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

[Iconoclast]

28 years after a fleeting telephone transaction, Mr. Earl is not going to remember precisely what he told Barrett.

And, indeed, no-one would expect him to but you would expect him to remember a critical element of the sales process such as describing the product in detail so that the sale would stick. It's as fundamental as asking for payment. Earl, as we saw, was adamant: "No", he said, there was no possibility that Barrett could have been unaware that he was being sent a diary for the year 1891.

Would you have operated your business in a more relaxed style, I wonder?

Rationally, the most one could expect him to remember was his general policy and method of operation.

Oh - should have read on - you've answered your own 'question'.

Surely you must concede this point?

I absolutely could not agree with you more, RJ - thank you for reinforcing the blindingly obvious. Earl would never have sold Barrett that 1891 diary without telling him what it was in explicit detail in order to minimise the likelihood of it coming back as a refund request.

[rjpalmer]

Well, that saves me a lot of searching, then, doesn't it? My memory was faulty ("Hold the front page!").

Still, this creates a problem because the wider and quite summary provided by Seth does not appear on any of the November 1994 tapes that I have access to (all the ones every one now has access to) and listened to so far. This makes me think there must be more tapes but for whatever reason they are not yet digitised.

Hi Herlock,

the above is Ike's comment and not yours, but from what you've managed to hear, do you recall any mention of the "affair of the red diary" in the Gray/Barrett tapes?

[Pcdunn]

The blobs are definitely some kind of oil. If you look closely, the outer edge of the blobs are fainter in appearance than the centre, they have a thin outer edge, which is consistent with the way in which oil spreads out as it moves across the paper. A label seems to have been removed from the corner of the cover, is that the blue edge of the label still remaining? The brown mark, showing on the stain where the label has been could be due to a portion of the cover tearing away as the label was removed. This then would stain darker as the paper is now more porous than the rest of the paper lining of the cover.

I agree that it looks more like oil damage than water damage. I have 20+ years of experience as a librarian, mostly in "technical services" which includes caring for damaged books. Water damage tends to wrinkle pages and cover boards, and may lead to mold. The album wasn't in a box that got wet, to judge from the stain evidence. But it could have been subjected to deliberate "spot cleaning" as described by its owner.

[rjpalmer]

I think it is somewhat interesting that Anne Graham only signed the cheque and Barrett filled out all the other details.

I can't imagine it would have been normal for Anne to give blank, signed cheques to an impetuous alcoholic, but unless Keith Skinner obtained any other cancelled cheques from Anne, it remains speculation.

Did she not like what Mike was doing and wanted plausible deniability by not writing down Earl's name?

Or were there other blank cheques cancelled by art shops and auction houses?

[rjpalmer]

In 2020, Martin Earl via email was asked, "...

28 years after a fleeting telephone transaction, Mr. Earl is not going to remember precisely what he told Barrett.

Rationally, the most one could expect him to remember was his general policy and method of operation.

Surely you must concede this point?

[Herlock Sholmes]

In fairness, he repeated the false claim that “he [Barrett] was told, "... dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates to a page" which is not dissimilar.“

To be honest, Kattrup, I thought those words were in the description that Martin Earl read to Mike Barrett, at least according to Caz's #5701 in the "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary" thread, posted on August 4, 2020, I thought she was saying that Earl had provided to her the text of the description of the diary he got from his supplier which he would have read out to Barrett in March 1992.

Having done a search on Casebook, I can see that you are absolutely correct. On 24 June 2020, in #6295 of the same thread, Caz said that this was indeed Keith Skinner's own description of the diary, not Martin Earl's.

Thanks for pointing this out. It means we really don't know what Barrett was told about the 1891 diary in March 1992, and can only speculate as to the words used. All very interesting.

[Kattrup]

Yes, for clarity, #5701 in the Incontrovertible thread was describing the 1891 diary, and that description was quite likely to have been Keith Skinner's (but that doesn't actually matter).

If we are permitting Barrett to mishear or ignore what he heard regarding the 1891 date appearing numerous times on every page then we can permit him any number of conveniences in order to shoehorn him into the frame as a hoaxer, I'd say. I understand why people would grant him those errors of attention if it helped to pursue the fiction being weaved around the Barretts.

That said, we should work with the evidence we have. In 2020, Martin Earl via email was asked, "... is it possible that he was entirely unaware that he was being sent a diary for the year 1891until he actually saw it for himself?" to which Earl replied with a very simple, "No'.

We cannot embellish this unless we have good reason to do so: Earl was clear that he was always clear about the items before the purchaser received them.

I think that needs to put these "falling on deaf ears" theories aside until Herlock or Kattrup or anyone else can show us that Earl did not mention the date to Barrett. It is clear that Earl was clear what the diary was and we should not create branches of circumstances which no-one has actually seen grow.

No one is disputing that Barrett knew the diary was from 1891. And we’re not “permitting” Barrett to mishear or ignore or anything.

I’m just pointing out that the claim that he was told that 1891 appeared numerous times, as you’ve just repeated again, is false.

The only one creating false branches of circumstances is you, by repeating the false argument that Barrett would have been aware in advance that the diary had 1891 on every page.
Martin Earl would probably have advised Barrett that no 1880-1890 diary was forthcoming, however he did find one completely unused from 1891, so-and-so big, did Barrett want that instead? And Barrett, pressed for time and living in a pre-internet world, had little choice but to accept and hope it might be used.

