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

[Herlock Sholmes]

I agree. It's these very 'qualities' that make you the bore of the boards, who single-handedly manages to suck the oxygen out of the room every time you focus on yourself and your mission to defend the Great Barrett Hoax conspiracy theory at all costs. You are not a victim here, Herlock, and nothing is personal. You came here voluntarily and if you can't take the heat when you started the fire and refuse to let it go out, it's nobody else's doing.

And if you thought you were describing someone else - IRONY ALERT!

I would suggest you take a good long look in the mirror and give your head a wobble.

Your true colours have now come shining through Caz. It’s not a fact that I’m focusing myself, it’s the fact (in black and white) that you and Ike are focusing on me. I’m not claiming to be a victim of anything or anyone, I’m merely pointing out that neither you and Ike appear to be able to countenance being disagreed with by me on this subject. You both consider yourself as being part of an elite.

It’s you and Ike that require the mirror. I’ve just made points (on the subject) answered questions (on the subject) and asked questions (on the subject.) You two have constantly tried to make this personal. And now you’ve both exploded with rants we can all now see what’s really going on here.

I’d suggest that you both stop acting like diva’s and stick to the subject at hand - which isn’t “why is Herlock such a terrible person,” btw.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm not sure why I am meant to care if you see no distinction between Mike buying the red diary and Anne buying it. According to Anne, she had been so annoyed when she learned that Mike was being chased for payment that she wrote out the cheque [she thought it was for £20 when recalling this in 1995], signed it and threw it at Mike, telling him to fill out the payee's name himself. She could have been lying to Keith of course, but Roger Palmer's suspicion was that Anne delayed paying for it until after 13th April so it would appear that it was bought too late for forgery purposes - in which case she'd have been the one to blame for Mike going down on record as a 'late payer'. Palmer also mockingly asked whether Anne was in the habit of giving Mike blank cheques, already signed so he could make them out for whatever figure he fancied, but Keith's notes make it clear that she knew the figure to within £5 and also that Mike had been chased for payment, even if that was pretty much all she did know, or as much as Mike had chosen to tell her.



Well apparently, Mike did think - or hope - that Victorian diaries only came in one size: large enough for Jack the Ripper's bumper book of ripping yarns, or for recording Maybrick's musings if you prefer, over 15 months of two consecutive years, and could only be sourced through a second-hand telephone bookseller in Oxford, if that's what he had promised to show Doreen on 9th March, but had yet to create one. There is no evidence of any previous, nor indeed future attempts to source anything suitable. He only claimed to have attended an auction sale in January 1990, but there is no evidence for him doing so at any time, and he surely would have put it in the affidavit if he had tried to source one from anywhere else. Yet he would presumably have had more than five minutes before calling a literary agent to think about his minimum requirements if the diary text had been sitting smugly on his word processor, and to look into potential sources of something suitable to house it. The argument that he left this crucial part of the process until after he had got Doreen interested, to save him the expense and presumably the effort of even thinking, if she said there was no market for that sort of thing [???], or just fobbed him off with a thanks but no thanks, doesn't really work because she could have done that at any time, right up until 8th April when the arrangements were finally confirmed in writing. She was a woman and a businesswoman, who could have changed her mind if her priorities changed while Mike was busy doing his belated homework.

Conversely, if he had only just seen the scrapbook when he leapt into action and called Doreen, he'd have been calling Martin Earl on a whim, before he knew what he had, and would learn that Earl was 'unable to source any Victorian diaries from 1880 to 1890 with blank pages' within a couple of weeks of his request, but at least one for 1891 had been located without too much trouble, so in theory a prankster could have obtained something similar from another source that was a year or two older - until of course the red diary arrived and proved itself in practice to be anything but similar to the diary he ended up taking to London just a few days later.



