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

[Herlock Sholmes]

Here's a thought. What would it cost you to leave Maybrick threads entirely alone? They clearly bother you sufficiently that you feel the need to argue against Maybrick's candidacy which tells us all that you aren't even vaguely convinced of the truth of your claims. Your desperate defence of the hoax theory shows us how little you really are convinced that it was a hoax. It's like you keep asking questions because you need reassurance that you haven't made a terrible mistake.

Someone who was so certain that they were right surely wouldn't bother arguing with what is a very small number of posters? Something else is clearly going on with you, I think. You are looking for answers not simply here to dismiss Maybrick at all.

Does my presence in these threads upset you, Ike?

Am I stopping you from playing your silly little game? We all know that you sit here like a spider in web waiting for the unsuspecting to offer up reasons why they think the diary is fake so that you can come up with ever more ludicrous hypothetical reasons why Maybrick might still have written it, thus demonstrating your amazing intellectual prowess at being able to bat away any challenge to the diary's authenticity.

Sadly, "one off instance" spoilt the game because you've got nothing in response. That, I suppose, is why you don't want me posting: it ruins all the fun.

Plus I ask you difficult questions about "plausible deniability" and blank pages which you just can't answer.

Have you ever considered, though, that if you stopped posting, perhaps everyone else would too?

[Iconoclast]

Everyone is welcome to join in the fun, of course. I just wondered whether your utter conviction about Mike and Anne Barrett hoaxing the Maybrick scrapbook (I'm not sure what your 'hoax' version of the watch is, not do I care to know) might not be as solid as you portray. You sound too convinced - like you have a barrier over which nothing can climb which is some sort of deep psychological fear that you may actually be wrong and you're here to check.

It's okay, you don't have to carry this burden. It's okay to possibly be wrong. And the longer you are here, the more you are going to find that out.

[Lombro2]

I think I’m joining the Sarcastic—I mean Socratic cult.

The diaries are fake.

Bury is Jack the Ripper.

And Charlie Chaplin is the fuhrer.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Everyone is welcome to join in the fun, of course. I just wondered whether your utter conviction about Mike and Anne Barrett hoaxing the Maybrick scrapbook (I'm not sure what your 'hoax' version of the watch is, not do I care to know) might not be as solid as you portray. You sound too convinced - like you have a barrier over which nothing can climb which is some sort of deep psychological fear that you may actually be wrong and you're here to check.

It's okay, you don't have to carry this burden. It's okay to possibly be wrong. And the longer you are here, the more you are going to find that out.

Ike, I've asked time and time again why Mike was secretly seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992.

After a prolonged and deliberate diversion, during which you attempted to switch attention from the damning advertisement to the 1891 diary, and what you claimed was "an impossible year", you then abandoned that foolishness and ran away from your own debate immediately after Caz admitted that 1891 was not an impossible year at all, and that an 1891 diary could, indeed, have been used to create an 1888 diary.

We're now back on the blank pages but you not only refuse to provide a clear, coherent and plausible explanation as to why Mike wanted those blank pages but when I try to ask Lombro what he thinks the answer is, you attempt and shut down my questioning of him too! You describe my straightforward requests for an explanation as me "bleating like a baby" and tell me that I need to work it all out for myself! It's just the latest in a long line of excuses you've been providing for not answering my questions.

I don't know why you're even here if all you want to do is crack Dad's Army gags. Oh, hold on, yes I do, it's to shut down discussion about the diary being a fake to make you feel better about yourself and all your wasted years on this forum.

[Lombro2]

If he ordered the diary with blank pages to create the forgery, why are you unsure of when it was written?

For Socrates sake, man…!

[Lombro2]

“As you can see, most recently Lombro taunted me by saying that if I don't understand what a fence is by now and how they work I never will.“

I was talking to Wheat as you can tell by my paraphrasing his words about “never will”understand.

I did say “Michael” would never understand plausible deniability, but I was talking about the other Michael—Michael Barrett.

I thereby deny I was talking about you.

[Herlock Sholmes]

If he ordered the diary with blank pages to create the forgery, why are you unsure of when it was written?

For Socrates sake, man…!

What is it I've said that makes you think I'm "unsure of when it was written"?

I imagine this will be yet another question you won't answer but I like to at least give you the opportunity.

