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

[Lombro2]

For the sake of the people who delegate their thinking process when it comes to certain aspects of the case such as this, it behooves us to clearly explain to them what they are believing in.

Caveat emptor.

Also this is what happens when you force people to be on your side. Do you still want my support?

[Iconoclast]

On the other hand we can prove that the diary wasn't written by James Maybrick.
We can also prove that Michael Barrett secretly attempted to acquire a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992.
That's good enough for me and anyone else that looks at it without bias.

Then I pray you are not a policeman, a detective, a lawyer, a judge, or a member of any jury because you are far too easily persuaded on far too little 'evidence' which is often horribly ambiguous and you believe implicitly in a 'truth' which can almost certainly never be confirmed.

To say you look without bias when you are clearly only looking one way is utterly risible, mate.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Then I pray you are not a policeman, a detective, a lawyer, a judge, or a member of any jury because you are far too easily persuaded on far too little 'evidence' which is often horribly ambiguous and you believe implicitly in a 'truth' which can almost certainly never be confirmed.

To say you look without bias when you are clearly only looking one way is utterly risible, mate.

There's nothing "horribly ambiguous" about "a one off instance", mate. Just the worst of multiple giveaway mistakes by the forger.

Nor is there any ambiguity about the fact that Barrett did secretly attempt to acquire a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992. The only thing that’s ‘risible’ Ike are the embarrassing excuses that have been made for this clearly guilty action. It’s like the police looking at the computer of the man denying that he’s killed his wife only to find multiple searches for ‘how to dispose of a recently killed woman.’

Not suspicious at all according to you.

[rjpalmer]

Then I pray you are not a policeman, a detective, a lawyer, a judge, or a member of any jury because you are far too easily persuaded on far too little 'evidence'...

If Maybrick could speak from the grave, Old Bean, I wonder if he would say the same about you?

On a lighter note, I heard that a short film about the Maybrick case is in post-production. Starring, among others, Chris Clarkson as Sir Charles Russell.

[Lombro2]

Maybe they can explain why Florence Maybrick was railroaded by James’ Freemason brother(s). I can’t for the life of me think of why.

Until then, Ike and I will just have to be satisfied with The Limehouse Golem as the closest think to a James as Jack movie.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Maybe they can explain why Florence Maybrick was railroaded by James’ Freemason brother(s). I can’t for the life of me think of why.

Until then, Ike and I will just have to be satisfied with The Limehouse Golem as the closest think to a James as Jack movie.

Spoiler alert, but in the Limehouse Golem doesn't the diary turn out to have been written by a woman? The poisoned man being innocent of the serial killings?

Golly, it must suck when you just can't catch a break.

[Iconoclast]

There's nothing "horribly ambiguous" about "a one off instance", mate. Just the worst of multiple giveaway mistakes by the forger.

You've linked the wrong comment. For 'a one 'off' instance' I said, "and you believe implicitly in a 'truth' which can almost certainly never be confirmed". And I meant it. Amongst any 'horribly ambiguous' examples, the attempt to purchase a diary for the year AFTER James Maybrick died was a very good one. You want it to be one way so you look at it one way. That's your trick: one-way vision. Funnily enough, it's EXACTLY like Orsam's one-way vision. And I mean, EXACTLY like it.

Nor is there any ambiguity about the fact that Barrett did secretly attempt to acquire a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992.

Oh, dear God, make it make sense, man! Are you referring to the same 'secret' Victorian diary regarding which Anne gave Shirley and Keith EVERY ASSISTANCE in locating the source of (Martin Earl) and which inevitably led Keith to tracing the advertisement in December 2004 when she had no good reason to had it formed an unused element of the grand hoax that you and your sort say she and her hubby had just pulled off? Someone said not that long ago that she would have feared the truth coming out via her bank. Well, that would be the end of that particular institution if it revealed the private financial information of a customer without their permission, but - go ahead - fall back on that mad gem of reasoning if you are struggling (which you really ought to be at this point). Oh, I know - here's one for you - Anne just wanted to implant herself in the scene of her crime! Yes, she helped 'break' the 'secret' so that she could stand at the yellow 'crime scene' tape and gawp at her genius. "If I do this, they'll never think it was me", et cetera.

Not suspicious at all according to you.

Given that there was absolutely NOTHING secret about the provocatively-termed 'secret' diary, I am tempted to say that one could only see it as even vaguely suspicious if one's head is fixed in one direction - like a statue.

Please, please, please, make it make sense. Here's a hint: consider ALL of the facts in the case before you rush to judgement.

But can a statue change its view of its own volition, I wonder, or does it require others to do the work for it before it can do so?

I look forward to your latest Orsamesque-response.

