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

[Iconoclast]

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

And apparently I ran away 'in shame'!

[Iconoclast]

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?

But you're fine with all the endless 'this is how it must have been' that Orsam, RJ, you, etc., so love to come up with the it suits you to do so?

You can thank me at any time for helping you remove this obstacle from your thinking.

Never knowingly wrong.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ike,

Getting back to the only point of substance - given that you asked me for empirical evidence of historical diaries with no years on their covers and I provided it - do you now accept that a partly used 1891 diary with nearly all its pages blank could potentially have been useful for the creation of an 1888 Ripper diary?

[Iconoclast]

Ike,

Getting back to the only point of substance - given that you asked me for empirical evidence of historical diaries with no years on their covers and I provided it - do you now accept that a partly used 1891 diary with nearly all its pages blank could potentially have been useful for the creation of an 1888 Ripper diary?

I'm amazed - truly amazed - that you don't already know the answer to this.

Of course, I could never agree that an 1891 diary (an actual diary printed in 1891 with '1891' on it) could ever serve as a vehicle for a story purporting to be set in 1888-1889 unless one had some pretty effective Typp-Ex handy.

If you are asking me whether documents other than diaries can be used to record one's thoughts into ("this is my notebook which contains my diary") or if you are asking me if diaries are produced which have no dates in at all ("this is my five-year diary which I decided to start in 1992 but could have started in any year of my choosing"), then - of course - I would say that this is perfectly possible.

In the abstract case, therefore, I agree with you.

In the specific case, of course I do not because we know that what Martin Earl was offering to Michael Barrett was a traditional, dated, 1891 diary. There was no year on the cover, but there was a large one on the inside cover, and '1891' printed at the top of each page along with the month. It was week-to-view, starting on Sunday, with no other reference to the year or the month for each of the actual days.

Now, in the specific case, perhaps Earl described this 1891 diary as potentially - in Michael Barrett's mind - suitable to host a hoax within, and maybe - with super-powered Typp-Ex - it could have hosted a nascent hoax; but would it have got past the 'experts' (that, it seems to me, depends upon which 'experts' you ask)? I don't believe so and I'd be surprised if Barrett had heard enough to convince him that it might.

In summary, then: no, I do not believe that 'a partly used 1891 diary with nearly all its pages blank could potentially have been useful for the creation of an 1888 Ripper diary'.

A notebook manufactured in 1891 might, of course, or a diary produced in 1891 which had no dates on it. But that wasn't what Earl was describing to Barrett, was it, so I shan't be asking me auntie to change her gonads so that she can become me uncle just yet.

No amount of hypothesising can change the known facts and the facts are clear: this is evidence that Barrett was not seeking a document to host an 1888-1889 record of events into. Thank you for reminding us as often as you have done recently.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm amazed - truly amazed - that you don't already know the answer to this.

Of course, I could never agree that an 1891 diary (an actual diary printed in 1891 with '1891' on it) could ever serve as a vehicle for a story purporting to be set in 1888-1889 unless one had some pretty effective Typp-Ex handy.

If you are asking me whether documents other than diaries can be used to record one's thoughts into ("this is my notebook which contains my diary") or if you are asking me if diaries are produced which have no dates in at all ("this is my five-year diary which I decided to start in 1992 but could have started in any year of my choosing"), then - of course - I would say that this is perfectly possible.

In the abstract case, therefore, I agree with you.

In the specific case, of course I do not because we know that what Martin Earl was offering to Michael Barrett was a traditional, dated, 1891 diary. There was no year on the cover, but there was a large one on the inside cover, and '1891' printed at the top of each page along with the month. It was week-to-view, starting on Sunday, with no other reference to the year or the month for each of the actual days.

Now, in the specific case, perhaps Earl described this 1891 diary as potentially - in Michael Barrett's mind - suitable to host a hoax within, and maybe - with super-powered Typp-Ex - it could have hosted a nascent hoax; but would it have got past the 'experts' (that, it seems to me, depends upon which 'experts' you ask)? I don't believe so and I'd be surprised if Barrett had heard enough to convince him that it might.

In summary, then: no, I do not believe that 'a partly used 1891 diary with nearly all its pages blank could potentially have been useful for the creation of an 1888 Ripper diary'.

A notebook manufactured in 1891 might, of course, or a diary produced in 1891 which had no dates on it. But that wasn't what Earl was describing to Barrett, was it, so I shan't be asking me auntie to change her gonads so that she can become me uncle just yet.

