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

[Iconoclast]

No i’m not, but I’ve just looked back through a lot of this thread and one thing is very obvious. All the snide assertions, all of the resentful digs, all of the irritation at being questioned and disagreed with come from you and Caz. I’ve stuck to the topic at hand and you appear not to be able to deal with that resulting in you and Caz becoming Statler and Waldorf.

Well at least you kept that one short.

I loved it!

[Herlock Sholmes]

"Are you Wheato?
Are you Wheato?
Are you Wheato in disguise?
[Slower] Are you Wheato in disguise?"

No i’m not, but I’ve just looked back through a lot of this thread and one thing is very obvious. All the snide assertions, all of the resentful digs, all of the irritation at being questioned and disagreed with come from you and Caz. I’ve stuck to the topic at hand and you appear not to be able to deal with that resulting in you and Caz becoming Statler and Waldorf.

[caz]

I’ve always been pleasant to you. On whatever subject.

But now that there’s a subject that I disagree with you on your attitude toward me has suddenly changed Caz. The mask has slipped apparently.

I didn't say you had been unpleasant to me, Herlock, and I couldn't give a flying toss either way. But I've seen bags of evidence of you being thoroughly unpleasant to other posters who won't or can't dance to your tune, and that was my point.

We did cross swords when we were allowed to discuss sensitive social and political issues over in Pub Talk, not too long ago, and that was before last orders were called and you found Diary World instead, where you could be seen once more as a big fish in another very small pond, spouting views that, by no coincidence, have particular appeal to the shallow thinkers and one-liner merchants who have long haunted this place. But we are all entitled to have our say on non-political matters, whether we are in the majority or not.

[caz]

Thanks for letting me know, Ike.

Keith's strictly protectionist stance towards the diary is difficult to comprehend considering that he's stated many times that he is only after the truth--no matter where it leads.

Ah well. I'll go with Plan B and get there in the end.

RP

That would rather depend on whether or not Keith thinks Palmer would recognise the truth from a bag of Barrett's Best Manure, even if he were spoon-fed every last document, which others had spent their time, money and effort to obtain and research.

It's arrogance on stilts to believe that Keith would consider Palmer to have the keys to unlock the truth, when he has shown himself to be pathologically incapable of looking at any evidence objectively and asking himself if he might, just possibly, have been 100% wrong about Anne Graham's role in the diary affair.

[Iconoclast]

More pointless personal bile over a forged diary.

"Are you Wheato?
Are you Wheato?
Are you Wheato in disguise?
[Slower] Are you Wheato in disguise?"

[Iconoclast]

There appears to have been a letter from Doreen to Barrett dated April 8, 1992, in which she may have referred to the scrapbook as a 'diary', but I've just realised that - of course - this is all irrelevant because we know that Mike Barrett had already referred to the (according to you) non-existent document as a 'diary' when he called Rupert Crew on March 9 and 10, 1992.

So there was no evidence - was there? - that he thought a Victorian scrapbook could be classed as a 'diary' because when he used the term he had nothing in his hands bar a tiny 1891 diary with '1891' emblazoned at the top of every page.

If there is therefore no evidence whatsoever that Mike Barrett thought a diary could be any blank document from an appropriate period of time, then how does that change the narrative around the reasons why he agreed to order the 1891 diary?

[Herlock Sholmes]

This has all got sweet FA (well done the Lionesses, by the way!!!) to do with whether James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper or not which is - after all - the purpose of the thread and this part of the Casebook, but let me get this off my chest before I burst ...

For the record, Caz makes her points with knowledge and wit. She's as sharp as a switchblade and she constructs a literate, erudite, humour-filled post time after time. If that sounds like fawning then you are welcome to the insult but - to me - it's just the truth that is open for all to see.

And I don't say that because she stands up and speaks up when an unproven claim I don't happen to like is passed quietly as a God-given truth. I say it because it's true.