I haven't forgotten. An unused diary for 1891 would have had to be provably for that year from the seller's point of view, and not merely have a handwritten date somewhere with no diary entries to go with it, or the description would have been highly misleading. The seller would have known this, even if Mike had no real clue what to expect and didn't ask. Moreover, an unused diary for 1891 didn't need to have 63 pages of written entries in it, just to compare its physical suitability for a prankster with the partly used scrapbook claiming a date in 1889 for its final entry.



Er, because it would look rather odd that it had supposedly taken months to think of undertaking this research, and Mike only did so at the eleventh hour when Doreen had expressed her interest in seeing the one he had claimed to have in his possession since the middle of 1991? They could hardly admit that Mike had launched straight into this research within a day or two of seeing the diary and calling Doreen, because he suspected someone was having a laugh at his expense, could they? Tony Devereux had died back in August 1991, so he'd already had his last laugh.



Okay, so I could have written: 'For crying out loud' instead. Mike asked for a diary for 1880-90 but was happy for Martin Earl to order one for 1891, regardless of how it was described to him, as long as he could see it before paying. Are you happy now?

I very much doubt it. I'm beginning to think I should give you some slack, in case you are seriously unwell. You challenge and question every little thing, while appearing to think that everything you write, whether it's in the form of an argument, an opinion or a question, deserves to be addressed but is beyond challenge. It makes your arguments and opinions on any subject, when you know you don't have all the facts, rather pointless if this is all you can ever bring to a debate.



How could 1891 have been the right year for any of Maybrick's musings? Would you have said the same if Mike had asked for an 1891 diary in the first instance? If you mean it would not have been an impediment for your theoretical 1992 forger, if only it wasn't already an enormous impediment on so many levels waiting for Mike to see just how enormous, then Ike's auntie's nuts come into play again. It's a totally pointless argument for the sake of argument and nothing to do with the reality.



Hooray! Indeed it doesn't. It certainly doesn't tell us that Mike wanted the diary for forgery purposes and was disappointed to find it 'very small' and unfit for that purpose. Only you would find it odd if those of us involved in the email correspondence didn't ask Martin Earl a hypothetical question about what he would have done in a 'can't pay/won't pay' situation, if there hadn't been a little woman in the picture with the means to do the right thing.



Bailiffs? Are you having a laugh at your readers' expense? Mike went on to have his home repossessed because he wasn't paying the mortgage after Anne left him, despite the thousands of pounds rolling in from sales of Shirley's book. In the best George Best tradition, he spent a lot of money on booze and anything but the roof over his head, and the rest he just squandered. While Anne evidently cared very much about Mike owing £25 and being chased for it while they were together, would Mike have given two hoots if she hadn't been around, or didn't feel obliged to cover his debts? Would she have been prepared to pay regardless of the price? How much would have been too much?

I can only assume that because you don't care that I can't see the distinction between Mike buying the diary and Anne buying it, this is why you haven't explained it.

Your attempt to defend your theory that Mike could have judged the availability to any practical joker of a suitable item to fake Jack the Ripper's diary literally failed before the end of your first sentence when you wrote: "Well apparently Mike did think - or hope...". There's a massive difference between him hoping he could find a suitable diary for himself of any shape, size or colour from Martin Earl and him testing via Martin Earl whether a practical joker could have obtained a specific large black scrapbook from anywhere in the country, if not the world, by any possible means.

I asked you how an unused totally blank diary would have enabled Mike to make a comparison with the Ripper diary and for some reason you started to talk about the 1891 diary which wasn't the question.

Your answer that it would have looked "odd" for Mike to be researching the diary in March 1992, after speaking to Doreen, doesn't make sense. It wouldn't have looked odd at all.

I still don't see the point of you telling me that Mike didn't order a diary from 1880-1890, even if by "order" you meant "purchase". How could he have done? There were none available for that period. But that's what Mike was seeking, wasn't it? You can't seem to explain why.

