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

[Herlock Sholmes]

And I find yours deeply unsettling. Right, at this point, dear readers, I have to explain. to Herlock what I mean by this because he does not appear to be able to infer anything from what I write. So here goes: I find your response very unsettling because it is so obviously misses the point (which I wish I had been more explicit about).



Only if you need help to understand how much in error you are, Herlock, I suppose.

"A Victorian document with twenty blank pages" would have given him a lot more options than "A document from 1880-1890 with twenty blank pages". That's what I meant. Do you still find my response very strange? I wonder, does anyone?



It depends what his objective was but assuming it was to maximise his chances of success, what was 'wrong' about his request has just been answered, above.



I would say that I found this ironic, Herlock, but I won't because I can't be bothered to then have to explain to you why it was ironic (because you won't have worked it out from the words alone).



Dear readers, this is the sort of logic I have to deal with on your behalf pretty much daily. And, no, Herlock, I will not be explaining what I mean by this so please don't ask. No-one else will fail to understand it so I'm not making you the special one.



Dear readers, this is what is called seeking to have your cake and eat it. If Barrett had anticipated receiving a document with dates in, he clearly would not have requested 1880 to 1890 (as Maybrick was dead in 1890 - that was for Herlock's benefit, by the way) so we have to infer that he was expecting a document without dates in it which means that he had a much better chance of success if he widened the search to as large a window as might be perceived as possible. An 1890 diary with dates in it would have been disastrous, of course, but an 1899 one might be what he would need. The issue is simply that he restricted his options unnecessarily.



Well that would be true if he was certain his request would elicit a document with dates in it so it will have been obvious to my dear readers that I was referring to the possibility of his receiving a document with no dates in it and - if this were the case (as logic dictates) - as wide a period as realistically possible would be the better choice to make.



Could he not have written in a diary with dates in if it was from, say, 1830? What would stop him using such a document? "It must be a hoax - it's from 1830!". "Oh, hold on, Holmes, is it vaguely possible that he wrote in the 1830 diary in 1888 and 1889?". Bang goes Holmes brilliant career.



Are you seriously taking the piss, Herlock? As old canards go, this is positively prehistoric. Did you just stumble on the Maybrick threads last month? Are you seriously asking me to repeat what others have proposed, what I have proposed, and WHAT RJ ITERATED BARELY A HANDFUL OF POSTS AGO ON THIS VERY THREAD?????????

The key point here, dear readers, is that Barrett's request reveals what his motivation was.

Anyone still wondering what that might be? Shall I tell you? I may as well because I'm just about to be asked again by Herlock to explain it. He asks the question as if he can't use a quantum of initiate, so here it is for everyone's delectation - for the trillionth time:

1) It has been proposed that Barrett was concerned that he had a hoax on his hands so he was checking to see how easy it would be to source a genuine document from around the time of the murders with sufficient blank pages to have created a hoaxed Jack the Ripper diary (which - remember - he might have had in his very hands that very moment). Now, a wider timeframe would have been logically more productive for him but - in selecting 1891 - he was 100% stating that he was not seeking a document to create a hoax himself in. If he had been, he'd have had to specify that he needed an undated document for reasons which I trust even Herlock will not need to have laboriously explained to him.

2) It has been proposed (by me) that Barrett was concerned that he had the diary of Jack the Ripper on his hands which he was understandably very reluctant to give up (imagine it was a bar of gold) so he was checking to see if he could source a genuine document from around the time of the murders with sufficient blank pages to pass off as the real one if anyone ever knocked on his door saying, "I believe you have just taken possession of a book from around the Victorian period and it was stolen so you will need to return it and therefore lose the windfall you think you have in your hands". Now, a wider timeframe would have been logically more productive for him but - in selecting 1891 - he was 100% stating that he was not seeking a document to create a hoax himself in. If he had been, he'd have had to specify that he needed an undated document for reasons which I trust even Herlock will not need to have laboriously explained to him.

At this point, Herlock (amongst others) will respond, "What a stupid pair of theories" - not because they are actually stupid theories but simply because they both contradict what he wants to do with the truly stupid Barrett confession theory.