No amount of hypothesising can change the known facts and the facts are clear: this is evidence that Barrett was not seeking a document to host an 1888-1889 record of events into. Thank you for reminding us as often as you have done recently.

Surely the fundamental flaw in your response is when you say: "that wasn't what Earl was describing to Barrett, was it"

How the hell do we know what Earl described to Barrett? Even more importantly, how the hell do we know what Barrett heard Earl saying and interpreted in his mind?

I mean, we know as a matter of fact that Barrett said in his January 1995 affidavit the 1891 diary he was given was unsuitable for creating the Ripper diary so all you're doing by saying that the diary which Mike Barrett was given was unsuitable for a Ripper diary is repeating what we all already know.

What I'm suggesting is that if Barrett understood that what he was being offered was a partly used 1891 diary in which most of the pages were blank, he could perfectly reasonably have thought he could use it to create an 1888 Ripper dairy.

Do you agree with that statement, which must surely be uncontroversial?

[Iconoclast]

Surely the fundamental flaw in your response is when you say: "that wasn't what Earl was describing to Barrett, was it"

Well, of course, it is just inference. Do you have any spare that I could have or have you used it all up on Lord Orsam's theories?

How the hell do we know what Earl described to Barrett?

Well, we could ask Martin Earl again if you weren't happy with his first answers. When you rang him and asked him, what did he tell you?

Even more importantly, how the hell do we know what Barrett heard Earl saying and interpreted in his mind?

Well that one is a hard sollipistic nightmare for everyone bar Michael Barrett who is no longer with us (though asking him when he was alive would have been no more enlightening).

I mean, we know as a matter of fact that Barrett said in his January 1995 affidavit the 1891 diary he was given was unsuitable for creating the Ripper diary ...

Yes, indeed, as you have so perspicaciously noted, January 1995 came after March 1992.

.. so all you're doing by saying that the diary which Mike Barrett was given was unsuitable for a Ripper diary is repeating what we all already know.

And that is something Michael Barrett would have already known before he accepted it from Martin Earl. It's Shopping 101.

So, for example, why was it unsuitable? Well, it was too small and it was made in 1890 [sic] with '1891' printed on every page. The upside was that it had not been written in but that wasn't a sufficient upside for a hoax so we know categorically that its purpose was for something other than a hoax. All of that being self-evidently true, it is hard to imagine that the purchaser of such an item would not have known this all in advance (and yet he still went ahead with the 'accepting').

What I'm suggesting is that if Barrett understood that what he was being offered was a partly used 1891 diary in which most of the pages were blank, he could perfectly reasonably have thought he could use it to create an 1888 Ripper dairy.

I'm honestly trying my best to be kind here but how on earth can that be considered to logically follow from the conversation he must surely have had with Earl?

Do you agree with that statement, which must surely be uncontroversial?

I do wish you wouldn't try to put your assumptions into other people's mouths. Of course I don't agree with it. It doesn't logically follow from the conversation the two of them must have had and which Earl subsequently claimed would have been standard practice on his part.

It's like Barrett wanted an apple and Earl sourced an orange but - in your world - Barrett was fine with this because fruit is fruit.

[Iconoclast]

I mean, we know as a matter of fact that Barrett said in his January 1995 affidavit the 1891 diary he was given was unsuitable for creating the Ripper diary so all you're doing by saying that the diary which Mike Barrett was given was unsuitable for a Ripper diary is repeating what we all already know.

Just a technical clarification, what Mike said in his affidavit was, "When this Diary arrived in the post I decided it was of no use, it was very small.".

This implies that Earl failed to communicate the size of the 1891 diary to Barrett, but equally Barrett could have been perfectly aware of the size of the diary after his conversation with Earl but changed his story in January 1995 when it suited him for the size of the diary to be an issue (not the fact that it was made in and was for a year which had not yet come around when James Maybrick died). Nice dodge there by Barrett, I'd say.

But not nice enough, of course ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, of course, it is just inference. Do you have any spare that I could have or have you used it all up on Lord Orsam's theories?



Well, we could ask Martin Earl again if you weren't happy with his first answers. When you rang him and asked him, what did he tell you?



Well that one is a hard sollipistic nightmare for everyone bar Michael Barrett who is no longer with us (though asking him when he was alive would have been no more enlightening).



Yes, indeed, as you have so perspicaciously noted, January 1995 came after March 1992.