For the record, other posters impress me with their literary skills - for example, the Evil Twins, Orsam and Palmer, are excellent writers who can also handle a bit of robust rough and tumble wit and repartee, compromised only by their misfortune in betting the house on the wrong author of the James Maybrick scrapbook written by James Maybrick, and a tendency to see subterfuge even in an angel dancing on the head of a pin.

And then there's you, Herlock. The Dementor's Dementor 2025 [cue broken trumpets and descending ribbons of soot]. You're like Ant and Dec - winning the same award year after year - only without the endearing, cheeky charm (obviously I'm not referring to when Ant was pissed off his head and crashed his car just missing some people).

You've sucked all the joy out of this part of the Casebook with your soporific repetition of me auntie's painful gonad-transition.

Here's the measure of how bad it's got: normally during these exchanges all the armchairs warriors chip in with their "Yeah, you're right - it's an obvious hoax" but - with you - there's just a dead silence. You're barking at the Moon and the rest of the wolves are thinking, "Quit your barking, son". Even RJ can't bring himself to actually back you up. I think Ab Normal posted once and then ****ed off again.

The silence around you should be speaking volumes - you have come on here and got your approach all wrong, alienating the usual suspects with your gobshite mince and close-minded lack of real world nous.

Still, at least you've still got Wheato, though that's just a given (he doesn't actually read any of the posts he replies to with his cut-and-paste machine).

More pointless personal bile over a forged diary.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And you would know how to be pleasant when it didn't cost you anything?

Pull the other one.

I’ve always been pleasant to you. On whatever subject.

But now that there’s a subject that I disagree with you on your attitude toward me has suddenly changed Caz. The mask has slipped apparently.

[Iconoclast]

Massive overconfidence, intolerance of contrary opinions and the continuing focus on me. People have defended The Shroud of Turin with less fervour and irritation Caz.

This has all got sweet FA (well done the Lionesses, by the way!!!) to do with whether James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper or not which is - after all - the purpose of the thread and this part of the Casebook, but let me get this off my chest before I burst ...

For the record, Caz makes her points with knowledge and wit. She's as sharp as a switchblade and she constructs a literate, erudite, humour-filled post time after time. If that sounds like fawning then you are welcome to the insult but - to me - it's just the truth that is open for all to see.

And I don't say that because she stands up and speaks up when an unproven claim I don't happen to like is passed quietly as a God-given truth. I say it because it's true.

For the record, other posters impress me with their literary skills - for example, the Evil Twins, Orsam and Palmer, are excellent writers who can also handle a bit of robust rough and tumble wit and repartee, compromised only by their misfortune in betting the house on the wrong author of the James Maybrick scrapbook written by James Maybrick, and a tendency to see subterfuge even in an angel dancing on the head of a pin.

And then there's you, Herlock. The Dementor's Dementor 2025 [cue broken trumpets and descending ribbons of soot]. You're like Ant and Dec - winning the same award year after year - only without the endearing, cheeky charm (obviously I'm not referring to when Ant was pissed off his head and crashed his car just missing some people).

You've sucked all the joy out of this part of the Casebook with your soporific repetition of me auntie's painful gonad-transition.

Here's the measure of how bad it's got: normally during these exchanges all the armchairs warriors chip in with their "Yeah, you're right - it's an obvious hoax" but - with you - there's just a dead silence. You're barking at the Moon and the rest of the wolves are thinking, "Quit your barking, son". Even RJ can't bring himself to actually back you up. I think Ab Normal posted once and then ****ed off again.

The silence around you should be speaking volumes - you have come on here and got your approach all wrong, alienating the usual suspects with your gobshite mince and close-minded lack of real world nous.

Still, at least you've still got Wheato, though that's just a given (he doesn't actually read any of the posts he replies to with his cut-and-paste machine).

[caz]

Hi Scott,

It was circumstances which forced me to humiliate Tom Mitchell. Not pleasant but it had to be done.

Don't you worry about how I spend my time, mate

What is it you don't suppose? Too scared to finish a sentence? Or worried that you're about to say something utterly absurd?

And you would know how to be pleasant when it didn't cost you anything?

Pull the other one.

