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

[Herlock Sholmes]

Time is money, so some important questions weren't asked. Martin Earl would have talked to Mike no longer than he thought was necessary, and ditto to the supplier. Earl only stood to make a profit of a couple of pounds from the sale after paying the supplier. It wasn't worth any more of his time.

I agree entirely, Scott. Earlier, in #1472, I described it as a "brief telephone call" although, amazingly, this caused Ike to respond in #1479 asking me if Martin Earl was "in a hurry to save his 'phone bill" and pretending that I'd said that the two men were "in a rush". But, really, it must have been a relatively quick business-like call because of the nature of the transaction.

[Lombro2]

It’s really your job to write the script.

This is your script so far:


Martin: How partial is partially used?

Mike: Oh you know partial partial.

Martin: Two thirds used? One third? Why don’t you tell me how many blank pages you need?

Mike: No. I can’t do that. Someone might think I intend to write in it if I tell you that.

Martin: What do you care?

Mike: I wouldn’t want them to think I intend to write a forgery.


deleted lines

Mike: Oh alright. How about 20 blank pages like the diary I have in front of me right now? Or was that 17 pages.

Martin: 17… 20… Who cares? I’ll ask for 20 minimum.

Mike (to himself with hand over the phone): Great. Then I can say I intended to write a forgery all along. And there will be people who actually believe it.


I can see why you declined the script writing job.

[Scott Nelson]

(In Theory) While at Dodd's house on March 9, 1992, Eddie overhears electricians discussing a document that had been found there some time before and he thinks it could be related to the photo album he knew Mike already had, with the diary handwriting in it. So, in the pub Eddie tells Mike what he was told about the diary being found somewhere in the house.

[Scott Nelson]

Time is money, so some important questions weren't asked. Martin Earl would have talked to Mike no longer than he thought was necessary, and ditto to the supplier. Earl only stood to make a profit of a couple of pounds from the sale after paying the supplier. It wasn't worth any more of his time.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is like the controversy over George Hutchinson and the eyelashes. He described the color of Ashtrakan’s eyelashes and people get suspicious for the wrong reason. It turns out the police report he filled out asked for the color of the eyelashes.

How do we know Martin Earl didn’t ask Mike for a minimum number of blank pages?

ME: How many blank pages minimum, Michael?

Mike: I don’t know. Let’s say 20.

I’ll make sure I keep this out of the screenplay.

Would you mind explaining in a way that is rational why Martin Earl, a dealer in out-of-print books, would have asked his customer how many blank pages he wanted, as a minimum, in a Victorian diary?

The good news is that Martin Earl is still alive so that if Caz doesn't think your suggestion is bonkers (which I imagine she probably does) she could contact Martin Earl and ask him if he was remotely likely to have asked a customer such a question.

But then we still have the problem as to why Mike would have replied "20" rather than, "I don't care about blank pages". Any thoughts about that?

[rjpalmer]

"How much dynamite do you want, Mr. Kaczynski?"

"A minimum of fifty sticks."

Ah, that makes it an innocent request! It was entrapment by Martin Earl.

Well done, Lombro. Perry Mason couldn't have defended Kaczynski or Barrett with a better line of logic.

I await the screenplay with interest. Martin Earl entrapped Barrett. He made his entirely innocent request seem suspicious. Maybe Earl worked for MI-5 along with Anne.

[Lombro2]

This is like the controversy over George Hutchinson and the eyelashes. He described the color of Ashtrakan’s eyelashes and people get suspicious for the wrong reason. It turns out the police report he filled out asked for the color of the eyelashes.

How do we know Martin Earl didn’t ask Mike for a minimum number of blank pages?

ME: How many blank pages minimum, Michael?

Mike: I don’t know. Let’s say 20.

I’ll make sure I keep this out of the screenplay.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And that's the problem, Herlock. Why had he not been shopping for a Victorian diary prior to between 10th and 12th March 1992, if it was to find something to put the fake diary in, which had been sitting ready on his word processor for - how long in your estimation? Why hadn't he contacted anyone that we know of prior to 9th March 1992 about his Battlecrease diary [when four electricians worked there] to see if there might be any interest in the personal diary of Jack the Ripper [hello???].