It's already been answered many times how 1891 could have been the right year for Maybrick's musings. You've even accepted that an 1891 diary could have been used to create an 1888 diary. What's the purpose of asking me a hypothetical question about "if Mike had asked for an 1891 diary"? He didn't ask for that. Can we not stick to what he did ask for which was one from 1880 to 1890.

I'm pleased that you agree that the issue of payment for the diary tells us nothing about why Mike wanted the diary in the first place. That being so, why do you keep talking about the payment?

No, I'm not having a laugh when I mention bailiffs. If you think that the Barrets wouldn't have cared about bailiffs appearing at their door to collect a payment of much greater than £25, or seize goods of an equivalent value, you are truly living on a different planet to the one I'm on. But, if the issue of payment tells is nothing about why Mike wanted the diary in the first place, is it even worth discussing?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Another point to note is that Mike stated for his affidavit that Anne had asked him recently for the red diary and he had meekly handed over this potentially crucial evidence to her, depriving himself of the chance to show it to Alan Gray, along with the receipt, when he was crying out for some hard evidence of what Mike was claiming. God alone knows why Mike would have done such a thing, or why Gray would not have been seriously unamused if he believed it, but I don't believe for one second that Anne didn't already have the diary in her possession.

This was either a blatant lie, which could not be put down to the drink combined with a faulty memory, and Alan Gray totally misunderstanding what Mike was saying and typing something entirely different, or Mike really did have the red diary until shortly before the affidavit was prepared, in which case the argument that he could only recall its 'very small' size by January 1995 and Precious Little Else [he must have known that girl intimately] goes up in smoke.

It's all too convenient to keep repeating that the affidavit isn't important, but the devil is in the detail and when arguments are made that depend on Mike having lied outright one minute, or told the God's honest truth the next, it becomes important or the arguments themselves will be meaningless.

One reason for Mike to lie about Anne asking him for the red diary would be that he was blaming her for stupidly purchasing something for their hoax that was 'very small' and no use, so he had to take over and find something that would work. He couldn't claim that time was pressing if Tony Devereux was supposedly still alive at the time, even if 1990 was not another blatant lie. We know it was a blatant lie that Anne had purchased a very small diary by mistake, because she only paid for it, while Mike was solely responsible for its size, along with everything else that would have made it 'no use' if forging Maybrick's diary had been the goal. Alan Gray would have found it hard enough to believe that Mike would knowingly have purchased an 1891 diary, let alone Anne. But Mike over-egged the pudding by claiming that he had the red diary and Anne naturally wanted it back in the wake of his very public forgery claim because it was evidence of her own involvement. It makes no sense that he'd have handed it to her on a plate in those circumstances.

When the affidavit states that Mike handed over the diary to Anne "recently", how do you know that this didn't mean some time during the previous 12 months and thus possibly before Mike had even met Gray?

[Herlock Sholmes]

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.



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.



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.

It looks like we're back where we started. If Mike didn't think the handwriting in the diary resembled Anne's, and Anne didn't write it, isn't it odd that (a) Mike repeatedly said that the diary was in Anne's handwriting and (b) certain characteristics of the diary handwriting do undeniably resemble Anne's?

I use the word "undeniably" because that is the case and you haven't denied it.

Is the strange question of why the sample of handwriting that Anne provided to Keith Skinner in January 1995 doesn't match her normal handwriting from her correspondence another one on which you are going to choose not to comment?

[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?

Whenever you’re ready, by the way …

[caz]

I see now that I owe Caroline Brown a firm apology for thinking that the source of this was Shirley's idle speculation. After rereading my 'Maybrick' books last night, I see that Anne did confirm to her sister-in-law Lynne Richardson that Feldman had promised financial inducement during his initial phone call in 1994.

"He's going to give me a million dollars like if I tell him what he wants to know and I said I'd play him along a bit...." (Inside Story, p. 210).