I think you might be playing a joke on me if your position is that had Barrett requested "a Victorian document with blank pages" you would have held your hands up and said "I admit it, Barrett must have been seeking such a document in order to create a forged diary of James Maybrick".

In your post you say, "in selecting 1891 - he was 100% stating that he was not seeking a document to create a hoax himself in", while, at the very same time, telling me he should actually have been asking for a document up to as late as 1899 (or 1901 to include the entire Victorian period) if he wanted to fake a Ripper diary. So the logic of your position is utterly baffling.

This game you want to play of criticising the wording of the request is just silly. No doubt, with hindsight and thirty or forty years to think about it, a better request could have been worded. But if you assume that Barrett has decided to write a fake diary of Jack the Ripper. the first thought that would surely and naturally have popped into his mind would have been that he needed to obtain a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages on which the text could be written. Then he would have thought that he needed one from around the time of the Ripper murders. Because he surely wanted his fake diary to look authentic and, ideally, pass scientific tests. Does he really need to have given it any more thought than that?

This over-analysis of the wording of the request is ridiculous.

And the irony of it is that when explaining why you think he made the request, you say "he was checking to see if he could source a genuine document from around the time of the murders with sufficient blank pages" . I mean come on Ike. In terms of the time period, it's the exact same thing I said, yet when I say it, you ask why he chose a period from around the time of the murders!!!

Your own explanation makes no sense because, under your theory, he had seen the photograph album-cum diary. But that photograph album is undated and could have come from any time period. Barrett couldn't have known what century it came from let alone what decade. So why did he need to limit himself to 1880 to 1890 if he wanted to replicate what he'd seen? That makes zero sense. Nor is the photograph album or scrapbook, or whatever you want to call it, an obvious diary. So why did he only ask for a diary? Using your own logic, how could a little red 1891 diary have ever passed itself off for a diary of Jack the Ripper?

And then who could possibly have come knocking at his door asking for the diary back? Wouldn't it have been someone who knew what the diary looked like? So how could any other substitute which looked nothing like the large black photograph album possibly suffice? And wouldn't that person have known it was a diary of Jack the Ripper? Wouldn't they have expected about 60 pages of Victorian style writing in it? How would handing over a blank diary from, say, 1882 have possibly helped Barrett achieve what he wanted to achieve?

Honestly, what a stupid theory. While the other one you mention (but don't adopt) is equally stupid. What a stupid pair of theories!

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am getting there, Herlock, thank you.



"Obsessing over a typo"???? This was an affidavit, man! If you have a typo in an affidavit, it is hardly still a reliable document sworn on oath, is it? And (I'm losing track here), is your 'typo' the inclusion of 'December 1993' when Barrett actually meant - what? - 'December 1994', just a month earlier when he had actually started his campaign in June 1994, or did you mean that he meant 'June 1994' but inexplicably recorded 'December 1993'? Honesty, dear readers, does anyone find that plausible? In a post, yes. In a sloppy newspaper article, yes. In a tweet, of course. But in an affidavit sworn on oath (required in the absence of actual evidence) to claim that "all this is factually true"?

Why does this matter? I hear the question being carved out of stone in someone's head. Well, because an affidavit cannot be true "in those bits I really like". It has to be true in the whole, otherwise what meaning does swearing it on oath actually contain??? It's either true in the whole or else it could be full of holes. And this one most obviously was (please please please don't ask me to enumerate what these were, Herlock).



YOU HAD ME AT 'YES', HERLOCK!



So it isn't an affidavit by Mike Barrett, is it? It's an affidavit by Alan Gray (almost certainly influenced by that viper Melvin Harris) and Mike Barrett which we can see is immediately potentially full of holes (and is!) to the point where it is reasonable to ponder if Barrett intended it to be full of holes.



OMG, don't ever sign an affidavit, Herlock - no-one will believe it if this is the standard by which you would write one! By the way, what exactly do you mean by "so the Dec 1993 date is an obvious mistake"? You don't know what you're referring to, do you? What was to stop Barrett claiming to Harold Brough in June 1994 that he had been trying to expose the hoax he had created since December 1993? He claimed it in January 1995 and you evidently take no issue with this, so why could he not have claimed it in June 1994? He didn't, but why would his doing so be "an obvious mistake"?