[Herlock Sholmes]

You've linked the wrong comment. For 'a one 'off' instance' I said, "and you believe implicitly in a 'truth' which can almost certainly never be confirmed". And I meant it. Amongst any 'horribly ambiguous' examples, the attempt to purchase a diary for the year AFTER James Maybrick died was a very good one. You want it to be one way so you look at it one way. That's your trick: one-way vision. Funnily enough, it's EXACTLY like Orsam's one-way vision. And I mean, EXACTLY like it.



Oh, dear God, make it make sense, man! Are you referring to the same 'secret' Victorian diary regarding which Anne gave Shirley and Keith EVERY ASSISTANCE in locating the source of (Martin Earl) and which inevitably led Keith to tracing the advertisement in December 2004 when she had no good reason to had it formed an unused element of the grand hoax that you and your sort say she and her hubby had just pulled off? Someone said not that long ago that she would have feared the truth coming out via her bank. Well, that would be the end of that particular institution if it revealed the private financial information of a customer without their permission, but - go ahead - fall back on that mad gem of reasoning if you are struggling (which you really ought to be at this point). Oh, I know - here's one for you - Anne just wanted to implant herself in the scene of her crime! Yes, she helped 'break' the 'secret' so that she could stand at the yellow 'crime scene' tape and gawp at her genius. "If I do this, they'll never think it was me", et cetera.



Given that there was absolutely NOTHING secret about the provocatively-termed 'secret' diary, I am tempted to say that one could only see it as even vaguely suspicious if one's head is fixed in one direction - like a statue.

Please, please, please, make it make sense. Here's a hint: consider ALL of the facts in the case before you rush to judgement.

But can a statue change its view of its own volition, I wonder, or does it require others to do the work for it before it can do so?

I look forward to your latest Orsamesque-response.

What do you mean I've "linked to the wrong comment"?

In your #932, you quoted me saying:

"On the other hand we can prove that the diary wasn't written by James Maybrick.
We can also prove that Michael Barrett secretly attempted to acquire a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992.
That's good enough for me and anyone else that looks at it without bias."

Your response was that I am too easily persuaded by "often horribly ambiguous" evidence.

My response to your #932 in my #933 was that there is nothing "horribly ambiguous" about "one off instance" which proves that the diary wasn't written by James Maybrick.

There's also nothing "horribly ambiguous" about the fact that Barrett secretly attempted to acquire a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992.

I was just stating facts. And linking to the right comment.

Do you seriously challenge the fact that Michael Barrett secretly attempted to acquire a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992? That Keith Skinner managed to find out about it TWELVE years later, after Barrett and Harrison published a book which was supposed to tell the whole story about the diary, and, indeed, after Keith Skinner himself had published a book about the diary, certainly does not mean that the attempt to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages wasn't secret in March 1992.

Did Doreen Montgomery know about that attempt at any time in 1992. Did Shirley Harrison? Of course, they didn't because it was a secret. Did Anne voluntarily tell anyone about it at that time? Of course not! We probably wouldn't even know about it today had not Michael Barrett himself confessed to doing it in his 1995 affidavit.

Perhaps you should abandon your Orsam obsession and focus more on the subject at hand?

[rjpalmer]

Are you referring to the same 'secret' Victorian diary regarding which Anne gave Shirley and Keith EVERY ASSISTANCE in locating the source of (Martin Earl) and which inevitably led Keith to tracing the advertisement in December 2004 when she had no good reason to…

I don’t think you’ve thought this through, Ike, which is why your statement is imprecise and misleading.

While Anne did admit to Keith that Barrett had bought the maroon diary from Earl (what choice did she have?) and give him the cheque stub showing the ‘book’ was purchased in MAY (misleading in itself) it is not proven and wildly unlikely that Anne could have known that Earl had placed an advertisement back in March 1992 documenting exactly what Barrett had requested and when. So it is crass to imply that Anne had helped Keith trace the advertisement. That was his initiative, not hers. It is most unlikely that Anne had any knowledge of Martin Earl’s methods.

Indeed, the wording of Earl’s advertisement makes mincemeat of the idea that Barrett “wanted to see what a Victorian diary looked like”—-the claimed rationale of why the purchase was made and a rationale that satisfied the diary friendly folks for many a year. I know. I remember some of them repeating it and accepting it as plausible.

It would have been interesting to know what Anne’s reaction would have been if she was confronted by the advertisement itself. To this day, has that ever happened?

Further, your wide-eyed acceptance of Anne’s candid and accommodating cooperation is a little hard to take seriously since your own theory of the Battlecrease Caper has her lying repeatedly to Keith over a period of many years. Thus, Anne becomes whatever you need her to be depending on what argument you’re making in the moment.

You have an Anne problem.

Regards.

[Lombro2]

I think I still have to sit on a fence on this issue.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Should we really just rely on one poster as a source? It seems patently obvious to me, when read carefully, that the part about "Bumbling Purveyor" was written by Hugh J. Didcott, the London agent of Jenny Hill, who placed the advertisement in the Era. So perhaps you are on a different planet?

