was not looking for a hoax.

I deleted the rest of your post because I want to go to bed and I think it's just a repetition of your tediously-flawed logic which isn't really logic but more of that amazing less than 100% proof you so love.

That being so, we have to leave the 1891 diary and return to the real question: Why was Mike seeking a diary from the period 1880-1890 with a minimum of 20 blank pages during March 1992? I can only think of one reason and that is why he is a prime suspect for being involved in forging what is known to be a fake diary.

Ah ha - I told you he was going to try to change the subject, dear readers - don't fall for it!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Would you care to explain why a "decoy" would "only need to be the equivalent of a Victorian document with at least twenty blank pages"?

Why would blank pages be useful in any way for this purpose?

And is it your case that, say, a Victorian rent book with 20 blank pages would have been a suitable "decoy" for Jack the Ripper's diary?

Who is supposed to be falling for this "decoy", incidentally? A blind person? Or do they need to be dumb as well as blind?

Whenever you're ready, by the way....

[Herlock Sholmes]

Of course I have - it's a Herlock Sholmes post.



Watch him try to pull his trousers back up, everyone!



I think that's bollocks but on you go ...



Of course it helps, man - March 9 and 10, 1992, are the only days we have Barrett on record referring to the James Maybrick document as a 'diary'. There is no other record that I am aware of until well after April 13, 1992, when everyone was calling whatever he turned up with that day as a 'diary' so we don't know his unique position on the Maybrick scrapbook, only what he said on March 9 and 10, 1992, a day you tell us he could NOT have been referring to the Maybrick scrapbook.



Well, we know what was in his mind on March 9 and 10, 1992, but we don't know what was discussed on April 13, 1992. There is no record (that I am aware of) of Mike Barrett referring to the Maybrick scrapbook as a 'diary' after March 10, 1992, until such time as everyone was calling it a 'diary'.



No, that's not the point, that's just your desperation to be seen to be right when you were clearly wrong. Barrett turned up with the Maybrick scrapbook and he therefore - given what he had said on March 9 and 10, 1992 - had to go along with the 'this is a diary' notion: it had to be baked-in as a necessary claim whether he really believed fit was a 'diary' or not. But - either way - there is no evidence that he ever thought of the Maybrick scrapbook as a 'diary' in your interpretation of what happened!



Nope. He had to present what he had as 'diary' but there's no evidence that he actually believed it. The evidence lies on March 9 and 10, 1992, not April 13, 1992, but your hoax belief does not permit that to be a comment about the Maybrick scrapbook because in your theory he wouldn't acquire it for another three weeks.



See, this is you adopting the 'less than 100% is still proof' position which obviously gets you out of every difficult spot you've ever been in in your life (in your head). THAT is not evidence of anything because we have no record of what he said, only what he did, and - in your interpretation of events - he had no choice but to present the Mabrick scrapbook as the thing he had a month earlier first referred to as a 'diary' even though he hadn't seen it at that point.



None of this is proof that he believed the Maybrick scrapbook to be a 'diary'. Only that he had no choice (if he was to keep the April 13 meeting) to say that this was what he had been referring to.



Hey, hold your horses, pal - you are the king of the I-don't-understand-the-awkward-posts! It's perfectly clear what you are saying - it is, 'Herlock Sholmes, never knowingly wrong'.

Now, obviously, everyone knew you weren't going to be wrong. You never are, are you? I don't think you even understand the concept. I don't trust a word you say because I know you will never admit to an error of any sort.

I'm not going to go back through your posts - I leave that for people with no other life to lead - but I'm confident that your argument was never that, having told Doreen on March 9, 1992, he thought he might have Jack the Ripper's 'diary', Barrett's eventual arrival with the old scrapbook on April 13, 1992, was evidence that he genuinely believed diaries had no dates thereby backing-up your 1891 diary fantasy. If it was a hoax, he turned up with whatever he could get his hands on and that doesn't imply evidence that he thought the 1891 diary would be blank. In truth, of course, he turned up on April 13 with what he had on March 9 so - yes - I will agree that he must have called the Maybrick scrapbook a 'diary' in the real world (as opposed to your world), but clearly it buggers up the whole hoax theory if he had the scrapbook before he had the 1891 diary so I wouldn't gloat too quickly if I were you.

Hope you can understand all of the above, though the good money is on 1) you saying you don't and 2) us all being inflicted with another one of your ugly 'look at what you said on this day and that day' posts so that you can go to bed tonight thinking how clever you've been. The rest of us saw you with your pants down and they're still down, but that won't bother you.

It's all in my #984 from 3rd July, Ike. Here's what I wrote by way of reminder, just to be helpful:

"There is only one thing we know for an absolute fact about Mike's knowledge of 19th century diaries. It is that he believed a 19th century diary could be written in an old undated book without any date on the cover or printed dates on the pages, with the only date being handwritten by the diarist.

How do we know this?

Simple. Because he told Doreen Montgomery on 9th March 1992 that he was in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary before presenting her on 13th April 1992 with an old undated book without any year on the cover or printed dates on the pages, with the only date being handwritten by the diarist."

Let me just add that there is a total flaw of logic in what you are trying to argue at the moment.

If you start off an argument by saying, "In your version of events Mike hasn't seen Jack the Ripper's diary on 9th March 1992....." then the premise is that my version of events is correct, which means that we don't need to bother to go on consider what Mike thinks about Victorian diaries. We already know, in this scenario, why he was seeking one.

Conversely, if I start off my argument by saying, "In your version of events Mike has seen Jack the Ripper's diary on 9th March 1992 yet still calls it a diary...." then the premise is that your version of events is correct, which means that the diary already exists and, again, we don't need to bother to consider what Mike thinks about Victorian diaries. We know that, in this scenario, he wasn't seeking a Victorian diary to do the forgery.

This is why, for the purpose of this argument, we need to take a neutral approach and all we can say is that Mike told Doreen on 9th March 1992 that he had Jack the Ripper's diary and then turned up at her office with Jack the Ripper's diary on 13th April 1992, thus providing evidence that he believed a 19th century diary could bewritten in an old undated book without any date on the cover or printed dates on the pages, with the only date being handwritten by the diarist.

Ultimately though, Ike, none of this matters because the bigger picture is that you cannot possibly discount Mike, as at 9th March 1992, as having a belief that Victorian diaries didn't have printed dates.

Your bizarre argument seems to be that "everyone" knows that Victorian diaries had printed dates, hence Mike knew that Victorian diaries had printed dates.

A worse argument in both fact and logic can hardly be found. We have no idea if Mike was even aware as at 9th March 1992 that pre-printed diaries existed in 1888, just like they did not in 1788. Perhaps he thought they weren't sold until the 20th century. I mean, we literally cannot say.

There is no evidence as to what Mike was told by Martin Earl about the 1891 diary - it is all speculation - and the only thing we can reasonably say he was told was that nearly all the pages were blank because blank pages was one of his two requirements.

But, as we don't know what he thought a Victorian diary would look like, it's simply not possible to say what he thought about the one he was being offered or if any questions popped into his mind. Just can't be done.

That being so, we have to leave the 1891 diary and return to the real question: Why was Mike seeking a diary from the period 1880-1890 with a minimum of 20 blank pages during March 1992? I can only think of one reason and that is why he is a prime suspect for being involved in forging what is known to be a fake diary.