I'm still astonished that this financial inducement was never stressed (or even mentioned) back in 1995-2002 when there were various attempts to lend credibility to Anne Graham's provenance story, though the public was finally alerted to it when Inside Story appeared in 2003.

Better late than never, then, eh? Who was going to stress this publicly back in 1995-2002, before we chose to refer to it in our book?

We also get this:

According to Shirley Harrison, Lynn Richardson "spoke of a meeting, at which Anne, Barrett, Billy Graham and herself were present, when Anne told them that Paul Feldman had offered to make her a millionaire if she would say that she had given the Diary to Tony Devereux and was descended from James Maybrick." (p. 267)

(Anne, contradicting her sister-in-law, claims this was just an 'off-the-cuff remark' and denies any such meeting).

QUESTION.

Doesn't this pretty much put the 'Battlecrease' provenance to bed?

Say what? How does Palmer work that one out?

Ah, I see...

If, behind-the-scenes, Feldman was offering financial inducements for people to "tell him what he wants to hear," how can we possibly know that Feldman didn't make a similar offer to one of the electricians when he was investigating the work done in Dodd's house? Surely, proving the diary came out of Battlecrease would have been hitting the jackpot for Feldman.

Is this the true genesis of Eddy Lyons supposedly asking Feldman 'what it was worth' if he admitted taking the diary from Battlecrease? Feldman had offered him money, too?

As I say, Feldman would hardly admit in print that he had made such an offer. The possibility that he projected his own inducements onto Eddy must be given serious weight.

Okay, so Palmer has not worked this out based on any actual evidence, but has worked out how to have his two provenance-breaking cakes and scoff them both, by reversing his previous position of agreeing with Feldman that the electricians were obviously just liars and scammers to a man, because two of them - one anonymously - had brought up the subject of being paid for handing Feldman a fake Battlecrease provenance. He is now suggesting that Feldman lied in his book and put the blame and shame on a group of thoroughly honest workmen, who were offered significant financial inducements to do so, but steadfastly refused to compromise their good names by telling him what he wanted to hear, knowing it wasn't true. None of them would ever have done "foreigners" either, to get paid for private jobs that avoided going through the firm's books. Squeaky clean and no amount of filthy lucre and cheque waving could tempt them to lie for this stranger with more money in his trousers than morals. And Ike's auntie had more in her trousers than any woman had a right to.

Either way, Palmer thinks he has won £5 and swept the electricians under the carpet, where floorboards can be heard - faintly creaking every now and then - but never seen, and never, ever gave house room to anything worth having.

I see Palmer believes that 'proving' the diary came out of Battlecrease would have been 'hitting the jackpot' for Feldman. Interesting. But that's hardly the same as paying for 'proof' which he knew, or didn't personally believe actually existed, but didn't care.

The idea that a man on a mission like Feldman, who ruined himself financially trying to prove his own absolute conviction that the diary had come from Maybrick's house one way or another, whether it was in the late 20th or late 19th century, would have been in the business of buying himself a quick and painless route to the same end, knowing it was all bollocks, could only come from someone who never met the man and was never on the receiving end, as I was, of his belief that he had indeed hit the diary jackpot and proved it to his own satisfaction, despite eventually losing everything in the process.

Eddie said in 2018 that Feldman had called him on the phone and spent some two hours trying to get an admission out of him that he had found the diary in Dodd's house. I believe him because that was typical Feldman, bombarding people with lengthy phone calls, wearing them down until they admitted what he already believed to be true. Eddie could have hung up at any time, but he let Feldman carry on talking interminably, possibly to learn what this stranger already knew about the diary, and what evidence had led him to assume that Eddie knew more, given that few details were in the the pubic domain at the time and there was no indication of when, or if, it would be published in book form.

[caz]

No, I'm not having a laugh when I mention bailiffs. If you think that the Barrets wouldn't have cared about bailiffs appearing at their door to collect a payment of much greater than £25, or seize goods of an equivalent value, you are truly living on a different planet to the one I'm on. But, if the issue of payment tells is nothing about why Mike wanted the diary in the first place, is it even worth discussing?