First time lucky for Mike then it seems. But do you not think he would have called Doreen at the earliest possible opportunity once everything else had been prepared - the text, the handwriting 'practice runs' and what have you - with only her green light needed, followed by a search for something compatible with the specific period from February 1888 to May 1889? After all, he had his 'mortgage fund' to think about, didn't he?

Tony Devereux had been dead since 8th August 1991 and it was now 9th March 1992. What was happening in Goldie Street to stall Mike's first known call about the diary for another seven months, and what did any of it have to do with Devereux? Remind me - what do you suppose he was even doing in Mike's affidavit, apart from making everything so hard to reconcile with that call to Doreen coming when it did?

The work done in Battlecrease that very day, by stark contrast, provides a neat enough explanation for Mike's otherwise unexplained timing - wrapped in brown paper, tied up with string, a large pink bow on top and labelled with love.

If you don't want this neat package, do you have a neater one, with a better explanation for Mike not calling Doreen a day before he did?

I already answered the question, "Why had he not been shopping for a Victorian diary prior to between 10th and 12th March 1992". I said it was likely because it wasn't until 9th March 1992 that he received an expression of interesting in publishing Jack the Ripper's diary from a literary agent. You've even quoted me saying this!

Now, as for the different question which you are asking me for the first time, "Why hadn't he contacted anyone that we know of prior to 9th March 1992 about his Battlecrease diary", that is something you could have asked Mike Barrett yourself when you had the opportunity to ask him a question at the Cloak & Dagger meeting in April 1999. Keith Skinner certainly could have asked him that question, but didn't. Now that he is dead, it's going to be difficult to get a conclusive answer, isn't it? Do you want me to speculate about it? That's not going to achieve very much, is it?

All I can say is that he had to contact a literary agent on one particular day of one particular month of one particular year and if it had been 3rd February 1992 you would no doubt have asked me why he chose that day. How can I tell you? I suppose you could ask Anne and maybe she'll know.

As for your question, "do you not think he would have called Doreen at the earliest possible opportunity once everything else had been prepared - the text, the handwriting 'practice runs' and what have you - with only her green light needed", how do we know that 9th March 1992 wasn't the earliest possible opportunity? How do we know that Mike didn't go to the library on Saturday, 7th March to check some facts before finishing the draft text on Sunday, 8th March? We just don't know, do we?

There could be a million reasons why Mike decided to call Doreen that day including that he heard electricians discussing work being done at Maybrick's old house while he was drinking in the pub and it reminded him of the draft diary text. Who knows? But speculation about it isn't going to get us anywhere at all, however much you may love to indulge in it.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I know you are capable of carrying two ideas in your head at the same time, so you could cast your mind back to my own, which was that Mike might have wanted to see how easy it would have been for anyone to have tricked him with JtR's personal diary, by trying to source one of the right period, with enough surviving blank pages to give it a go.

With the first pages missing, Mike wouldn't have known that these hadn't been used for someone's earlier diary entries, and he clearly thought of the book as a "diary" when he called Doreen, and again when he asked Martin Earl to find him one.

Two blank pages = too short for 'JtR' to get properly into his stride [or Stride, if you'll pardon the off-colour pun].

At least twenty = now you're talking. That's forty plus sides of paper - allowing eight per murder plus a bit to spare if anyone's counting. I doubt Mike was.

Mike's 'prankster' in this scenario was blessed to have found one with so many unused pages that they could indulge in all that needless repetition and padding over thirty plus pages - 63 sides - and still have a goodly number of unused pages to spare. Very wise not to keep going right up to and including the last page when your JtR is meant to be bowing out due to his imminent death, and not because he is about to run out of paper.

Well I'm sure Lombro is able to answer for himself, Caz, which is why I asked him. But what he posted didn't seem to bear any relation to what you've previously said.

As for your own claim that Mike was wanting to try and source a diary from the correct period, similar to JTR's personal diary, "with enough surviving blank pages to give it a go", how was he going to achieve that by obtaining a diary with 20 blank pages when the one the prankster had obtained must have had 80 blank pages and used 63?

I've asked you this in the past and still wait for an answer. You mention the 63 pages in the real diary but I can't see any explanation as to how, in this context, 20 blank pages was "enough surviving pages".

