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

[Iconoclast]

You do realize you've just admitted that Mike could quite reasonably and understandably have purchased an 1891 diary to use for his fake 1888 Ripper diary if he didn't know that 1891 was printed on every page, right?

I think your earlier post tells us all we need to know - for you, 23% proof is proof enough. Under those rules, you definitely win at Semantics.

[Iconoclast]

... your "dear readers" (who are as imaginary as your fictional conversations) that I was saying something I wasn't.

Are you having a laugh? Have you seen the views the threads I contribute to get? I'm the ******* Beyonce of the Casebook, mate.

[Iconoclast]

Because you will never be satisfied with anything less than 100% proof.

This speaks volumes about your approach and explains a great deal. Is there truly any other form of proof than the 100% kind?

[Iconoclast]

After all, to remind you of what you prefer to ignore, the only actual evidence we have of what Mike Barrett thought a diary looked like is in the large black leather bound volume which had no date on the cover and not a single printed date on any page. Yet he told Doreen it was a "diary".

When did he tell Doreen Montgomery that the scrapbook which you claim he didn't get until March 31, 1992, was a 'diary'? Is he on the record as saying this after March 31, 1992, or did you just make that up?

This is not a trick question. I genuinely don't know. I only know he said he called it a 'diary' when he rang in early March, long before you think he had seen and purchased the scrapbook.

[Scott Nelson]

If you would only concede straightforward propositions from the start, and not mis-state and mis-interpret my posts, such extended humiliations of you as I was forced to post in my #1483, wouldn't be necessary.

Who was forcing you? Those "humiliations" were quite extensive and probably time-consuming to collate. Typical in style to what I remember reading in Barrat's articles. You don't suppose, do you...

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm honestly stunned that you keep asking me this because 1) Caz is not my ******* wife who is actually the only person on the planet I answer to however scared of both of them I happen to be, and 2) I actually agreed with Caz many posts back that - in principle at least - an 1891 diary could be used for an 1888 diary (but it would obviously not be an actual 1891 diary with '1891' printed on every single page, clearly!).



I don't need you to tell me, thank you - that's blindingly obvious to everyone. It's either Victorian or it may be Edwardian. Don't be so full of your knowledge just because you think you know it all. Others can still know it all too.



No, you're just trying to be clever and you're ******* it all up badly. A Victorian scrapbook - from 1888 or any other year Victoria was alive - could have obviously held photographs from World War 1. Where's the curiousness in that? Why do you assume that Barrett - in this scenario that patently didn't actually happen - was stupid enough to think like you are thinking? I don't know why I'm even entertaining this desperate stretching - it didn't happen!



He had a good month to think about what story he was going to tell after Gray had warned him during his hospital stay that they would need lots of detail when he came to write his affidavit. Being a brilliant author, he must have decided to say it held WW1 photographs (we know that because he actually said that). I think he came up with some tale about a photograph of a donkey at a grave too, if I recall correctly. Being a brilliant author (and freelance journalist), he must have figured telling the story that way would be even more believable to the gullible masses. Doesn't mean he assumed the scrapbook was not potentially or actually Victorian!



See my earlier comment, I can believe it. In the general case, it's possible. Just not in this specific case where the customer was being told he was being offered an 1891 diary and he just makes a load of assumptions about whether it is suitable or not when he simply could have asked for clarification. We all know that Mike Barrett routinely acted stupidly, but exactly how stupid do you think he was just a few days before he wrote a hoaxed record of James Maybrick's thoughts which has kept us all arguing about its authenticity some 33 years later?



I think your argument fell apart at "you're pretending not to be able to understand it", don't you?

I need to record this statement for posterity:

"I actually agreed with Caz many posts back that - in principle at least - an 1891 diary could be used for an 1888 diary (but it would obviously not be an actual 1891 diary with '1891' printed on every single page, clearly!)."

You do realize you've just admitted that Mike could quite reasonably and understandably have purchased an 1891 diary to use for his fake 1888 Ripper diary if he didn't know that 1891 was printed on every page, right?

With there being no evidence at all that Mike was told over the telephone that 1891 was printed on every page of the diary that he was being offered sight unseen (and Keith Skinner not even including that statement in his own full and detailed description of the diary despite knowing its significance to the forgery claim) it is game over.

Thank you for playing, Ike.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I explained that the chances of Anne disguising her handwriting and it resembling Maybrick's by pure chance, if she'd never seen any examples, are as near to zero as could have made any difference, and she'd have known that unless she was brain dead.

Put on your own thinking cap and imagine trying to disguise your own handwriting, without ever seeing mine, when writing out a hundred times:

'My name is Caroline Anne Brown and I must not write any more limericks on the blackboard about my teacher, Mr Banks.'

Tell me you know it wouldn't resemble my handwriting, and can't imagine how it might - seeing as there is nothing you don't know or can't imagine.

Right now, I suspect there are a few readers making up their own limericks.