You are starting to read carelessly, Herlock, in your rush to try and have the last word, which is doomed to failure. The only other explanation is that it is a deliberate misreading to avoid admitting you are wrong about this one.

I made it crystal clear that I don't think the 'Barretts', as a couple [with a young daughter to care for, remember], would not have cared about bailiffs coming round because Mike had an unpaid bill for £25. I said that it was clear that Anne cared very much about Mike being chased for the money, but that if he had been living on his own at the time, there is ample evidence of his attitude towards his financial commitments from January 1994, when he started to see substantial improvements to his bank balance, to conclude that he could not have cared less about a sodding £25 diary in May 1992 if Anne had not done the caring for him.

[rjpalmer]

Better late than never, then, eh? Who was going to stress this publicly back in 1995-2002, before we chose to refer to it in our book?

Not a big believer in 'duty to warn,' eh?

The very public promotion of Anne' provenance in The Ripperologist, in the forward to Anne's own book, in Feldman and Harrison's books, in Paul Daniel's essay, on the Bob Azurdia Show, on this very forum, etc etc. and no one thought it might be relevant to inform the public that Paul Feldman had promised to "make Anne a millionaire" if she promoted his theories?

There's a very prominent reporter on this side of the pond who has been skewered for this same ethos. He had uncovered some highly relevant information about a certain notorious political figure but didn't report it until after the election. He was 'saving it for his book,' he later explained.

Water under the bridge, of course, but I wonder how livelier those discussions would have been back in the days of Peter Birchwood and Karoline Leech and Melvin Harris, etc., had they been told...

But I'm more interested in if Feldman made any similar promises of filthy lucre to any electricians. No one here could possibly answer that question unless his phone was bugged. I thank you again for raising this interesting issue.

RP

[rjpalmer]

Okay, so Palmer has not worked this out based on any actual evidence, but has worked out how to have his two provenance-breaking cakes and scoff them both, by reversing his previous position of agreeing with Feldman that the electricians were obviously just liars and scammers to a man, because two of them - one anonymously - had brought up the subject of being paid for handing Feldman a fake Battlecrease provenance.

Such a silly person. You write as though it is a weakness or a sin to refine one's beliefs or theories based on new information--or in this, case, on being reminded of old information.

The exact opposite is true. It's a strength, not a weakness.

By contrast, what you and Tom Mitchell constantly indulge in what is known as motivated reasoning. You're already emotionally attached to your rigid beliefs, not unlike religious fanatics, and any new information does not change those beliefs. There is no room for growth or change. Instead, you just work overtime to make this new information fit your long-held assumptions, even if you have to bend logic into pretzel shapes to do so.

He is now suggesting that Feldman lied in his book and put the blame and shame on a group of thoroughly honest workmen, who were offered significant financial inducements to do so, but steadfastly refused to compromise their good names by telling him what he wanted to hear, knowing it wasn't true. None of them would ever have done "foreigners" either, to get paid for private jobs that avoided going through the firm's books. Squeaky clean and no amount of filthy lucre and cheque waving could tempt them to lie for this stranger with more money in his trousers than morals. And Ike's auntie had more in her trousers than any woman had a right to.

I have no idea what you're banging on about, because it in no way resembles what I wrote or what I believe.

Although there are numerous evasions, inventions, half-truths, distortions, and absurdities in Feldman's book, I think 'lie' is too strong of a word and demonstrates a certain shallowness when it comes to your grasp of human psychology---you're too black & white--or more likely pretend to be when attacking your perceived enemies.

People are often unaware of their own behavior. I imagine Feldman would have felt scandalized when Shirley Harrison pointed out that his methods of promising money were "appalling" (her word) and contaminating.