How can it possibly be of significance??? He's asking us to believe his word on oath, man!



I think I'm feeling iller again. When exactly did you recently land on Planet Maybrick?



If it were for that reason, I'd have to put Duracell batteries in the word to keep it going. He claimed to be acting in the name of integrity when he had a huge vested interest to protect. That's evidence which compromises his use of the word 'integrity' in my book and he should never have appropriated it to himself nor assumed he had the right to use it without criticism. A man of integrity would have realised the contraction in terms and used a different word whilst he was insanely racing around trying to influence as many people as possible to come to his view that the Maybrick scrapbook must be a hoax in the year before his book on Stephenson was due out.



I don't believe that this is known for certain but - almost certainly - it was January 6, 1995 (the day after it was sworn).



Alan Gray, Ace Detective.



No, not one, and given his misuse of the word 'integrity', I honestly don't think he'd be bothered if there had been. He just wanted the diary killed stone dead and he was so certain he was right that he didn't care by which means he achieved it. The viper.



I think he should have put it in his drawer and gone, "**** me, what a load of mince" which - interestingly - is exactly what he appears to have done.

Ike, mate, you're living in another reality if you think that typos and other mistakes can't be and aren't, made in affidavits. What is it about the word "affidavit" that makes you think they must be error free? They're just documents created by humans, even if they end up being sworn on oath. You'll find typos in them all the time and, yes, dating errors. It happens. Did you ever watch any of the Post Office IT inquiry? The witnesses produced signed witness statements which were all supposed to be true and accurate but pretty much every single witness started off their evidence by correcting mistakes in their statements. All you're doing is obsessing about such errors which are obvious errors. We know the month and year when Barrett started to claim the diary was a forgery. We don't need the affidavit for that. What advantage do you think Barrett could possibly have gained by lying about a date which was a matter of public record? The answer is that there was no advantage to him which is how we know it's just a mistake. Obsessing about it is a waste of your time.

And no, an affidavit does not have to be true as a whole or it is full of holes. Any lawyer or judge will know that mistakes can occur. If the situation ever arose when the affidavit was used in a court of law, the dating errors would have been corrected.

I asked you who is relying on Barrett's affidavit and, rather than answer, you tell me you feel ill. That's not an answer. As far as I know, nobody is relying on Barrett's affidavit for anything.

If you don't know when Harris received a copy of the affidavit, why do you say it was almost certainly on 6th January 1995? Is it a guess, or based on something? How do you know Gray gave it to him? And how do you know there were no confidentiality conditions attached? You told RJ Palmer to cite his sources. Could you please cite yours?

Just saying "viper" over and over again just seems like you bear him a grudge. I repeat my question. Why do you keep calling him a viper? Is it just because he didn't think the diary was genuine. Is there a reason why you're not answering this question?

[Herlock Sholmes]

You can't refer to The Sunday Times, Herlock, because that was October 1993. Baxendale made his '1945' comment in his various reports to Robert Smith of June and July 1992 and it doesn't matter what he was 'instructed' to do because what he did do was state that the ink was 'fully soluble' and then state that it must have been laid down after the Second World War which - of course - could have also meant "a few short months ago" but it is a genuine problem to resolve in one's mind why the hell he didn't just say that.

Instead, he behaved as though he had been piqued by Smith and Harrison's challenges (which he had to accept were correct), and then waited over a year and then appeared to get his own back on Robert Smith by allowing Maurice Chittenden to claim that he had told him it had literally just been laid down on paper very recently -something he had most certainly not stated a year earlier when it would have been extremely useful for Smith and Harrison to understand what he was actually implying. Zero integrity there but at least he didn't claim he had any.

It was you who first referred to the Sunday Times, Ike, so I don't know why you're now telling me I can't refer to it.