And that is something Michael Barrett would have already known before he accepted it from Martin Earl. It's Shopping 101.

So, for example, why was it unsuitable? Well, it was too small and it was made in 1890 [sic] with '1891' printed on every page. The upside was that it had not been written in but that wasn't a sufficient upside for a hoax so we know categorically that its purpose was for something other than a hoax. All of that being self-evidently true, it is hard to imagine that the purchaser of such an item would not have known this all in advance (and yet he still went ahead with the 'accepting').



I'm honestly trying my best to be kind here but how on earth can that be considered to logically follow from the conversation he must surely have had with Earl?



I do wish you wouldn't try to put your assumptions into other people's mouths. Of course I don't agree with it. It doesn't logically follow from the conversation the two of them must have had and which Earl subsequently claimed would have been standard practice on his part.

It's like Barrett wanted an apple and Earl sourced an orange but - in your world - Barrett was fine with this because fruit is fruit.

Let me see if I’ve understood you correctly, Ike.



Mike could reasonably have expected to use an 1891 diary to create an 1888 Ripper diary, just not the particular 1891 diary he was being offered by Martin Earl in March 1992.

Is that right?

And the reason you say this is because you assume that Mike was told by Martin Earl (and understood) that there were irremovable printed dates from 1891 on each page and that the year of 1891 was irremovably emblazoned on the diary’s cover.

Is that right?


If so, would it be fair to say that if Mike had NOT been told by Martin Earl that there were irremovable printed dates on each page and that the year of 1891 was irremovably emblazoned on the diary’s cover, he could reasonably have expected to have used the 1891 diary he was being offered as an 1888 Ripper diary?

It's not a trick question. I'm not trying to put words into your mouth. I'm just trying to understand your position on this.

(Let's ignore the size because a small diary could still have been used to create an 1888 Ripper diary, even if not the one which was presented to Doreen.)

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock -

Bear with me a moment.

A common misconception is that, after 1994, Barrett was uniformly 'the bad guy'--the drunken guy that claimed that he and his wife had faked the Diary of Jack the Ripper.

But it's far more complicated than that.

There were stretches after 1994--indeed, long stretches--where Barrett denied having faked the diary, insisting it was either real or that he had received it from Tony and that's all he knew. I call this the 'Good Mike'---at least from the point-of-view of the diary's supporters. At these uncomfortable moments, it is the diary defenders who become "Barrett Believers."

There is even a fairly long passage in Inside Story where a sad and contrite Barrett accepts Anne Graham's claim of having seen the diary in the 1960s and also accepts that she had somehow kept the knowledge of its existence from him for years and had played dumb about having given the diary to his best friend Tony. He puts on a great show of feeling betrayed by Anne. At this brief moment, at least, Mike was entirely in the Anne Graham/Paul Feldman 'camp.'

Yet, as far as the available record shows, this 'Good' Mike Barrett was never asked why he needed a blank Victorian diary with at least twenty blank pages. [It's fair to point out they didn't yet know Mike's minimum page requirement].

It appears that Mike was only challenged when he was 'bad' Mike--the 'good' Mike wasn't asked the tough questions.

And because of this, the public will never know what Mike's own 'innocent' explanation would have been for the red diary---we only have Ike or someone else attempting to providing him with one. Ike is, in effect, assuming the role of Mike's jail house defense attorney. He's telling Barrett to keep his gob shut while he explains it all away.

As far as I can tell, Barrett's own feet were never held to the fire when he was in his 'good' or cooperative mood.

Similarly, I believe I am right in saying that by the time Keith Skinner had traced Martin Earl's advertisement in Bookdealer, he was no longer in communication with Anne Graham.

So, similarly, Anne's feet were never held to the fire, either. She was never asked to explain her own explanation that Mike 'just wanted to see what a diary looked like' in lieu of the fact that we now know Mike wanted a minimum of twenty blank pages--rendering her 'explanation' facile and nonsensical.

Anne, too, ducked the hard questions once all the information was made available.

And that's the trouble with this 'debate.' The people who REALLY should have been asked these questions about the red diary never were: Mike & Anne.

And there's not a damn thing we can do about. Mike's dead and no one can make Anne talk.

--I thought it might be worth pointing this out.

RP

[Iconoclast]

Mike could reasonably have expected to use an 1891 diary to create an 1888 Ripper diary, just not the particular 1891 diary he was being offered by Martin Earl in March 1992.