I think the relevant passage in Feldman's book is not a lie, but rather, nearly the opposite, though he's coy about it: his realization that the unnamed electrician "told him what he wanted to hear" --if the price was right. It's obvious enough from your own book that Dodd, Dodd's lawyer, and even Robert Smith must have come to the same conclusion. It's also interesting and highly relevant that another electrician bent over backwards to launch his own investigation and reported back to Feldman that he had solved Feldman's "problem."

What could that unnamed 'problem' have been, other than Feldman's lack of a credible provenance? Why would he think Feldman had a 'problem,' unless Feldman let it be known?

That Feldman contaminated his own investigation is obvious, and it is obvious, too, that he came to realize this.

Even Feldman wised up and realized his own behavior had kicked into motion a hornet's nest of rumors and graspers. Much like Shirley's fear, a year later, that Feldman had done it again with Anne Graham.

Any reasonable person can see that from a mile away.

Now I'm off to do something more productive. Have a great day!

P.S. Let me stress that although Shirley was right to have this fear, I don't think Anne's motivation in telling her 'in the family' provenance was necessarily motivated by money. But then, I've been reminded that I "don't know Anne from soap."

[caz]

When the affidavit states that Mike handed over the diary to Anne "recently", how do you know that this didn't mean some time during the previous 12 months and thus possibly before Mike had even met Gray?

How convenient and utterly predictable, to use Mike's strange relationship with time and date in that affidavit and beyond it, to suggest that his 'recently' can be interpreted as loosely as you need it to be, to suit any argument. He claimed that Anne had asked for the diary 'specifically recently when I saw her at her home address', whenever you suppose that may have been. When he first engaged Gray, it was to find out where Anne was living, so his latest visit to her home could only have been after she had been located, or before she had moved to an address that was unknown to Mike.

Why he should have had the red diary on him at the time of this alleged visit, or would have made a special effort to go back home, pick it up and return it to his wayward wife, like a golden retriever expecting a biscuit, God alone knows, when it supposedly represented solid evidence of their involvement in forgery, but that's more your problem to solve than mine. It beats me at the best of times to rationalise all Mike's known actions, never mind the unknown ones and the motives he claimed for them. Maybe you will have better luck and a keener nose. You may even earn yourself a biscuit - or a bowl of Golden Grahams, for knowing the inner workings of a cereal con artist's brain.

[Herlock Sholmes]

You are starting to read carelessly, Herlock, in your rush to try and have the last word, which is doomed to failure. The only other explanation is that it is a deliberate misreading to avoid admitting you are wrong about this one.

I made it crystal clear that I don't think the 'Barretts', as a couple [with a young daughter to care for, remember], would not have cared about bailiffs coming round because Mike had an unpaid bill for £25. I said that it was clear that Anne cared very much about Mike being chased for the money, but that if he had been living on his own at the time, there is ample evidence of his attitude towards his financial commitments from January 1994, when he started to see substantial improvements to his bank balance, to conclude that he could not have cared less about a sodding £25 diary in May 1992 if Anne had not done the caring for him.

I'd love to know - and please do tell me - how you thought you were making it "crystal clear"that the Barretts would have cared about bailiffs appearing at their door by saying to me:

"Bailiffs? Are you having a laugh at your readers' expense?"

If you were actually agreeing with me that the Barretts would have cared about the bailiffs, thus ensuring that they paid their debt to Martin Earl, what could you possibly have meant? It's unfathomable.

And by way of reminder, for context ,as to how our conversation went:

CB: Are you seriously suggesting that a pair of fraudsters could have seen 'no way out' of paying for that little 1891 diary, at any stage, but still managed to pull off a scam that would go on to make them thousands of pounds?

MB: Your question about whether Mike and Anne could have seen a way out of paying for the diary is just ridiculous. You might as well ask me why they didn't shoplift all their groceries every week and carry out insurance frauds for a living. Honestly, Caz, by May, Barrett was legally obliged to pay for the diary and failure would have just led to a county court judgment being obtained against him and the subsequent arrival of the bailiffs at 12 Goldie Street. Paying the £25 was the most sensible option, and indeed, the only realistic one.

