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

[Herlock Sholmes]

A journal turned into a dirt is not a diary until you make it one. Obviously it can be used for other purposes.

Reasons for a Diary Fence to buy a second Diary. ( A diary fence who’s too dense to know one date in a journal does not make the journal the same as an official diary used for that strict purpose but not dense enough to know about receip stud journals for offices):

1. Plausible Deniability
2. Find out how much they’re worth
3. Find out what a real one looks like
4. Create a “duplicate”
5. Other (dense, drunken Barrett reason of your choice)

I was addressing Ike, Lombro, because I want to know what he thinks a Victorian diary looks like.

I'm not so much interested in your opinion tbh but it seems obvious to me that a second hand Victorian journal diary could be a journal or notebook with no year on the cover, and no pre-printed dates, or it could be a pre-printed diary with the year on the cover. The only evidence which exists as to Michael Barrett's knowledge of Victorian diaries, in the form of the old photograph album, is that he was aware that they need not have the year on the cover or pre-printed dates on the pages.

Your list of "Reasons for a Diary Fence to buy a second Diary" totally misses the point that Mike was not after a Diary per se but one with a minimum number of blank pages. Finding out how much one was worth wouldn't require a purchase to be made, so that reason is illogical. I've no idea what "Plausible Deniability" means other than nonsense. If Mike had wanted to find out what a real diary from the 1880s looked like, he wouldn't have needed one with any blank pages let alone a minimum of twenty.

You don't explain why a Diary Fence would want a "duplicate", and the very idea is absurd, but, if they did, they would want the duplicate to at least remotely resemble the original, something which the advertisement placed on Mike's behalf wasn't designed to achieve.

The most likely explanation, and indeed the only plausible explanation, as to why Michael Barrett secretly sought a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages during March 1992 is because he was wanting to write on those pages and create a fake Victorian diary.

[Scott Nelson]

Reasons for a Diary Fence to buy a second Diary. ( A diary fence who’s too dense to know one date in a journal does not make the journal the same as an official diary used for that strict purpose but not dense enough to know about receip stud journals for offices):

1. Plausible Deniability
2. Find out how much they’re worth
3. Find out what a real one looks like
4. Create a “duplicate”
5. Other (dense, drunken Barrett reason of your choice)

I'd go for a combination of 4 and 5, Lombro.

[Scott Nelson]

...it is literally unbelievable that Scott wanted to John to explain its significance.

I wanted to see Wheat's explanations other than 'the diary was written by the Barretts' and variations along those lines.

Just like you demand, Banks, that posters do your research for you to answer your specific questions.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I wanted to see Wheat's explanations other than 'the diary was written by the Barretts' and variations along those lines.

Just like you demand, Banks, that posters do your research for you to answer your specific questions.

But why do you want John to "explain the significance of the red diary"? It's totally bloody obvious!

I also have to comment that your other questions were illogical. John said that he thinks that the diary was "in all likelihood" written by Anne and Mike Barrett. So how can he possibly be expected to give you chapter and verse on all the fine details of how the forgery was done? You know full well that no one can possibly do it.

And I've never asked anyone to do my research for me. On the contrary, as with the Korsakoff Syndrome episode, I did your research for you, which you hadn't bothered to do yourself, and helped you identify where you were going wrong.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'd go for a combination of 4 and 5, Lombro.

Is this the same as what you said in March, Scott:

"he simply wanted to try his hand at producing his own version and hand that one over to Rupert Crew. Something he could call his own fake."?

That's not quite the same as a "duplicate", so it's somewhat surprising that you're categorizing it as such, but does the fact that you now seem to think there was another, unfathomable reason (Lombro's no. 5), in addition to creating his "own version", mean you're not quite so sure?

Kind of strange because in April you wrote:

"After a while he thought he could use it to create his own version of a Maybrick Diary, but soon realized it was beyond his capabilities, so he just handed over what he was given. Simple."

Is it now not quite as simple as you thought earlier in the year?

[Lombro2]

I'd go for a combination of 4 and 5, Lombro.

I would agree with you, Scott.

Michael wouldn’t know the meaning of the words Plausible Deniability. And he was a fence.

[Scott Nelson]

But why do you want John to "explain the significance of the red diary"? It's totally bloody obvious!

