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

[caz]

Now there was a dispute as to whether it would have been Anne or Mike who knew that Tony called his wife 'a whore' but the fact of the matter is that Caz had brought herself and her life, and indeed her gender, into the discussion, which, I think, is always best avoided.

I can see why you think bringing up our own life experiences is 'best avoided', when challenging any argument made, which relies on speculation about Mike's or Anne's, but thankfully you don't get to decide that for others.

This issue from 2023 has nothing to do with Caz's highly offensive allegation of yesterday that neither Roger nor myself seem able to tolerate responses from Caz because she is female. It is clearly ludicrous. There is no difference in the way we respond to the same arguments whether they are made by Ike, Erobitha, Caz or Aunt or Uncle Tom Cobley. On the rare occasions you say something intelligible we respond to you in the same way. Gender has nothing to do with it and Caz's absurd statement should never have been posted.

Others, besides Lombro2, have remarked on this away from the boards without my saying a word - all of them male. So claiming to detect personal emotions like 'really upset' or 'angry' in my posts is very much 'best avoided', if you don't want your posts to come over like the worst of Messrs Palmer and Awesome combined [Awesome, sounds a bit like... oh, never mind] to both male and female readers alike. You are meant to be clinically assessing the meat of the post - you know, in relation to the facts, the evidence and the context - not making inappropriate and ill-advised remarks about the poster's emotional state or stamina, if you don't want to be judged accordingly. Claiming emotions for others, which they are not feeling and won't ever be provoked into feeling by reading your posts, can look like attempted gaslighting.

As I previously wrote, you shouldn't be taking lessons in mind reading and mind control from Palmer, who thinks I'm also easily 'intimidated' and prone to 'hysteria' - typically conditions attributed to females, and often by males who set out to intimidate them and then imagine the hysteria that follows.

So neither of you seem able to tolerate your arguments being trampled into the dust by a female of the species or a male you consider to be of inferior intellect.

Better now?

Didn't think so.

[rjpalmer]

Yes, I wasn't particularly impressed by the argument that Anne could have known what Mike's dead friend used to call his ex wife and peppered the diary with references to 'whores' and 'bitches' as a result. It's a weird enough argument as it stands, but if the worst of what men say about their wives, or about women in general, during "locker room" talk, is quite likely to stay in the "locker room", unless the listener wants his own wife to wonder what she gets called behind her back, how likely is it that Mike would have taken those words back home to Anne after hearing them down the pub from Tony's lips, if she was already unamused by his lunchtime drinking and was bound to be even less amused by the company he was keeping?

Nor am I impressed by muddled thinking.

If Barrett and Graham co-wrote the diary, which was certainly the case in my view, why would Barrett have needed to tell his wife where he came up with the idea of Maybrick referring to his wife as 'The Whore"?

He didn't need to, of course. You're adding a silly complication that need not detain us.

The point is that Harris and Gray thought it was an odd coincidence that Barrett was marketing a diary that he claimed came from Devereux, and lo and behold, Devereux had the same revolting quirk as 'Maybrick' supposedly did.

I think most rational people realize that fiction writers come up ideas from their own personal experiences. It's hardly earthshattering.

It's an interesting oddity, but it's hardly the reason I'm convinced the diary is a modern fake connected to Goldie Street.

I can readily imagine that if someone unearthed documentation that Maybrick really did call his wife "The Whore," the diary's supporters would be shouting it from the rooftops.

But Devereux doing so? A yawn.

[caz]

As teenagers in an all girls' school, we always knew someone with awful body odour, in one case the history mistress. We might titter about it behind the sufferer's back but none of us was brave enough to drop a hint. If there was a genuine lack of awareness on their part, coupled with a poor sense of smell, they might have been utterly mortified if anyone had told them they had a problem, humbly apologetic and determined to pass the smell test in future. Thankfully I don't know many women – or men, before anyone erupts and throws their toys out of the pram - who would react in any other way.

This is a normal reaction to the 'scratch, sniff and tell' treatment.

Others include the defiant deodorant dodger, openly proud of what oozes from their every pore, and no intention of toning down the whiff for anyone.

Then there's the instantly offended type, straight on the defensive and protesting too much. They might have been blissfully unaware of anything amiss until told about it, but they will carry on causing the same bad smell regardless, while blaming anyone with the nerve to mention it while holding their nose.

I suspect Lombro2 will appreciate the analogy, even though Herlock will no doubt think it's unintelligible gibberish - while continuing to protest too much.

[caz]

Nor am I impressed by muddled thinking.

If Barrett and Graham co-wrote the diary, which was certainly the case in my view, why would Barrett have needed to tell his wife where he came up with the idea of Maybrick referring to his wife as 'The Whore"?

He didn't need to, of course. You're adding a silly complication that need not detain us.

The point is that Harris and Gray thought it was an odd coincidence that Barrett was marketing a diary that he claimed came from Devereux, and lo and behold, Devereux had the same revolting quirk as 'Maybrick' supposedly did.

I think most rational people realize that fiction writers come up ideas from their own personal experiences. It's hardly earthshattering.