If Earl had sourced a diary produced in 1890 for the year 1891 and there was absolutely nothing on it which said it was an 1891 diary (or that it had been printed in 1889 or 1890), then I'd say that I could reasonably have expected Mike to have asked him to confirm this. If he confirmed it then I would expect Mike to have asked him, "So, in what sense is it an 1891 diary?", and - if he was satisfied that whatever the answer to that was would not have ruined his nascent hoax, then - yes - under those astonishingly tenuous circumstances I think I'd have to agree that Mike had struck gold instead of clay.

And the reason you say this is because you assume that Mike was told by Martin Earl (and understood) that there were irremovable printed dates from 1891 on each page and that the year of 1891 was irremovably emblazoned on the diary’s cover.

The reason I say this is because a diary for 1891 has to be one for a reason and I would expect Mike to have checked what that reason was. If we are saying that the year was never discussed then we are reduced to a conversation which must have gone somewhat like this: "Mike, good news, I've got you a diary". I can't see what other scenario could have come to pass.

And - yes - I'm not strictly answering your questions the way you have asked them because they are so blatantly loaded.

If so, would it be fair to say that if Mike had NOT been told by Martin Earl that there were irremovable printed dates on each page and that the year of 1891 was irremovably emblazoned on the diary’s cover, he could reasonably have expected to have used the 1891 diary he was being offered as an 1888 Ripper diary?

Oh, answered that one above.

It's not a trick question.

Of course it's a trick question and everyone knows it. You are trying to ask me, "If Mike had not known it was an 1891 diary, could he have thought he could use what turned out to be an 1891 diary for an 1888-18889 hoax?" and the obvious answer to that is "Yes" but it's very special pleading indeed because it is inconceivable that that characteristic of that diary would not have come up at some point in the conversation. (I genuinely cannot believe this reductio ad absurdum that you are attempting here and that you are down at the Planck length on it and still going.)

I'm not trying to put words into your mouth. I'm just trying to understand your position on this.

My position on this is that me auntie's gonads are ovaries not testicles. If Martin Earl had said "I've got you a diary" then Mike Barrett might very well have said "I'll have it", yes, that is possible. And if Earl had sent him a banana instead, that too would have been a possibility, yes.

[Iconoclast]

Well, we could ask Martin Earl again if you weren't happy with his first answers. When you rang him and asked him, what did he tell you?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'll be anticipating an answer to this question given how diligent you are at following up your own.

I'd hate my dear readers to think you've run away from it 'in shame'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If Earl had sourced a diary produced in 1890 for the year 1891 and there was absolutely nothing on it which said it was an 1891 diary (or that it had been printed in 1889 or 1890), then I'd say that I could reasonably have expected Mike to have asked him to confirm this. If he confirmed it then I would expect Mike to have asked him, "So, in what sense is it an 1891 diary?", and - if he was satisfied that whatever the answer to that was would not have ruined his nascent hoax, then - yes - under those astonishingly tenuous circumstances I think I'd have to agree that Mike had struck gold instead of clay.



The reason I say this is because a diary for 1891 has to be one for a reason and I would expect Mike to have checked what that reason was. If we are saying that the year was never discussed then we are reduced to a conversation which must have gone somewhat like this: "Mike, good news, I've got you a diary". I can't see what other scenario could have come to pass.

And - yes - I'm not strictly answering your questions the way you have asked them because they are so blatantly loaded.



Oh, answered that one above.



Of course it's a trick question and everyone knows it. You are trying to ask me, "If Mike had not known it was an 1891 diary, could he have thought he could use what turned out to be an 1891 diary for an 1888-18889 hoax?" and the obvious answer to that is "Yes" but it's very special pleading indeed because it is inconceivable that that characteristic of that diary would not have come up at some point in the conversation. (I genuinely cannot believe this reductio ad absurdum that you are attempting here and that you are down at the Planck length on it and still going.)



My position on this is that me auntie's gonads are ovaries not testicles. If Martin Earl had said "I've got you a diary" then Mike Barrett might very well have said "I'll have it", yes, that is possible. And if Earl had sent him a banana instead, that too would have been a possibility, yes.

Ah, shame you've decided to be evasive, although I expected it.

Due to your evasiveness, we're now back where we started.

For, having been told by Martin Earl that an 1891 diary was available, Mike would not have needed to have said to him, "in what sense is it an 1891 diary?". We've already been over this, Ike. An 1891 diary can simply be an unmarked, undated notebook in which a diarist has written dated entries during 1891. It doesn't need to have 1891 emblazoned on the cover or dates from 1891 printed on the pages. I thought you'd already agreed to that.