It surely must matter what Baxendale was instructed to do because that will have determined what he put in his report. Like I said, if he just needed to inform his client whether the diary was real or fake, a post-1945 date sufficiently answered the question.

I think your evidence-free questioning of Baxendale's motives is uncalled for. Might he simply not have been asked by a reporter what he discovered when he examined the diary and he told the truth about his test result?

[Iconoclast]

Yes, thankfully Roger made that point. Frankly, the idea that if Barrett had asked for a blank diary from the period 1870-1900, Tom would have said, "Oh yes, now I have to concede the point, Mike was clearly looking to forge a Maybrick diary" is too ludicrous for words. Yet, that's he would seem to have us believe!

Herlock,

I kid ye not, mate, I am genuinely worried about your ability to understand what is being said.

If Barrett had sought a dated document from 1870-1900, it could not have been to forge a Maybrick diary for reasons that he was brown bread by the middle of 1889. He could have sought an undated one from earlier than 1870 or later than 1900 if he'd wanted to maximise his chances of getting one, obviously (I assume you agree).

As his advert did not say he would accept an undated document, but mentioned 1890 (and the one he finally accepted was a dated one from 1891), then that is overwhelming evidence that he was not seeking to hoax a Maybrick diary.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Does anyone have any idea what this article on The Mag means about Alexander Isak "having had an off afternoon"? I'm totally confused.

Does it mean, like, 'a one 'off' afternoon?'. Is it even possible for someone to think in that way never mind vocalise, write, or type it?

It just feels all wrong, doesn't it? And yet someone has done so ...

Ike
Desperately Seeking Clarity & Hoping Isak Doesn't Have an 'Off' Evening Tonight

Surely you've heard of the expression "having an off day", Ike. Maybe your cold is causing you to have one? . It's the same as that with "afternoon" replacing "day".

And, no, it doesn't mean the same as having a one off afternoon. If someone said that it would mean they were having a unique afternoon.

[Iconoclast]

Surely as a Local to the North East, sorry I've heard you are a Geordie, then you should know the term 'having an off afternoon' and what it means. Basically it means he was not at his best.

Sorry, Geddy2112, you mustn't spend much time on the Maybrick threads as I was actually being ironic. It's too convoluted to go into but gan canny man am not losin it like a knew exactly what a was sayin me bonnie lad.

I'm driving through to Newcastle shortly to drop my daughter off in the Bigg Market. Surely you can't let a two goal advantage slide. I know if you did it would not be a 'one off' but surely it can't or should not happen.

We've just lost at home to Fulham and Arsenal have just thrashed the reigning Champions of the Universe 5-1 so I'm taking nothing for granted. Fourteen years ago TODAY, it was Newcastle 0, Arsenal 2 in the time it teks uz te make a ******* saveloy and pease pudding scottie man (just 3 minutes), 0-3 after just 9 minutes and 0-4 after half an hour so am tekkin nowt for granted.

Obviously, it didn't end 0-4 ...

[Iconoclast]

How would handing over a blank diary from, say, 1882 have possibly helped Barrett achieve what he wanted to achieve?

12 Goldie Street. Man and policeman at Mike Barrett's door.
Knock knock.
Barrett: Yes?
Man: I believe you have recently come into possession of an old Victorian document. It had writing in and blank pages.
Barrett: Yes, that's right.
Man: That was stolen from my house a few days ago.
Barrett: Oh sugar. That's terrible. Would you like it back?
Man: Yes I would thank you.
Barrett: Here it is.
Man: That's not my document.
Barrett: Well that's the only one I've got.
Policeman: I'm sorry, Mr Barrett, it looks like this gentleman was misinformed.

Now, I can't promise anyone that this is how it would have gone down, but all we have to think is that Barrett might have been worried someone would come to his door wanting their Jack the Ripper diary back and all we have to accept is that Barrett thought he could reduce the risk of losing his Jack the Ripper diary by sourcing a genuine Victorian document to pretend was the one he had received. We only have to accept that Barrett might have thought it, note - it doesn't have to be logical to you, me, or anyone else other than the guy who ordered it.

Honestly, what a stupid theory. While the other one you mention (but don't adopt) is equally stupid. What a stupid pair of theories!