[Iconoclast]

My ‘rants’ as you call them are 95% of the time the result of frustration when, during a discussion, someone either ignores a question, answers a different question to the one I asked or tries to change the subject.

And you're the only poster who has ever experienced that emotion?

I try to answer all questions honestly and as best I can; if I don’t know something, I’ll say that I don’t know.

Well, put your money where your mouth is (because I've never seen you admit there's anything you don't firmly know including things that are not necessarily proven - just theorising - which you then tell us we have already been told about as if they were God-given facts; your theorising is not my 21st-century bible, mate) and address my post #1503 which was ...

Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
After all, to remind you of what you prefer to ignore, the only actual evidence we have of what Mike Barrett thought a diary looked like is in the large black leather bound volume which had no date on the cover and not a single printed date on any page. Yet he told Doreen it was a "diary".

When did he tell Doreen Montgomery that the scrapbook which you claim he didn't get until March 31, 1992, was a 'diary'? Is he on the record as saying this after March 31, 1992, or did you just make that up?

This is not a trick question. I genuinely don't know. I only know he said he called it a 'diary' when he rang in early March, long before you think he had seen and purchased the scrapbook.

I'm going to have a check back through my records because I have no problem whatsoever being wrong but - as the oracle of all things Maybrick - I'm sure you'll beat me to it. The way it reads, and the way it read the last time you said it (when I should have asked for clarification but didn't notice the non sequitur) was that you were referring to his calls of March 9 and 10, 1992 when - according to you - he had yet to set eyes on the 'diary'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Touched a nerve, did I, Mr Banks?

If you insist on being the master debater around here, then God knows you only have yourself to blame when it's acknowledged.

You must be used to it by now, considering all the grief you have complained about getting on topics unrelated to this one, where you have similarly treated anyone who doesn't see things your way to endless unproductive rants about you being right and not understanding how they can possibly fail to agree.

But forgive me for not recognising your 'obvious' attempt at being a comedian. It always looks so unintentional in your posts. There must be no end to your talent, but that would be the case if there was no beginning to it. Maybe it's the way you tell 'em.

I’ll tell you what I have noticed Caz (and..“Touched a nerve” is not how I’d have put it but that’s unimportant) - the way that you and Ike believe yourselves to be the ‘keepers of all ‘truths’ connected to the diary” and neither of you like it when someone disagrees with you on the subject. Why is that? Ever since posting on this thread you two have consistently reacted as if I’ve insulted your family honour (with Scott chipping in for good measure). ‘Newbie,’ ‘Johnnie-come-lately,’ the constant Orsam-related digs. And now you are criticising my posts on other threads, pointing out what a terrible person I am despite the fact that, until this thread, I can’t even think of an example of us disagreeing an anything. You’ve certainly never criticised my posting content or style or accused me of ‘rants’ but now that I’ve dared to disagree with you this all comes out? Now I’m the enemy. Don’t you think that you are allowing this subject to become too personal Caz?

My ‘rants’ as you call them are 95% of the time the result of frustration when, during a discussion, someone either ignores a question, answers a different question to the one I asked or tries to change the subject. I try to answer all questions honestly and as best I can; if I don’t know something, I’ll say that I don’t know. I had a recent ‘rant’ as you call it, because a poster claimed that x didn’t have time to do y, despite him not knowing how long x had available to him or how long y required to occur. Then that person wouldn’t even acknowledge that this was illogical. That kind of ‘thinking’ would irritate a saint. If we can’t have discussions without ducking and diving it’s hardly surprising when a bit of irritation surfaces from anyone. I can name many posters on here who disagree with me on certain topics but I don’t fall out with them over it.

Both you and Ike take this particular topic too personally. Ike owns the world’s most efficient pair blinkers when it comes to the diary and appears as confident of its genuineness as if he’d witnessed Maybrick himself write it and you just won’t even countenance the possibility that the diary was created, either wholly or in part, by Anne and Mike.

Massive overconfidence, intolerance of contrary opinions and the continuing focus on me. People have defended The Shroud of Turin with less fervour and irritation Caz.