It would be like asking in what sense Samuel Pepys' famous diary from its first year of 1660 is "a 1660 diary" simply because there's nothing on it saying it was from 1660, only Pepys' handwritten entries. That is how ridiculous you are being.

And when it comes to gaslighting, let's remind ourselves what you posted in February of this year:


"That said, we should work with the evidence we have. In 2020, Martin Earl via email was asked, "... is it possible that he was entirely unaware that he was being sent a diary for the year 1891 until he actually saw it for himself?" to which Earl replied with a very simple, "No'.

We cannot embellish this unless we have good reason to do so: Earl was clear that he was always clear about the items before the purchaser received them."

You posted this when you were under the strange belief that an 1891 diary would have been no use to Barrett and that as soon as he knew it was an 1891 diary he would have had to have rejected it if he wanted to use it to create an 1888 Ripper diary. Now you positively need to embellish Earl's answer, and work with evidence we don't have, because you've suddenly realized that an 1891 diary could have been converted for use by Mike to an 1888 diary.

Earl hadn't even seen the diary when he spoke to Mike and, while he would obviously have told him that it was an 1891 diary, it's pure embellishment to speculate that he told him that 1891 was printed on the cover and/or that the dates were printed on the pages. It seems to me to be entirely possible that this wasn't regarded as relevant information by his supplier who was merely confirming that he was in possession of an 1891 diary with multiple blank pages.

Only a few days ago you posted (in response to me asking whyan 1891 diary would not have been suitable for a fake 1888/89 diary):

"Honestly, I don't even know where to start. It was an 1891 diary. Which bit of that am I missing?"

You also posted:

"everyone - and I mean everyone - knows what a diary is, and accepting one from 1891tells us everything we need to know about what Barrett's intentions behind seeking one were not"

As far back as September 2016, we find you posting:

"What on earth was he planning to do with an 1891 diary?"

AND

"If he took an 1890 or 1891 journal, though, he may as well have taken a WH Smith A4 refill pad because neither would have passed muster as a possible journal of James Maybrick so the question does remain that the purchase of an 1891 diary makes no sense except in the context that he wanted to know what one looked like."

The gaslighting now is that your position has fundamentally changed. You've accepted that an 1891 diary could have been suitable for a fake 1888 diary. Everything now hinges on the specific details of the 1891 diary. Does it have 1891 on the cover? Does it have 1891 dates printed on the pages? Yet, Mike Barrett hadn't seen the diary when he agreed to buy it. He didn't necessarily know these things. There's zero evidence he did. Earl has never said so. You've introduced unsupported assumptions and speculation into your argument.

I remind you of what I said myself a few days ago, and repeat it:

"Mike's agreement to purchase the 1891 diary is (quite clearly) not necessarily inconsistent with a desire to use it for a fake Ripper diary of 1888."

Unless you can negate that statement and show that Mike's agreement to purchase the 1891 diary is incontrovertibly inconsistent with a desire to use it for a fake Ripper diary of 1888 (as to which I'd love to see you try), the little game you've been playing for so many years, of pretending that Mike couldn't possibly have agreed to purchase an 1891 diary for use as his fake Ripper diary of 1888, is well and truly over.

[John Wheat]

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.

What would be the point? The Maybrickian's are so closed minded they have to be to believe the obvious forgery was written by Maybrick.

[Iconoclast]

A common misconception is that, after 1994, Barrett was uniformly 'the bad guy'--the drunken guy that claimed that he and his wife had faked the Diary of Jack the Ripper.

That's not true, RJ. It has been acknowledged many times in the past that Mike blew hot and cold on the source of the scrapbook (rather than good and bad).

There were stretches after 1994--indeed, long stretches--where Barrett denied having faked the diary, insisting it was either real or that he had received it from Tony and that's all he knew. I call this the 'Good Mike'---at least from the point-of-view of the diary's supporters. At these uncomfortable moments, it is the diary defenders who become "Barrett Believers."

I'm not sure that's universally true either. I think it is clear that - from the moment of his very first provable lie - neither the hot nor the cold nor the just-about-right Mike was to be trusted on anything, positive or negative for my views.