What we don't know is who Didcott was speaking about and why he referred to this unknown person (who apparently wrote "inane doggrel" about Jenny Hill) as a "Bumbling Purveyor".

Hi Herlock,

Why would I give a rat's arse if it was a Londoner, rather than a Scouser, whose reference to a 'Bumbling Purveyor' of inane doggerel appeared in print in November 1888?

The original argument was that the dictionary stated the word was obsolete by then, except for certain regional dialects. It was clearly still being used, as Gary's examples [plural] prove, so I'm not sure why it matters where it cropped up.

The only thing that matters to me is that the word's supposed obsolescence had previously been used as sound evidence that the Barretts had 'tripped over' by putting it in their diary to describe Maybrick's doctor. He is referred to as a 'buffoon', which nobody could have had a problem with, and is also described in the diary as a 'meddling' buffoon, which could give a hint as to the intended meaning of 'bumbling' to refer to the same person - but only the author could tell us what they had in mind.

I can only repeat, for anyone still not getting it, that if the Barretts put the 'bumbling' in the diary they dodged a bullet, because the word was alive and kicking in 1888, if not widely seen in print, and could therefore have referred to anyone felt to be deserving of the adjective, regardless of what meaning was attached to it.

[caz]

When you say that the skip "was never there" could you tell me the evidence for this please?

Also, when you say that there is "no evidence" that Eddie Lyons was at the house in June 1992 what about the old daily memo book (an old book!) mentioned by Shirley Harrison at page 292 of her 2003 book, The American Connection? By way of reminder, she tells us in that book that Brian Rawes spoke to Eddie Lyons at Battlecrease "in June 1992" and that Rawes had confirmed this "by reference to an old daily memo book". What does that old daily memo book say? Was Harrison wrong?

Many thanks in advance.

Would you like the skip to have been there, Herlock?

By the time Shirley spoke to Brian Rawes, he had to use the memo book to help him remember when he would have seen Eddie at Dodd's house, but he was mistaken. Back in 1993 he had given the exact date - Friday 17th July 1992 - and this later checked out with Keith Skinner's timesheet information, and was also confirmed by Colin Rhodes, who recalled the circumstances of that particular Friday. Brian only ever went to the house on the one occasion, not to work but to collect the van that was at the premises, which was needed for a different job that afternoon.

[rjpalmer]

Barrett and Graham dodged bullets about as effectively as Bonnie and Clyde.

[caz]

When you talk about "the bloody thing" being "in her own handwriting" I think you're confusing two different things.

While it's true that Mike Barrett, but only Mike Barrett, repeatedly said that the diary was in Anne's handwriting, what he surely must have meant what that she wrote it in a disguised hand. Even he must have appreciated that the handwriting of the diary was not the same as Anne's handwriting, which, to my mind, makes it all the more powerful that he insisted that she wrote it.

So you seem to be trying to decipher the wrong puzzle if you are wondering why Anne would have told people that she used the diary to help and encourage Mike with his writing ambitions if the diary was in her handwriting. Because it clearly wasn't in her handwriting. That doesn't, however, mean she didn't write it in a disguised hand. If she did, it would then provide a simple explanation for the thing you say you can't begin to explain.

Or yet more powerful evidence of Mike's capacity for telling porkies - and the capacity of others to make excuses for him.

Have you ever considered that the reason the diary is 'clearly' not in Anne's handwriting may be because she didn't write it?

Mike knew he had no chance of being believed if he said the handwriting was his, so who else was he going to try and throw under the bus, if not the woman who had betrayed him for a second time, by ripping his precious diary from his grasp and claiming it had belonged to her father?

There is no 'simple' explanation if Anne had disguised her normal hand to write the diary, because she'd have known it didn't remotely resemble Maybrick's and would therefore have needed to be confident that if a document examiner had then been asked to compare the diary with Mike's handwriting or her own, they would have found no evidence or any obvious points of similarity. In short, without being a document examiner herself, what are the chances that Anne knew what signs would be looked for, and how to avoid leaving any that would have identified her as the likely culprit, if not the culprit?

What would complicate matters further is if Anne had been persuaded by Mike that she was merely creating a marketing 'gimmick' for a fictional story - not one of RJ Palmer's brighter ideas, if she didn't need the diary to look like it 'clearly wasn't in her handwriting', but achieved that remarkable feat anyway, with no special effort or skill.

And then we have Mike, quietly confident when he brings the photo album home from the auction sale, that Anne will have the will and the skill to disguise her hand well enough, and whose confidence is rewarded a few days later when he sees that she has done so over 63 pages.

How would he have known an effective disguise from one that an expert could see through?

[Lombro2]

We can add “bumbling buffoon” to the long and growing list (that they refuse to make or admit to) of shots that missed the mark.

These guys think they never came up short, never hit the post or shot wide, never hit one foul or off the rim. They never shot an air ball.

Perfect record. Bat 1000.