I happen to disagree with the notion that 20 blank pages equals 40 blank pages but it doesn't matter because both of them are less than 63 pages.

If you think that Mike needed to see a diary with a minimum of 32 blank pages in order know whether a prankster could have created the Jack the Ripper's diary which you think he was holding in his hand (or had seen in the pub), why didn't he set this as his absolute minimum? Because that's what the prankster must have had, right?

[rjpalmer]

Where did I say that Mike ever intended to pay £25 for what he saw down the pub, never mind that he actually did so? We know he didn't pay £25 for the 1891 diary - Anne did. That is evidence of how willing or able he was to put his hand in his own pocket.

I said 'obtained'; I didn't say anything about 'intended to pay.'

But your response is a non sequitur. Of course, Anne paid for it. She was the one in the household with the checking account. Thus, the mere fact that it was paid on Anne's account is in no way evidence that Barrett wouldn't have known that people need to pay for what is ordered over the phone. You have him needlessly risking 25 pounds to buy a book that costs 25 pounds to begin with. Can't you see how ridiculous that is?

Mike would have needed to see the 1891 diary with his own eyes, in order to judge if it was something a prankster could have used if the big black one had not come their way.

But this is another flaw in the scenario. The 'a minimum of twenty blank pages' request in Mike's original discussion with Mr. Earl WOULDN'T have been suitable to create the large, 63-page + photo album he supposedly saw down the boozer.

You have Mike ordering a mouse to see it could give birth to an elephant.

But the minimum twenty blank pages request WOULD have been theoretically suitable to transcribe whatever typescript Mike had on his Amstrad in 1992, especially since the typescript could be adapted to fit whatever raw materials he came up with. His request makes sense if the physical diary does not yet exist, but it makes no sense if the physical diary he supposedly wants to recreate already exists.

Of course, when it showed up, it was so small as to be worthless. How detailed and precise could Martin Earl's description have been if Barrett bought something that was so obviously worthless for the task at hand?

I wonder if Keith's eventual explanation will be more palatable than yours or Ike's or Lombro's?

[caz]

Yes, but for the past three weeks you've ducked the question as to why Mike needed to physically obtain such diary once he found out from Martin Earl that it was obtainable. Why didn't Mike just hang up the phone and save himself twenty-five quid if it was all just a fact-finding mission?

The scenario you present is a ridiculous one. The man in the pub is so worried that the 'old book' on offer for 25 pounds might be fake that he needlessly spends another 25 pounds on a useless book before buying it anyway, thus increasing his expenditure from 25 pounds to 50.

But if you've convinced yourself that it's plausible, there's little hope in us unconvincing you, is there?

Where did I say that Mike ever intended to pay £25 for what he saw down the pub, never mind that he actually did so? We know he didn't pay £25 for the 1891 diary - Anne did. That is evidence of how willing or able he was to put his hand in his own pocket.

Mike would have needed to see the 1891 diary with his own eyes, in order to judge if it was something a prankster could have used if the big black one had not come their way.

[caz]

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.

And that's the problem, Herlock. Why had he not been shopping for a Victorian diary prior to between 10th and 12th March 1992, if it was to find something to put the fake diary in, which had been sitting ready on his word processor for - how long in your estimation? Why hadn't he contacted anyone that we know of prior to 9th March 1992 about his Battlecrease diary [when four electricians worked there] to see if there might be any interest in the personal diary of Jack the Ripper [hello???].

First time lucky for Mike then it seems. But do you not think he would have called Doreen at the earliest possible opportunity once everything else had been prepared - the text, the handwriting 'practice runs' and what have you - with only her green light needed, followed by a search for something compatible with the specific period from February 1888 to May 1889? After all, he had his 'mortgage fund' to think about, didn't he?

Tony Devereux had been dead since 8th August 1991 and it was now 9th March 1992. What was happening in Goldie Street to stall Mike's first known call about the diary for another seven months, and what did any of it have to do with Devereux? Remind me - what do you suppose he was even doing in Mike's affidavit, apart from making everything so hard to reconcile with that call to Doreen coming when it did?