There is even a fairly long passage in Inside Story where a sad and contrite Barrett accepts Anne Graham's claim of having seen the diary in the 1960s and also accepts that she had somehow kept the knowledge of its existence from him for years and had played dumb about having given the diary to his best friend Tony. He puts on a great show of feeling betrayed by Anne. At this brief moment, at least, Mike was entirely in the Anne Graham/Paul Feldman 'camp.'

Without checking my notes, I think you may be referring to the 1995 Baker Street fiasco during which there were moments when he achieved immortality - in mixing belief in the scrapbook with denial of it in the very same sentence. When he threw an unopened bottle of Diamine Ink at Keith Skinner as if he hadn't just nipped in to the local WH Smith to buy it. When he needed an ink pen to demonstrate how the scrapbook text was written but then retracted his request when he realised how contradictory he was being (and also realising that - even if he changed his story to his having written the text - he wasn't going to be able to replicate the writing because he obviously didn't write it).

Yet, as far as the available record shows, this 'Good' Mike Barrett was never asked why he needed a blank Victorian diary with at least twenty blank pages. [It's fair to point out they didn't yet know Mike's minimum page requirement].

You've rather answered the your own question parenthetically. If the 'blankness' of the 'at least twenty pages' was not discovered by Keith Skinner until around 2004, no-one in the world could have asked him those challenging questions. Was anyone asking him why he needed an 1890 diary? I don't think they were, were they? What's good for the goose ...

It appears that Mike was only challenged when he was 'bad' Mike--the 'good' Mike wasn't asked the tough questions.

I'm not sure that these two sides of Mike were ever apart for long, were they?

And because of this, the public will never know what Mike's own 'innocent' explanation would have been for the red diary---we only have Ike or someone else attempting to providing him with one. Ike is, in effect, assuming the role of Mike's jail house defense attorney. He's telling Barrett to keep his gob shut while he explains it all away.

And, clearly, you and your ilk are not acting like the aggressive prosecution lawyers in their expensive suits?

As far as I can tell, Barrett's own feet were never held to the fire when he was in his 'good' or cooperative mood.

If this is true, would it be because - deep down - no-one honestly thinks he had the wit about him to be 'Bad Mike' for real?

Similarly, I believe I am right in saying that by the time Keith Skinner had traced Martin Earl's advertisement in Bookdealer, he was no longer in communication with Anne Graham.

I think you can take that one to the bank in your Porsche - make sure you don't get your posh shirt crumpled on the seat belt.

So, similarly, Anne's feet were never held to the fire, either. She was never asked to explain her own explanation that Mike 'just wanted to see what a diary looked like' in lieu of the fact that we now know Mike wanted a minimum of twenty blank pages--rendering her 'explanation' facile and nonsensical.

Anne had apparently asked Mike why he'd ordered the $90 diary that was useless. I imagine he said, "Because I just wanted to see what a Victorian diary looked like" (according to some posters on this site, it's common knowledge, but whatever) because that's what she said he said. But that genuinely is a puerile reason for wasting so much money so I think we can safely say that Mike didn't want to tell Anne the true reason why he ordered an 1891 diary for a guy who died in 1889.

Anne, too, ducked the hard questions once all the information was made available.

By 'ducked', do you mean what the rest of us would have called 'wasn't around for'?

And that's the trouble with this 'debate.' The people who REALLY should have been asked these questions about the red diary never were: Mike & Anne.

Well, it doesn't end there, does it? On receipt of Baxendale's supplementary report, Robert Smith and Shirley Harrison should have had the ink tested immediately for solubility but it wasn't. This tale is full of missed opportunities to get at the truth. Which case isn't, though?

And there's not a damn thing we can do about. Mike's dead and no one can make Anne talk.

Mike's dead and no-one can make Anne talk? Really? Hold the front page!

--I thought it might be worth pointing this out.

Or, I can see Herlock going down a rabbit hole he really shouldn't be going down and I don't want to jump in after him, so I'll send him a totally irrelevant post to sort of say, "I'm still with you, marra" without actually committing myself to such a terrible argument?

Sometimes, RJ, it's best to just let an argument play out. This one was reduced to such extremes of special pleading, I hd to check a law book to make sure it was actually legal to stretch possibility that far.

Ike
Defence Attorney, Lawyer, whatever ...
Iconoclast & Bugger All Others Inc.

[Iconoclast]

Well, we could ask Martin Earl again if you weren't happy with his first answers. When you rang him and asked him, what did he tell you?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'll be anticipating an answer to this question given how diligent you are at following up your own.

I'd hate my dear readers to think you've run away from it 'in shame'.