Yes, it is clear that if Barrett thought like you he would have realised immediately that it was a stupid idea. But he didn't so he didn't. Let me ask you this question, though, Herlock: When you received a Jack the Ripper document which was almost certainly stolen and which you knew would be worth millions, what did you do to protect what had come your way?

If you say, "I didn't do anything because that situation has never happened to me" I think we'd all be reasonable in thinking you're in no position to call any theory 'stupid'.

By the way, I suggested that notion but I do err on the side of the other as it has slightly more predictive power than mine. It more neatly explains why he wanted at least twenty blank pages.

[Iconoclast]

I asked you who is relying on Barrett's affidavit and, rather than answer, you tell me you feel ill. That's not an answer. As far as I know, nobody is relying on Barrett's affidavit for anything.

And I'm afraid that's one of those most pressing reasons why you really should be more circumspect in your comments on a Maybrick thread. My comment about feeling ill again was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying, "I can't believe that someone posting such trenchant views on the Maybrick case doesn't even know the answer to that question".

If you don't know when Harris received a copy of the affidavit, why do you say it was almost certainly on 6th January 1995? Is it a guess, or based on something? How do you know Gray gave it to him? And how do you know there were no confidentiality conditions attached? You told RJ Palmer to cite his sources. Could you please cite yours?

There are no sources for his receiving it but we do have Alan Gray on tape in December 1994 telling Mike Barrett that Melvin Harris is seeking it. I'm paraphrasing here, but be in no doubt, it's made clear to Barrett that Harris wants it. So we have to rely on inference that Gray got it to him. If he didn't it would have been a quite astonishing oversight on Gray's part. I'll grant you all of the things you say, though, Herlock, because I have far too much to do to go fact-checking for exactitude on this particular point.

Just saying "viper" over and over again just seems like you bear him a grudge. I repeat my question. Why do you keep calling him a viper? Is it just because he didn't think the diary was genuine. Is there a reason why you're not answering this question?

Doh!

PS Herlock, let's just go back to being pals who never discuss politics, religion, or the Maybrick scrapbook. I'm actually not sure if you read my posts before asking your questions so let's stick to football and beer, mate. No, seriously.

[Iconoclast]

And, no, it doesn't mean the same as having a one off afternoon. If someone said that it would mean they were having a unique afternoon.

Last comment from me.

No, that would be a one-off afternoon and there's clearly a world of difference which really does make the difference.

But enough ...

[caz]

Now we just have to differentiate if the spoor leads to a Rick Dyer forger or a Fritz Stiefel fence.

Michael Barrett can't really be compared to Mark Hoffman. He can be compared to Rick Dyer if he was a Hoaxer but Dyer's story makes sense in the context of his Hoax and so does his motive. He wanted to make people happy. That's one possible motive here. It doesn't work for the Diary. Is forging a Ripper Diary the best way to make money?

But some forgers make hoaxes to try to "prove" a theory they believe in. The Piltdown guy believe in missing links and Pierre Plantard believed he was the King of France. Maybe a serial killer diary IS the best thing to fake since it's virtually unknown territory.

It's the start of a seamless narrative. To compete with Caz's Patsy Theory which is very seamless, so seamless that the only arguments, thrown at her, work for a fence as much as a forger, if not more so. That's when the scat hits the fan.

PS That's Patsy not Patty.

What you said here, Lombro2, about some forgers making hoaxes to try to "prove" a theory they believe in, is interesting because I had just been thinking along similar lines.

If someone who had always thought Jimmy Savile was 'creepy', years before his unspeakable double life came tumbling out, had decided to write a spoof diary, based on their own suspicions of what "Sir Jim" might actually have been capable of, it wouldn't make the diary any more real when the truth finally emerged. If the diary had emerged long before the reality, and been full of the most sordid details imaginable, would fans of the odious Savile have pointed to it as proof positive that the real "Jim" was no serial sexual predator, and his worst sin was being a bit too "touchy-feely" with the young guys and gals?