What a ridiculously long way of admitting that you should have written that Anne would likely have assumed that her disguised Victorian handwriting didn't resemble Maybrick's than known it. You already admitted (in #1127) that "known it didn't resemble Maybrick's" wasn't the best way of putting it, so god only knows why you've come back to defend it Caz.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm trying to get downstairs for the build up to the Lionesses, but if I must ...



Did you do that lot from memory, Rain Man?

No, of course not, you just used the built-in search facility. But to what end? To show that Caz had used the word 'printed' loads of time to absolutely no-one's surprise except perhaps yours.

And then we get ...



Just ask the question, Mike - just ask Mr Earl the question then maybe all this unhinged nightmare will finally go away. Oh, please just ask him the obvious question, "Does it have '1891' machine-printed on every page or even handwritten on every page, Mr Earl?".



OMG - would all of this unhinged verbal diarrhoea clear up if we all just said what you are so desperate to hear? "Yes, Herlock, you're right after all!". I have no ******* idea what the question is anymore and I'll bet few others do either. I'm exhausted!

OMG - he's still going on about it. You lost us at "Hello", man - what the hell are you trying to show us you're right about this time???



Oh religious-guy-on-bike! Now he's including quotations from me! Let's see where this leads us ...



Quick reminder, dear readers, Herlock is quoting from a conversation that I imagined might have happened! Let's see what amazing conclusions he draws from this made-up dialogue of mine ...



Dear readers, please just say, "Yes, Herlock - you're right after all". He might stop!



I need to stop here because I am genuinely pissing myself - figuratively and nigh-on literally. Have you ever in all the years the Casebook has been running seen much a truly pointless waste of someone's time? And - although I could have been - I'm not referring to mine!

Herlock Sholmes
Never Knowingly Wrong So - Honestly - Just Tell Him He Wasn't and Go and Watch the Lionesses Instead. That is, Get a Life.

If my post was "a waste of time", Ike, it was only because I was having to educate you on something which you were obviously pretending not to understand while attempting to bamboozle your "dear readers" (who are as imaginary as your fictional conversations) that I was saying something I wasn't.

If, incidentally, you weren't pretending not to understand then you need to check into A&E immediately.

If you would only concede straightforward propositions from the start, and not mis-state and mis-interpret my posts, such extended humiliations of you as I was forced to post in my #1483, wouldn't be necessary.

You are the one wasting time by arguing that night doesn’t follow day. It’s that obvious.

[Herlock Sholmes]

All this is a roundabout way of agreeing with me and Herlock that all we have is 'amateur' opinion - Palmer's being no better or worse than mine - and we are never likely to get the professional one we would need to inform us whose amateur comparisons are on the money and whose are wide of the mark, even if that were possible.

Keith once believed and may still believe, as Palmer does, that it would be worth a try, if legal obstacles could be overcome, and I have no idea now either way, because he who must be obeyed and is always right has insisted it is impossible for anyone, professional and amateur alike, to positively identify a forger who has disguised their handwriting - luckily for Anne, or convenient for anyone falsely accusing her - so Palmer needs to take that one up with Herlock, not me. I'm caught between two stools - or a word that rhymes with 'stools'.

Roger doesn't need to take anything up with me, Caz.

I don't disagree with him at all that a professional assessment of the handwriting by an expert could be of value. That is what he is saying. What I've said is that the expert won't be able to positively identify the author so that you will be satisfied. Because you will never be satisfied with anything less than 100% proof.

As to the limitations of the ability of an expert to identify a disguised hand, I refer you to a 2021 article: "The authorship of disguised handwriting written with the unaccustomed hand: A preliminary study" by Anita Rani, Formerly Senior Research Fellow, Department of Forensic Science Punjabi University, Patiala Mohinder Singh Formerly Government Examiner of Questioned Documents Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad, India and Om Prakash Jasuja Department of Forensic Science, Chandigarh University Gharua, Punjab, India.

The authors state in their conclusion:

“The identification of writings disguised with the use of the unaccustomed hand is a difficult task; unless a sufficient number of unconscious lapses of the writer is found between the questioned and the standard writings, a definite opinion regarding their common or different authorship may not be possible.”

They add:

“Although there may be certain similarities in the formation of several handwritten strokes, due to the presence of usual unaccustomed hand characteristics in the questioned disguised writings – such as angularity, hesitations, abrupt directional changes, hair line connections, uncertain movements, as well as tremulous strokes – it is not safe to make conclusions about the authorship of that writing.”

What is absolutely certain is that to even have a chance of identifying disguised handwriting to any form of degree, which will rely on the person disguising their handwriting not doing it very well (so it's not really disguised), an expert will need plenty of samples of the suspect's handwriting. These do not exist at the moment - we only have a few pages of Anne's - so we're definitely not going to get any form of positive identification.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Honestly, only you.