I also have to comment that your other questions were illogical. John said that he thinks that the diary was "in all likelihood" written by Anne and Mike Barrett. So how can he possibly be expected to give you chapter and verse on all the fine details of how the forgery was done? You know full well that no one can possibly do it.

And I've never asked anyone to do my research for me. On the contrary, as with the Korsakoff Syndrome episode, I did your research for you, which you hadn't bothered to do yourself, and helped you identify where you were going wrong.

I'd like to read it from John Wheat.

I didn't ask for chapter and verse on all the fine details of how the diary was hoaxed. Just an explanation that goes a little further than Mike and Anne did it.

And you didn't do anything with Korsakoff Syndrome. Classic gaslighting all the way. Poof!

[Scott Nelson]

Is this the same as what you said in March, Scott:

"he simply wanted to try his hand at producing his own version and hand that one over to Rupert Crew. Something he could call his own fake."?

That's not quite the same as a "duplicate", so it's somewhat surprising that you're categorizing it as such, but does the fact that you now seem to think there was another, unfathomable reason (Lombro's no. 5), in addition to creating his "own version", mean you're not quite so sure?

Kind of strange because in April you wrote:

"After a while he thought he could use it to create his own version of a Maybrick Diary, but soon realized it was beyond his capabilities, so he just handed over what he was given. Simple."

Is it now not quite as simple as you thought earlier in the year?

"Duplicate" was Lombro's word in #4 for one of his suggested reasons to buy a second diary. Mike could have intended to duplicate the diary story I think he already had (photo album) into another diary. I think if he could have used the red diary, he would probably have modified it suit his preferred version of the story. And I would this combine this explanation with #5 (Other) because I think Mike Barrett may have been incapacitated most of the time. Simple.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'd like to read it from John Wheat.

I didn't ask for chapter and verse on all the fine details of how the diary was hoaxed. Just an explanation that goes a little further than Mike and Anne did it.

And you didn't do anything with Korsakoff Syndrome. Classic gaslighting all the way. Poof!

You want John Wheat to waste his time explaining to you that Mike agreed to buy the red diary because he was hoping to use it to forge the diary of Jack the Ripper? Are you serious, Scott? (And note that I don’t call you ‘Nelson.’)

And you did ask for fine details. You wanted John to tell you who conceived the story. Well how can he possibly know that? How can anyone?

As for Korsakoff Syndrome, you claimed that Mike was diagnosed with it and that this was the reason he couldn't have been behind the forgery in March/April 1992. But when asked for evidence you couldn't produce any. So you hadn't done your research, had you? It's obvious you got confused and misremembered what you'd once read. I do think I performed a public service because I was always puzzled as to why you never seemed to consider why Mike was behind the forgery. We now know it's because you mistakenly believed he'd been diagnosed with Korsakoff Syndrome as at March 1992. You can thank me at any time for helping you remove this obstacle from your thinking.

[Herlock Sholmes]

"Duplicate" was Lombro's word in #4 for one of his suggested reasons to buy a second diary. Mike could have intended to duplicate the diary story I think he already had (photo album) into another diary. I think if he could have used the red diary, he would probably have modified it suit his preferred version of the story. And I would this combine this explanation with #5 (Other) because I think Mike Barrett may have been incapacitated most of the time. Simple.

It's a funny thing, Scott. When I posted in April that Mike would not have "wasted time, money and energy in pretty much replicating" the Maybrick diary, your response was:

"I didn't say he would have replicated it. I think he was going to attempt a somewhat similar storyline, but much shorter. "

So it's bizarre that when Lombro said today that one reason for buying the red diary was to "create a duplicate", you immediately agreed with him!

And now, amazingly, you're saying that he might have pretty much replicated the Maybrick diary, because you say that Mike, "could have intended to duplicate the diary story". So why did you challenge me in April? And it gets us back to what I said in April. Why would Mike have wasted time, money and energy in pretty much replicating the diary when he already had the physical diary. It just makes no sense.

Further, Lombro wasn't saying that Mike was going to use the red diary to attempt a somewhat similar storyline, nor to replicate the contents of the diary, and that certainly wouldn't be what a "Diary Fence" would do, so heaven only knows why you agreed with him that this was a reason.