We still have no credible explanation for the diary author selecting James Maybrick of all Victorian males to be Jack the Ripper, but if they had their own suspicions about the man from something they had read, heard or seen, they could have made a whole lot more of it in diary form, without ever knowing whether their instincts could be correct or wide of the mark. Something like the watch, for instance, could trigger a suspicion without ever confirming it, but we all know how little it can take for the seeds of suspicion to be planted and take root.

With this in mind, let's imagine someone, who has been convinced by one of Mike Barrett's affidavits and the advert for an 1880s diary, sitting down to write The Diary of Anne Graham, filling 60+ pages with their own suspicions, assumptions and conjecture, based on little more than provable Barrett lies and misdirection. They are hoping that time may eventually reveal all and confirm all the confessional thoughts they have attributed to Anne in their own spoof diary. They may even send a copy of their diary to Anne, 99% confident that when she reads it she will recognise herself and all her faults and know she has been well and truly sussed. But it would be sent anonymously, in case they are only 1% right about what Anne knows.

As for Mike Barrett:

I say fence; they say forger.

I say let's not call the whole thing off.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock,

I kid ye not, mate, I am genuinely worried about your ability to understand what is being said.

If Barrett had sought a dated document from 1870-1900, it could not have been to forge a Maybrick diary for reasons that he was brown bread by the middle of 1889. He could have sought an undated one from earlier than 1870 or later than 1900 if he'd wanted to maximise his chances of getting one, obviously (I assume you agree).

As his advert did not say he would accept an undated document, but mentioned 1890 (and the one he finally accepted was a dated one from 1891), then that is overwhelming evidence that he was not seeking to hoax a Maybrick diary.

No, Ike, I don't agree that Barrett should have sought an undated document from earlier than 1870 or later than 1900. He couldn't have been sure it wouldn't be scientifically dated to those (incorrect) periods. I certainly wouldn't have known if I was in his position; As you put it yourself, he wanted a diary from around the time of the Ripper murders. What's so difficult to understand about that?

His advert didn't refer to dated or undated documents. It just asked for a diary from a certain time period. No mention was made of dates. An 1891 diary would have been suitable if it hadn't had a date on it, or if the date could have been removed.

Let me ask you this, Ike, because I think it's the critical question. How do we know that the actual Maybrick diary isn't contained in a photograph album manufactured in 1891? If you can work out the answer to this, you might be able to fathom why Barrett could reasonably have thought that an 1891 diary with mainly blank pages might have been something he could use for his Jack the Ripper diary, before he actually saw

[Herlock Sholmes]

12 Goldie Street. Man and policeman at Mike Barrett's door.
Knock knock.
Barrett: Yes?
Man: I believe you have recently come into possession of an old Victorian document. It had writing in and blank pages.
Barrett: Yes, that's right.
Man: That was stolen from my house a few days ago.
Barrett: Oh sugar. That's terrible. Would you like it back?
Man: Yes I would thank you.
Barrett: Here it is.
Man: That's not my document.
Barrett: Well that's the only one I've got.
Policeman: I'm sorry, Mr Barrett, it looks like this gentleman was misinformed.

Now, I can't promise anyone that this is how it would have gone down, but all we have to think is that Barrett might have been worried someone would come to his door wanting their Jack the Ripper diary back and all we have to accept is that Barrett thought he could reduce the risk of losing his Jack the Ripper diary by sourcing a genuine Victorian document to pretend was the one he had received. We only have to accept that Barrett might have thought it, note - it doesn't have to be logical to you, me, or anyone else other than the guy who ordered it.



Yes, it is clear that if Barrett thought like you he would have realised immediately that it was a stupid idea. But he didn't so he didn't. Let me ask you this question, though, Herlock: When you received a Jack the Ripper document which was almost certainly stolen and which you knew would be worth millions, what did you do to protect what had come your way?

If you say, "I didn't do anything because that situation has never happened to me" I think we'd all be reasonable in thinking you're in no position to call any theory 'stupid'.

By the way, I suggested that notion but I do err on the side of the other as it has slightly more predictive power than mine. It more neatly explains why he wanted at least twenty blank pages.