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.

Sorry, Caz, I missed this post too.

Why do you ask if I'd like the skip to be there? What a strange question.

You said categorically that "the skip was never there" and I was asking for the evidence which supports that statement.

What I was trying to get at is how can we possibly know whether there was or was not a skip somewhere outside Paul Dodd's house on 9th March 1992?

Skips can be found all over the place.

The fact that you haven't answered the question suggests to me that you're unable to support the statement that "the skip was never there".

Just one more element of the "Battlecrease theory" which vanishes into the wind in the face of the simplest question.

As for Brian Rawes, are you telling me that in 1993 he somehow thought he'd spoken to Eddie Lyons on the very specific date of 17^th July 1992 but then, on further consideration, when he decided to check the date in a contemporary memo book, got the date wrong?

And is the only basis that you think he got the date is wrong because a timesheet records Eddie Lyons as having done work at the house on 17^th July 1992? So you assume that the original date Rawes provided must be correct?

Is that it?

But isn't it the case that the timesheets aren't always complete? So how do we know that Eddie didn’t do any work at Battlecrease in June?

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.

Sorry, Caz, I missed this post at the time.

The answer to your question is that I have no idea why you'd give a rat's arse if it was a Londoner rather than a Scouser who referred to a "Bumbling Purveyor". You'll have to tell me.

All I know is that you wrongly attributed this phrase to a "theatre man from Liverpool" and a "Liverpool theatre man" when it was an agent in London.

Facts, as you once told me, is facts.

The Barretts, as forgers, did not "dodge a bullet" because the expression "bumbling buffoon" is quite evidently a twentieth century one, with no place in a journal supposedly written in 1888.

Not that it matters one jot because the appearance in that journal of the expression "a one off instance" proves beyond doubt that it wasn't written in 1888.

[caz]

Well this is very interesting, Caz. So you think that Mike, in scrutinizing the original diary, noticed that the handwriting of the diarist resembled the handwriting of his wife in some respects? Well he must have got rather frustrated that he kept saying that the dairy was in his wife's handwriting and not a single bloody person manged to spot what he'd seen. And he didn't even bother to tell anyone about those little similarities either. It wasn't until years after his death that the similarities were even noticed.

Then you answered your own question because Mike could, like everybody else until years after his death, have noticed no resemblance between the writing in the diary and his wife's handwriting. But no, I don't seriously think that Mike did notice anything of the sort. It was more a case of wondering whether you thought he would or should have done, if it is pretty obvious to amateur hoax busters on the internet in 2025, who were not married to Anne for twenty years.

If Mike thought there was a resemblance in April 1992, when he was supposedly watching Anne at work on his own composition, he couldn't have been that worried about early exposure.

If he saw a resemblance by the second half of 1994, which he had not previously noticed, he could have brought it to Alan Gray's attention when they were doing the old hoax-busting shuffle together, with four left feet.

But at least you now appear to have answered one of the questions that I've been dying to know your answer to.

You accept that those similarities exist!

Hallelujah and praise the Lord.

I'm sorry that you were 'dying' to know my answer [that's a bit weird in any sense], but appearances can be deceptive and I don't recall accepting the existence of 'those' similarities, whatever you are referring to, in so many words. If I had, it wouldn't just 'appear' to you that I had answered your question and got a patronising pat on the back for my pains. You usually demand far more clarity than that before you start praising a Lord other than the big O.

p.s. The signature is a joke - an obvious one I thought. Strange isn’t it that all that I’ve had to do is post on the subject of the diary to become an instant enemy there to be insulted. You and Ike. Maybe I should have applied for membership before posting?

You must be used to it by now, considering all the grief you have complained about getting on topics unrelated to this one, where you have similarly treated anyone who doesn't see things your way to endless unproductive rants about you being right and not understanding how they can possibly fail to agree.

But forgive me for not recognising your 'obvious' attempt at being a comedian. It always looks so unintentional in your posts. There must be no end to your talent, but that would be the case if there was no beginning to it. Maybe it's the way you tell 'em.