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

[Lombro2]

Says the people who think and talk like Caz is a Maybrickian….

I wonder if Rick Dyer and his cop buddy fought over the picture of the gorilla suit in the freezer before presenting it at the press conference.

[Iconoclast]

I suppose one could argue that she was coached to say this, but it seems a pointless thing to coach her to say, unless you can think of how it would benefit the Barretts. What would be the purpose of it?

RJ, can you honestly say that - if it suited your argument in this situation - you would not have claimed the opposite, that Caroline had obviously been coached by her parents to say this?

This is the glaring problem with theories which are profoundly predicated on a predetermined outcome - we just interpret events in that light to ensure that the theory is 'maintained' when in fact it has gone absolutely nowhere further. It just sounds more plausible when we chuck in the angles which suit us.

But if she was going to burn the diary, wouldn't the kitchen be the logical place to do so?

That might be so (would she have to pre-heat the oven for 20 minutes, I wonder?) but that tells us nothing about where the fight was. That would have occurred wherever Mike and Anne were standing with the scrapbook within grabbing reach, I'd maybe suggest. They had an electric fire judging from the photographs so outside in the garden in the metal rubbish bin might have been the ideal location for the encounter between the two Barretts but ultimately it makes little odds as the fight was over possession of the scrapbook not where it was to be incinerated.

The reasons I think Graham was a reluctant participant are many, but they are by no mean conclusive.

Of course they aren't, RJ, because they all come from your Bag of Selective Interpretation. If they were conclusive (any of them), you would not need to think Anne was a reluctant participant in a hoax you and Orsam have wedged into the tight corners of what little we know is true. You wouldn't need to think a hoax took place at all. The reason why you think it, is because there is no firm evidence during a sane person's jury service when they would even contemplate the possibility given the profound lack of compelling cause to do so. Barrett sought out a Victorian diary in March 1992 but the sane member of the jury hears both the defence and the prosecution explain it so it loses its impact and so-called predictive power. Barrett confessed he did it, but the prosecution shows how facile his explanations are and the jury sit there in astonishment that the defence are even daring to mention it.

They include her complaint to her friend Audrey; her reluctance to attend the book launch; her behavior during the visit by police; the refusal of her royalty checks after splitting with Barrett. There may be others. Against this, it was Anne Graham who kept the diary afloat after Barrett started spilling the beans, and she did sign the collaboration agreement (though not, I understand, the publishing contract). I fully appreciate that one could argue that she was a full and willing participant. I just don't believe she was. I think Barrett's success in London scared the living hell out of her, and she had previously operated on the principle that nothing would come of the diary anyway.

Too many 'I think's, RJ. Far too many. When we do the 'I think' thing, we labour all the things we think we can twist our way, and avoid all the things which don't fit the narrative, and then we pride ourselves on what grand job we have done making an argument out of literally the thinnest of air.

You'll note I'm not saying it's just you, RJ, but when anyone does it, we have to challenge it so that my dear readers don't run off down the street throwing rotten tomatoes at Mike Barrett's Black Maria because someone has said he was guilty of a hoax.

Ike