CB: Bailiffs? Are you having a laugh at your readers' expense? Mike went on to have his home repossessed because he wasn't paying the mortgage after Anne left him, despite the thousands of pounds rolling in from sales of Shirley's book. In the best George Best tradition, he spent a lot of money on booze and anything but the roof over his head, and the rest he just squandered. While Anne evidently cared very much about Mike owing £25 and being chased for it while they were together, would Mike have given two hoots if she hadn't been around, or didn't feel obliged to cover his debts? Would she have been prepared to pay regardless of the price? How much would have been too much?

MB: "No, I'm not having a laugh when I mention bailiffs. If you think that the Barrets wouldn't have cared about bailiffs appearing at their door to collect a payment of much greater than £25, or seize goods of an equivalent value, you are truly living on a different planet to the one I'm on. But, if the issue of payment tells is nothing about why Mike wanted the diary in the first place, is it even worth discussing?"

As far as I can see, it's you who is starting to read and/or post carelessly, alternatively it's a deliberate misreading to avoid admitting you are wrong about this.

The short point, which I shouldn't need to repeat, is that there was no realistic option for the Barretts but to pay Martin Earl the sum of £25 that he was legally owed.

[Iconoclast]

Whenever you’re ready, by the way …

Is there an emoji for drumming one's fingers on one's desk?



Of course there is!

[Herlock Sholmes]

How convenient and utterly predictable, to use Mike's strange relationship with time and date in that affidavit and beyond it, to suggest that his 'recently' can be interpreted as loosely as you need it to be, to suit any argument. He claimed that Anne had asked for the diary 'specifically recently when I saw her at her home address', whenever you suppose that may have been. When he first engaged Gray, it was to find out where Anne was living, so his latest visit to her home could only have been after she had been located, or before she had moved to an address that was unknown to Mike.

Why he should have had the red diary on him at the time of this alleged visit, or would have made a special effort to go back home, pick it up and return it to his wayward wife, like a golden retriever expecting a biscuit, God alone knows, when it supposedly represented solid evidence of their involvement in forgery, but that's more your problem to solve than mine. It beats me at the best of times to rationalise all Mike's known actions, never mind the unknown ones and the motives he claimed for them. Maybe you will have better luck and a keener nose. You may even earn yourself a biscuit - or a bowl of Golden Grahams, for knowing the inner workings of a cereal con artist's brain.

So the short answer to my question is that you don't know if "recently" included the previous 12 months.

ThankS

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is there an emoji for drumming one's fingers on one's desk?

Of course there is!

I thought that we were all allowed 10+ years like you and your opportunities to rebut ‘one off instance’?

[caz]

Such a silly person. You write as though it is a weakness or a sin to refine one's beliefs or theories based on new information--or in this, case, on being reminded of old information.

The exact opposite is true. It's a strength, not a weakness.

How many times have I tried to tell Palmer this, when he has mockingly delved into the past to point out perceived contradictions in what was posted years ago, and what the same person posts today, completely oblivious to having been told that the available information has steadily increased over the interval?

It's not a great strength to revisit past assumptions and arguments, to see if you can make new ones, based on the same material, a better fit for a theory that has always lacked evidence. If an argument requires change or refinement to make an old theory work today, based on the same facts, it may be time to revisit the theory and the conclusion, instead of holding on to it for dear life. If the old house may collapse under the increasing weight of unsupported speculation, it is unlikely to be saved by rearranging the bricks to put the stronger looking ones at the front and the weaker looking ones round the back.

They say you should always put your best goods in the shop window, but if you don't have any goods to display, it doesn't help to change one colour-coded 'temporarily unavailable' sticker for another, in the hope that one will appeal to the customer if and when there is something new to sell.