The work done in Battlecrease that very day, by stark contrast, provides a neat enough explanation for Mike's otherwise unexplained timing - wrapped in brown paper, tied up with string, a large pink bow on top and labelled with love.

If you don't want this neat package, do you have a neater one, with a better explanation for Mike not calling Doreen a day before he did?

[John Wheat]

But is it the only explanation, Wheato? You are welcome to believe wholeheartedly in the one you like, the one that fits your narrative (however indolent that may be of you), but can you - in all honesty - say that it is the only option (as tyrants and the evangelical turn instinctively to)?

Just a wee warning, when someone tells you a belief or a theory is 'nonsensical', you can absolutely rest assured they don't want you considering it. When someone tells you one theory amongst many is the only possible answer to a question, you can rest assured that they need you to believe that for their own premise to be maintained.

You are welcome to continue to assume that what you think is obvious and logical is necessarily the answer, but you may be wrong. You may feel that the small issue of Barrett seeking an 1889 or 1890 diary and then accepting an 1891 diary festooned with '1891' throughout it can be easily explained away with a seemingly unlimited supply of Ifs, Buts, and Maybes, but other people hear the Ifs, Buts, and Maybes and realise that a truly unlikely scenario is being constructed to shoehorn in to a theory elements which seem on the surface (yes, 'obviously' and 'logically') to be impossible to justifiably shoehorn in whilst still keeping a straight face.

It feels for all the world like the Earth is flat. It feels for all the world that the sun revolves around the Earth. But are these two the only possibilities you are willing to consider?

PS Honestly, mate, it's pointless hanging on the coat tails of someone who demands you believe something which is patently untrue (that there is only one interpretation of an event possible). It's even more pointless engaging with them but I appreciate that you are still a long way away yet from that conclusion.

Absolute bilge. I don't know how you can write this garbage?

[rjpalmer]

I know you are capable of carrying two ideas in your head at the same time, so you could cast your mind back to my own, which was that Mike might have wanted to see how easy it would have been for anyone to have tricked him with JtR's personal diary, by trying to source one of the right period, with enough surviving blank pages to give it a go.

Yes, but for the past three weeks you've ducked the question as to why Mike needed to physically obtain such diary once he found out from Martin Earl that it was obtainable. Why didn't Mike just hang up the phone and save himself twenty-five quid if it was all just a fact-finding mission?

The scenario you present is a ridiculous one. The man in the pub is so worried that the 'old book' on offer for 25 pounds might be fake that he needlessly spends another 25 pounds on a useless book before buying it anyway, thus increasing his expenditure from 25 pounds to 50.

But if you've convinced yourself that it's plausible, there's little hope in us unconvincing you, is there?

[caz]

What are you talking about now, Lombro?

The advertisement placed by Martin Earl asked for a "partly used" Victorian diary which would include a diary with most of the pages filled in. What difference, in your mind, would it have made to Mike if there were 30 blank pages, 20 blank pages, 10 blank pages, 5 blank pages, 2 blank pages or none?

Why, in your mind, would Mike have cared if "all the pages were filled in"? Isn't that what one would expect if one is buying a second hand diary? Can you please explain it?

I know you are capable of carrying two ideas in your head at the same time, so you could cast your mind back to my own, which was that Mike might have wanted to see how easy it would have been for anyone to have tricked him with JtR's personal diary, by trying to source one of the right period, with enough surviving blank pages to give it a go.

With the first pages missing, Mike wouldn't have known that these hadn't been used for someone's earlier diary entries, and he clearly thought of the book as a "diary" when he called Doreen, and again when he asked Martin Earl to find him one.

Two blank pages = too short for 'JtR' to get properly into his stride [or Stride, if you'll pardon the off-colour pun].

At least twenty = now you're talking. That's forty plus sides of paper - allowing eight per murder plus a bit to spare if anyone's counting. I doubt Mike was.

Mike's 'prankster' in this scenario was blessed to have found one with so many unused pages that they could indulge in all that needless repetition and padding over thirty plus pages - 63 sides - and still have a goodly number of unused pages to spare. Very wise not to keep going right up to and including the last page when your JtR is meant to be bowing out due to his imminent death, and not because he is about to run out of paper.