[Herlock Sholmes]

“As you can see, most recently Lombro taunted me by saying that if I don't understand what a fence is by now and how they work I never will.“

I was talking to Wheat as you can tell by my paraphrasing his words about “never will”understand.

I did say “Michael” would never understand plausible deniability, but I was talking about the other Michael—Michael Barrett.

I thereby deny I was talking about you.

I regret to have to say that your post is not truthful, Lombro.

Prior to your post of 10 July 2025 (#1192) in which you taunted me by saying,"If you don’t understand what a fence is by now and how they work, maybe you never will", John Wheat had not only not addressed a single post to you, he'd never once mentioned the word "fence" nor had he queried what a fence is or how they work or said anything at all about fences.

On the other hand, a mere four days before your #1192, I had said to you (#1066):

"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."

I also posted to Scott on the same day in #1075 saying:

"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."

Your statement "If you don’t understand what a fence is by now and how they work, maybe you never will"was in direct response to these posts of mine, in addition to subsequent posts in which I'd challenged your diary fence theory (i.e. #1169 and #1182). It had nothing to do with John Wheat.

Most importantly, even though you totally fail to mention this, your #1192 began with the words:

"Why do these guys think a fence needs a perfect facsimile of the stolen item?"

That can only have been a response to my #1182 in which I asked why Mike wanted a diary with a minimum of 20 blank pages when the Ripper diary has 17 blank pages. John Wheat, on the other hand, had never said anything that could possibly have prompted such a question by you.

So while you might have picked up on John Wheat's language in his post to Scott that if he didn't know by now what the evidence is against the Barretts, he never will, you were nevertheless referring in your post to multiple people, i.e. "these guys", and specifically to me as the only person who had challenged your understanding of a fence.

Your additional claim that when you wrote in #1071 that, "Michael wouldn’t know the meaning of the words Plausible Deniability" you were speaking of Michael Barrett is belied by your own post #1096 in which, after Ike had said to you that Barrett would surely have understood the principle of plausible deniability, you admitted the truth by posting: "I agree. It was more a play on the name Michael." By "the name Michael" you meant my name. You were, in other words, being deliberately ambiguous in your #1071 but came clean to Ike and admitted that you were, in fact, referring to me under cover of pretending to refer to Michael Barrett. I guess you'd forgotten you'd made that post which exposes your sham.

Do better Lombro. Try and be more honest.

[Lombro2]

Fibs and gibberubbish.

[Lombro2]

I guess my deniability was not plausible enough.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I guess my deniability was not plausible enough.

Just to be clear Lombro, I understand the concept of plausible deniability. What I'm puzzled about is how it relates to Mike Barrett and his desire to acquire a diary from 1880 to 1890 with blank pages.

What is it he was expecting to deny?

We know that he was planning to admit to being in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary. He had a cover story which was that he'd received it from the late Tony Devereux in 1991.

Are you saying that a genuine diary with blank pages was going to allow him to deny being in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary? Or was he going to admit to being in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary but to deny either that it was stolen or that he knew it was stolen? How would a genuine diary with blank pages have assisted with any such denial?

Or was he, in fact, intending to pretend that the genuine diary was the "stolen" Jack the Ripper's diary? In that case, what would he have been denying?

If there is some sort of denial that he was envisaging, who was he intending to make this denial to? His literary agent? His wife? The police? The owner of the diary? How was a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages which looked nothing like the supposedly stolen diary going to assist him with a denial to any of these people?

As you know, I'm suggesting that the "plausible deniability" theory is gibberish so it's up to you (and Ike who has, to his eternal shame, adopted the theory) to explain what is meant by it.

[Observer]

Bury is Jack the Ripper

Did you mean to say Jack the Ripper was buried? Because there is no link between those two names.

Of course he could have been cremated

[Iconoclast]

As you know, I'm suggesting that the "plausible deniability" theory is gibberish so it's up to you (and Ike who has, to his eternal shame, adopted the theory) to explain what is meant by it.

Ah, Johnny-Come-Lately is back, I see.

It was I who first introduced the idea about a year or so ago.

[John Wheat]

It's obvious that Mike Barrett wanted a Victorian diary to create a fake Jack the Ripper diary with his then wife Ann Barrett. To think anything else is ludicrous.

[John Wheat]

Did you mean to say Jack the Ripper was buried? Because there is no link between those two names.

Of course he could have been cremated

This is wrong Bury may well have been the Ripper.