You also still haven't explained why you added "other" in addition to "duplicate". Lombro wasn't simply saying that Mike was drunk. He was suggesting that there might be an unknown "drunken reason" for him wanting the red diary. But if, as you believe, he was attempting to create a "somewhat similar storyline", what other reason could there have been, drunken or otherwise?

Suddenly, it's all not so "simple" is it?

[Iconoclast]

I was addressing Ike, Lombro, because I want to know what he thinks a Victorian diary looks like.

I'm not so much interested in your opinion tbh but it seems obvious to me that a second hand Victorian journal diary could be a journal or notebook with no year on the cover, and no pre-printed dates, or it could be a pre-printed diary with the year on the cover. The only evidence which exists as to Michael Barrett's knowledge of Victorian diaries, in the form of the old photograph album, is that he was aware that they need not have the year on the cover or pre-printed dates on the pages.

Your list of "Reasons for a Diary Fence to buy a second Diary" totally misses the point that Mike was not after a Diary per se but one with a minimum number of blank pages. Finding out how much one was worth wouldn't require a purchase to be made, so that reason is illogical. I've no idea what "Plausible Deniability" means other than nonsense. If Mike had wanted to find out what a real diary from the 1880s looked like, he wouldn't have needed one with any blank pages let alone a minimum of twenty.

You don't explain why a Diary Fence would want a "duplicate", and the very idea is absurd, but, if they did, they would want the duplicate to at least remotely resemble the original, something which the advertisement placed on Mike's behalf wasn't designed to achieve.

The most likely explanation, and indeed the only plausible explanation, as to why Michael Barrett secretly sought a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages during March 1992 is because he was wanting to write on those pages and create a fake Victorian diary.

Only the most just-in-time (or maybe a little late) of Johnny-Come-Latelys would ever dare to accuse me of not standing up for the fight. Surely??? I have more or less carried the Maybrick flame alone on this site for many a long year so I have long since learned to ignore the provocations of the plagiarisers, the trolls, the mendacious, and the illogical. You know, the ad populum gang with their self-assuring insults and their inability to see more than one way behind them.

I 'give up' on debates these days when I have made my point. I have learned that - when you are dealing with people who are never knowingly wrong - debate is a meaningless concept.

I also tend to 'give up' on debates when the thrust of the alternative view is simply to disparage. See the examples I have highlighted in red, above.

I also tend to 'give up' when a debate starts to include chronically assumptive presuppositions such as that which I have highlighted in orange, above. When only your plausible is a plausible plausible, you know you've got a closed mind in the room.

In short, when you realise that a poster is simply grandstanding on the shoulders of others primarily because they think lone voices are weak voices, and they start hosting polls which can only have one outcome and patting themselves on the back because they have adopted the safe views of others, you know it is time to stop responding to that debate or even that debater. Doesn't mean you won't be back, of course.

[Iconoclast]

I'd go for a combination of 4 and 5, Lombro.

Personally, I favour 1, even if Johnny-Come-Latelys don't know what it refers to therefore denigrate it (apparently it's 'nonesense' now if a poster doesn't know what it means).

[Iconoclast]

I wanted to see Wheat's explanations other than 'the diary was written by the Barretts' and variations along those lines.

Just like you demand, Banks, that posters do your research for you to answer your specific questions.

Brilliant!

So I'm not the only one to have noticed, eh?

But, remember, he's never knowingly wrong so you'll be wrong, you watch.

[Iconoclast]

But why do you want John to "explain the significance of the red diary"? It's totally bloody obvious!

Or, 'only my plausible is plausible'.

I also have to comment that your other questions were illogical. John said that he thinks that the diary was "in all likelihood" written by Anne and Mike Barrett. So how can he possibly be expected to give you chapter and verse on all the fine details of how the forgery was done? You know full well that no one can possibly do it.

I think people want to hear why people claim it's obviously this, and obviously that.

And I've never asked anyone to do my research for me. On the contrary, as with the Korsakoff Syndrome episode, I did your research for you, which you hadn't bothered to do yourself, and helped you identify where you were going wrong.

Never knowingly wrong. Just like his dad, the recently retired David Barrat.

[Iconoclast]

I would agree with you, Scott.

Michael wouldn’t know the meaning of the words Plausible Deniability. And he was a fence.

But he would understand the principle, Lombro2.