[Iconoclast]

In fairness, he repeated the false claim that “he [Barrett] was told, "... dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates to a page" which is not dissimilar.“

Yes, for clarity, #5701 in the Incontrovertible thread was describing the 1891 diary, and that description was quite likely to have been Keith Skinner's (but that doesn't actually matter).

If we are permitting Barrett to mishear or ignore what he heard regarding the 1891 date appearing numerous times on every page then we can permit him any number of conveniences in order to shoehorn him into the frame as a hoaxer, I'd say. I understand why people would grant him those errors of attention if it helped to pursue the fiction being weaved around the Barretts.

That said, we should work with the evidence we have. In 2020, Martin Earl via email was asked, "... is it possible that he was entirely unaware that he was being sent a diary for the year 1891until he actually saw it for himself?" to which Earl replied with a very simple, "No'.

We cannot embellish this unless we have good reason to do so: Earl was clear that he was always clear about the items before the purchaser received them.

I think that needs to put these "falling on deaf ears" theories aside until Herlock or Kattrup or anyone else can show us that Earl did not mention the date to Barrett. It is clear that Earl was clear what the diary was and we should not create branches of circumstances which no-one has actually seen grow.

[Kattrup]

Hi Kattrup,

In fairness to the person you've amusingly referred to "I Con", he did admit that "printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages" (if that's the quote you mean) was his own phraseology. I didn't know they were Keith Skinner's own words. I guess the key point is that Barrett wasn't expressly told that there were "printed" dates on every page of the diary. I'm sure it's very common for people, when being told a lot of information in a short space of time, not to fully take in or process all the information. It's easy to focus on the bit that sounds good. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if Barrett (as the potential forger) was waiting to hear how many blank pages were in the 1891 diary and, when he heard that nearly all the pages were blank, he immediately agreed to purchase it, thinking that it might work for the forgery. Plus it wasn't like he had any other options. I've been posting here for weeks now and have yet to hear a single coherent reason why the Barretts couldn't forged the diary. Not one. It's amazing really.

In fairness, he repeated the false claim that “he [Barrett] was told, "... dated 1891 throughout – three or four dates to a page" which is not dissimilar.“

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock

Just a quick note to again point out how loose and lax I Con is with the facts, when it suits him. The description he quotes is merely a later description of the red diary, apparently originally by Keith Skinner. It's not what Martin Earl told Barrett.

Hi Kattrup,

In fairness to the person you've amusingly referred to "I Con", he did admit that "printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages" (if that's the quote you mean) was his own phraseology. I didn't know they were Keith Skinner's own words. I guess the key point is that Barrett wasn't expressly told that there were "printed" dates on every page of the diary. I'm sure it's very common for people, when being told a lot of information in a short space of time, not to fully take in or process all the information. It's easy to focus on the bit that sounds good. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if Barrett (as the potential forger) was waiting to hear how many blank pages were in the 1891 diary and, when he heard that nearly all the pages were blank, he immediately agreed to purchase it, thinking that it might work for the forgery. Plus it wasn't like he had any other options. I've been posting here for weeks now and have yet to hear a single coherent reason why the Barretts couldn't forged the diary. Not one. It's amazing really.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Then again, I agree with Scott. The Barrett Hoax Theory with Barrett doing it should be discarded for the foreseeable future and/or eternity, and and we need to start spitballing anything. Harry Dam anyone? A rough Arthur Sullivan libretto?

It has been proven impossible for James Maybrick to have used “one off instance” in 1888 - therefore - the diary has been proven to be a modern forgery. No conversation/debate can get past this. This has never been disproven because it can’t be done. All we have got is silly comments like “surely it can’t be impossible that….blah, blah.” Well, yes it is impossible because the rules of language can’t be altered or modified just to accommodate an obvious hoax. Yet you keep trying desperately.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And it can’t be real.

Just thought I’d tidy up that post for you Lombro. There you go. Now, that’s better.

[Iconoclast]

Can you be more specific please? Otherwise, it's just like saying Kosminski killed all five Whitechapel victims and that's what happened.

He only ever posts one-liners and they are always derivative. As I've said before, I'm convinced it's just a copy-and-paste job from a 'Stickies' app.

Please, go out on the limb a little further, take a stance, and maybe stick your neck out. Why did Anne pick a fake family provenance instead of the readily available 'fake" Battlecrease one? Help me write that seamless narrative!

Anne couldn't have gone with the Battlecrease provenance as the March 9, 1992 double event wasn't known about until 2004 and only made public in 2017.

[Kattrup]

No worries, Ike.

I suppose it all depends how Barrett interpreted what he was being told by Earl, how carefully he was listening to every word, and whether he laser-focused in with delight onto the fact that he was being told that nearly all the pages in the diary were blank. He was not, of course, told that '1891' was "printed numerous times on each pair of opened pages".

Hi Herlock

Just a quick note to again point out how loose and lax I Con is with the facts, when it suits him. The description he quotes is merely a later description of the red diary, apparently originally by Keith Skinner. It's not what Martin Earl told Barrett.

[Lombro2]

It’s hard to argue with Captain Oblivious—I mean Obvious!

You hear that, Scott? It’s the Barretts or nothing. No forgery alternative. It’s the Barretts or it’s real.

And it can’t be real. Because that would be too embarrassing to contemplate… Thank the Lord it’s not real.

Nothing new nothing real.