It's an interesting oddity, but it's hardly the reason I'm convinced the diary is a modern fake connected to Goldie Street.

I can readily imagine that if someone unearthed documentation that Maybrick really did call his wife "The Whore," the diary's supporters would be shouting it from the rooftops.

But Devereux doing so? A yawn.

I could have sworn that Palmer thought he had detected a woman's work in the diary, and believed that Mike may only have contributed the odd - very odd - line of doggerel to Anne's story.

Every day is a school day.

[caz]

I note that Palmer left off the rest of my post:

'I don't recall seeing the argument repeated, so it's probably a dead issue by now, like Devereux. But RJ Palmer brought it up originally because he thought he could see a woman's hand in the diary's composition and presumably felt the need to explain the presence of two words that women often find deeply offensive when used in any context.'

Does he now only see Mike's hand in every 'whore' and 'bitch' in the diary, which Anne obediently copied out without comment?

If so, what changed?

[rjpalmer]

I could have sworn that Palmer thought he had detected a woman's work in the diary, and believed that Mike may only have contributed the odd - very odd - line of doggerel to Anne's story.

Absolutely. I think Martin Fido was closest to the truth when he theorized that Graham wrote the text. But by Anne's own admission (thanks, Tom!) her plan was to 'manipulate' Barrett into writing a 'story' about Maybrick so she could hardly have wanted Barrett to offer no contribution whatsoever.

It's never as difficult as you try to make it, Caroline. Why you do these stunts in anyone's guess.

Nor have I ever suggested that Mike didn't contribute. I once estimated that Barrett's contribution could have amounted to roughly 10%--which is nothing more than a guess---it could have been 20% or 50%---and I know you know this because you've referred to it repeatedly. So why are you now misrepresenting my views? Is that a nice way to behave?

Increasingly, the whole schtick around here is to pretend that people have said something that they haven't said and then invent imaginary complications that make no sense.

No matter how much anyone wants to squirm and invent straw arguments, the odd coincidence remains. The diarist disparagingly refers to his wife as 'The Whore,' and according to Harris and Gray, Devereux had the same quirk. I wasn't there, but I trust Harris. He could be wrong, but he wasn't a liar.

No; you're the only one who suggested that Barrett ran home and told Anne his wife about Devereux's habit. Why would he?

It's a purely invented objection. No one has suggested it but you. I guess there are worse hobbies.

[rjpalmer]

Does he now only see Mike's hand in every 'whore' and 'bitch' in the diary, which Anne obediently copied out without comment?

Are you back to promoting the truly weird idea that Anne was too squeamish to use the word whore or bitch? The same woman who yelled "bullshit" when the newspaper man Harold Brough interviewed her?

Or was too much of a puritan to write about a man who abuses women?

If she wrote the diary, she depicted Jack the Ripper. Why wouldn't she depict him as a vile person?

Have you never read a work of fiction by a woman where one of the characters uses bad language?

How on earth does that reflect on the author??! She's creating a character!

Your ability to convince yourself--and Lombro--that these are legitimate objections is truly bizarre.

Have a nice day.

[caz]

It was the very fact that you were replying to a post I addressed to Erobitha that I was complaining about, Caz. The fact that you edited it so as not to reply to certain parts only made it worse. I've no idea why you think it's ok to edit a post which you're replying to, even if it wasn't aimed at you. I wouldn't mind so much but you also edit posts which I address to you, like this very post in which you've failed to reproduce the quote I was complaining that you'd edited out in the first place!

I’ll remind you of that quote attributed to Keith Skinner which you don't seem to have read properly:

"Those who believe Anne is lying, or that she has been bought in by Paul must include me in the plot as well".

You haven't dealt with the fact of Keith having said that if anyone believed Anne was lying he must be "in the plot" too. He now must believe Anne was lying. You certainly do. So what does that say about Keith's judgement? That's what I was asking Erobitha in the second quote you've excised from my post:

Doesn't that give you pause when it comes to weighing up Keith's views about Anne? He seems to have believed just about everything she told him, didn't he? And he was wrong to do so, wasn't he?"

If you're going to reply to posts not addressed to you, surely you should deal with the entirety of the post, and not snip out bits that are too difficult for you to reply to, which this one must be considering you've now ducked it twice.

And what Keith is reported to have said was "bought in" not "bought". So the fact that you used the word "buying" doesn't cover it because "bought in" (whatever that means) isn't the same as being bought, otherwise the word "in" is redundant. In any case, your post said, "This is all about Feldman" but that is false. It was stated by Keith to be about those who believed Anne was lying. The possibility of her having been "bought in" by Feldman was only an alternative possibility.

So your statement that, "If Keith had detected him [Feldman] using such tactics and done nothing about it, he'd have been in on the 'plot'" is not correct and doesn't meet the point. By his own words, he would have been in on the plot if Anne was lying. She was lying, wasn't she? So why wasn't Keith in on the plot? That's the point. He was clearly saying that Anne was not lying and he was staking his own reputation on that fact, wasn't he? Not a good look.

Thank you for agreeing that "Erobitha's argument may be subtly different". Yes, indeed.