I'm really confused now Ike. Why couldn't the conversation have gone like this:

12 Goldie Street. Man and policeman at Mike Barrett's door.
Knock knock.
Barrett: Yes?
Man: I believe you have recently come into possession of an old Victorian document. It had writing in and blank pages.
Barrett: No, I don't know where you got that idea from.
Policeman: I'm sorry, Mr Barrett, it looks like this gentleman was misinformed.

The end result is the same but this way Barrett saves himself £25 and avoids the pointless handing over of something which wasn't what he was being asked for. However stupid Barrett might have been, even he could have worked that one out.

Now for your question which I'll repeat for anyone who hasn't appreciated how ludicrous it is:

"When you received a Jack the Ripper document which was almost certainly stolen and which you knew would be worth millions, what did you do to protect what had come your way?"

The reason it's a ludicrous question (in a strange tense) is because there is no sensible answer other than hand it over to the police. What can I possibly do with a valuable stolen document? Publish it in a book with my name on it so that the person who it was stolen from can sue me and take all my millions? No, I certainly wouldn't be doing that. That would be absolutely crazy!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Last comment from me.

No, that would be a one-off afternoon and there's clearly a world of difference which really does make the difference.

But enough ...

You're mistaken, Ike. No hyphen is required for "one off". Whether you put one in or not, doesn't change the meaning. It's frequently used without a hyphen and in fact, according to Orsam's "one off article", it didn't have a hyphen when it first appeared in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 1973

[Herlock Sholmes]

And I'm afraid that's one of those most pressing reasons why you really should be more circumspect in your comments on a Maybrick thread. My comment about feeling ill again was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying, "I can't believe that someone posting such trenchant views on the Maybrick case doesn't even know the answer to that question".



There are no sources for his receiving it but we do have Alan Gray on tape in December 1994 telling Mike Barrett that Melvin Harris is seeking it. I'm paraphrasing here, but be in no doubt, it's made clear to Barrett that Harris wants it. So we have to rely on inference that Gray got it to him. If he didn't it would have been a quite astonishing oversight on Gray's part. I'll grant you all of the things you say, though, Herlock, because I have far too much to do to go fact-checking for exactitude on this particular point.



Doh!

PS Herlock, let's just go back to being pals who never discuss politics, religion, or the Maybrick scrapbook. I'm actually not sure if you read my posts before asking your questions so let's stick to football and beer, mate. No, seriously.

I knew exactly what you meant when you said you felt ill, Ike. Likewise, I expected you to know what I meant when I asked the question because the answer is that no-one is relying on Barrett's affidavit, so who cares if it contains some dating errors?

Now you're going to have to forgive me for asking for a silly little thing like supporting evidence but please provide me a direct quote in which Alan Gray says on tape in December 1994 that Harris is seeking an affidavit. I do hope you're sure about this Ike and are not misremembering something to suit your narrative? Are you quite sure it wasn't Harris simply suggesting to Gray that it would be in Barrett's interests for Barrett to prepare a statement, as opposed to Harris wanting it himself?

And let me get this right, on the basis of Harris suggesting that Barrett prepare a statement or affidavit in December 1994, and nothing else, you are prepared to tell me as a fact that Gray then gave this statement/affidavit to Harris, almost certainly the day after it was sworn, and attached no confidentiality to that document? It's kind of beyond belief if that's all you've got. It's just a complete guess on your part, in other words, right?

But, frankly, unless you can (sensibly) tell me what you think Harris should have done with the affidavit in the two years or so before it was made public on the internet, even if he felt he could do what he liked with it without the permission of its author, it's all meaningless anyway.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Okay, Ike, I've asked enough times why you keep calling Melvin Harris a viper and I can see you're refusing to answer. I really couldn't care less whether he was a viper type person or not. As someone not thoroughly versed in diary history, I just wanted to know what he'd done to deserve that name. From the fact that you can't seem to provide me with any kind of answer, I'm going to assume it's what I suspected all along. He didn't think the diary was genuine so, your mind, he's a viper. Okay, if that makes you feel better, do carry on.