The logic holds that all that matters is that impossible years were requested and accepted which is why I focused in on 1890 for years. I most certainly did not change my phraseology to 1889 and 1890 because of something you said - it occurred to me perfectly naturally, but how very you to claim otherwise.

Herlock Sholmes
Never Knowingly Wrong

PS After Caz's heroic #1481, I don't think any of us have anything else to add. She absolutely eviscerated the argument in favour of Barrett seeking a diary to hoax James Maybrick's thoughts into. And I'm not just saying that because she's got a huge switchblade in her pocket.

I won't waste time arguing about your reason for changing your objection from 1890 to 1889 and 1890 shortly after I pointed out the inherent illogicality of just focusing on 1890. The fact that you admit to having changed your mind in 2025, over 20 years after Keith Skinner located the advertisement, is sufficient to demonstrate the invalidity of your criticism of Mike Barrett for not being able to immediately get everything right in March 1992.

As for Caz's post to which you fawningly refer, have you noticed that she's abandoned her claim that Earl sent the diary to Barrett "on approval"? What a humiliating climb down. And no more silly claim about Anne having had a choice not to pay the cheque in May 1992. Everything else she's said has already been dealt with and explained many times. It's all just the usual speculative waffle. As she's addressed Roger I won't bother responding. Not that there's anything worth responding to. If you think there is, Ike, tell me what it is because I couldn't see a single thing of value, although it was, of course, amusing to see another desperate reference from her to those "printed dates".

[Herlock Sholmes]

I will if you will.



You're getting yourself mixed up again regarding form and function. Everyone knows that if someone said to them "What are the characteristics of a diary you would find in WH Smiths", they would all give the same answer, "It's a book with spaces for each of the days of the year and generally speaking it's dated. That's what I think of when you say the word 'diary' to me. Some diaries might not have the year on every page but generally they do. Some diaries might not be dated at all, but simply have the days of the year printed. Of course, something - like a notebook, say - can also function as a 'diary' both when it is still blank and also after it has been written in; but I wouldn't think of one of those if you said the word 'diary' to me. It's a bit like if you said to me 'don't think about a pink elephant' - I have no choice but to think of a pink elephant. Same if you say the word 'diary' - I can't stop my brain from imagining a book with dates and spaces for each day of the year, even though I know that doesn't have to be what you yourself actually meant and even though I know my options are actually wider than that".



Why would our Liverpool scally think of anything other than that which every one of us thinks about when we hear the word 'diary'? And - more relevant to our discussion - why on earth would he not simply ask the critical question if someone offered him one from an impossible year for the murderous thoughts of James Maybrick?



No, such a person would have no choice because the default form of a diary which we all immediately think of when we hear the word was not yet in existence. Obviously.



Asked and answered.

As has already been mentioned, we're not talking about walking into Smiths to buy a new diary, we're talking about obtaining a historical second hand diary over the telephone.

It's absolutely untrue that "every one of us" thinks of a diary the way you do. When I think of someone's diary, either modern or historical, I think of a personal diary written in what I would call an exercise book (but could also be called a notebook or journal, if you prefer) with no printed dates, just handwritten entries. You've been told by other members of this forum the very same thing.

Now we get down to the key question. You admit that a 1791 diary could "obviously" be used to create a 1788 diary. But why "obviously"? Surely it's only because you know there were no commercially pre-printed diaries in existence before 1812. How was Mike Barrett supposed to have known that? How can you possibly know that he didn't think that an 1888 diary would be the same as an 1788 diary? How do you know in his mind whether or not he thought printed diaries only started in the 20th century?

After all, to remind you of what you prefer to ignore, the only actual evidence we have of what Mike Barrett thought a diary looked like is in the large black leather bound volume which had no date on the cover and not a single printed date on any page. Yet he told Doreen it was a "diary".

[rjpalmer]

You're pathetic, Tom.

[Iconoclast]

Thanks for letting me know, Ike. Keith's strictly protectionist stance towards the diary is difficult to comprehend considering that he's stated many times that he is only after the truth--no matter where it leads. Ah well. I'll go with Plan B and get there in the end. RP

I don't think it's actually that difficult to comprehend, RJ. I don't think I'm being indiscrete when I say that I think Keith no longer trusts you not to twist the information he gives you into something which no-one could reasonably recognise as the truth anymore.

Tough love, mate, but someone's gotta tell ya. Look at it this way, it'll save you a Christmas card.

[Iconoclast]

Right now, I suspect there are a few readers making up their own limericks.

Now, genuinely, I spat my tea out!

That was possibly your funniest gag yet, kidda.

[rjpalmer]

I think it might be reasonable to assume he ain't going to be telling you, RJ. Just wanted to save you the wait.

Thanks for letting me know, Ike.

Keith's strictly protectionist stance towards the diary is difficult to comprehend considering that he's stated many times that he is only after the truth--no matter where it leads.

Ah well. I'll go with Plan B and get there in the end.

RP