You don't seem to be able to follow your own argument. You say:

"Mike wasn't specifically looking for a big black leather bound undated diary if - drum roll - he already had one, or had seen it down the pub"

Of course he was - drum roll - under your own argument, because he surely wanted to see if a Scouse scally could have obtained one. What the hell would have been the purpose of seeking something different if he wanted to know if the scally was tricking him? He would obviously have needed to know if the scally could have obtained something similar to what he was holding in his hand. It seems like you're confusing yourself. I mean, what are you talking about when you say "something that would have been just as good for anyone faking Jack the Ripper's diary for a laugh"? How would that have helped him? For in that case, it would have been something that the scally had not been able to obtain because it was being offered for sale by Martin Earl.

And in saying that Mike wanted to see "an actual Victorian diary for comparison purposes" or "to judge whether the one he saw down the pub on the day he called Doreen looked significantly old or significantly more modern" you seem to be forgetting the requirement for a minimum of 20 blank pages which makes a nonsense of this theory. If that's what he was wanting to do, he didn't need a diary with 20 blank pages, did he? But if the blank pages requirement is supposed to have had something to do with seeing if the scally was tricking him, that scally would have needed a minimum of 63 blank pages to create the diary, wouldn't he?

You must know that this doesn't make any sense. You cannot possibly be putting this forward in good faith. Why would you want to put forward such a dreadful argument Caz?

As for Mike trying other sources, I think I already said that he'd instructed a professional book dealer to find him a diary and he would understandably have been content to discover what Earl could obtain rather than spending time and effort looking to source one elsewhere. I mean, he wouldn't want to have bought something that wasn't ideal only to be told that Earl had found something perfect, perhaps a totally blank 1888 diary. That would have been a waste of money which he didn't even appear to have. It does make sense that Mike wanted to wait and see what Earl could come up with before doing anything further.

Finally, I'm at a loss to know why you and Ike keep talking about receipts. What I do know is that you've ignored the 29 January 1995 recording in which it is clear that Mike thought he'd come down to London in March 1991 (correcting himself from 1990). If Mike worked out by July 1995 that the red diary had been purchased in 1992 then well done him (and we already knew he'd worked it out by April 1999) but it shows that the dates in the January1995 affidavit were in error. Reading your posts in the archives I noted you always seemed to want to talk about the dates in the affidavit but now I give you the opportunity, you have not one word to say about the affidavit and just keep mentioning receipts. As I've already said, the O&L receipt is likely to have been destroyed in 1992. The only reason for thinking it might not have been is what Mike Barrett said, but he's a liar and a con artist so why aren't you ignoring it?

I'll deal with this one when I next get time to visit the boards, but you took two quotes, attributed to Keith by Shirley in her book, out of their context and isolated them for your own ends, and then accused me of doing something similar. I couldn't speak for Keith at the time, and you didn't give your readers enough context for anyone to know if Shirley had added more context herself, or was even quoting him verbatim, both accurately and in full, so it would have been unfair to expect me - or Erobitha - to give you full answers regarding both quotes, when you may only have provided half the information needed to do so. In future, selective quoting of someone's presumed position is best avoided if you expect anyone to comment fully on that person's actual position.

[caz]

Are you back to promoting the truly weird idea that Anne was too squeamish to use the word whore or bitch? The same woman who yelled "bullshit" when the newspaper man Harold Brough interviewed her?

Or was too much of a puritan to write about a man who abuses women?

If she wrote the diary, she depicted Jack the Ripper. Why wouldn't she depict him as a vile person?

Have you never read a work of fiction by a woman where one of the characters uses bad language?

How on earth does that reflect on the author??! She's creating a character!

Your ability to convince yourself--and Lombro--that these are legitimate objections is truly bizarre.

Have a nice day.

Talk about answering a simple question with more dodges than the Artful Dodger and more questions - all irrelevant to whether Palmer sees a woman's hand in the story or a man's. His argument was that it would have been Mike who knew what Tony used to call his ex wife, leading to the same terms of abuse being repeated over and over in the diary.

Of course Anne could have used those words herself, but if she did it had bugger all to do with Tony using the same words about the former Mrs Devereux if Anne didn't know that and Mike didn't tell her. Either way, any connection would have had to come via Mike initially.

[rjpalmer]

Talk about answering a simple question with more dodges than the Artful Dodger and more questions - all irrelevant to whether Palmer sees a woman's hand in the story or a man's. His argument was that it would have been Mike who knew what Tony used to call his ex wife, leading to the same terms of abuse being repeated over and over in the diary.

Of course Anne could have used those words herself, but if she did it had bugger all to do with Tony using the same words about the former Mrs Devereux if Anne didn't know that and Mike didn't tell her. Either way, any connection would have had to come via Mike initially.

I think you're losing your marbles, if not your temper.

If a couple is writing a piece of fiction about a bad person and his wife, why couldn't ONE OF THEM suggest that he refers to her as "The Whore" based on his own lived experience?

Why would the other co-author need to know the real source of it? And for that matter, why couldn't Barrett have told Anne about Tony in a candid moment? He wouldn't have to say that he approved of Devereux's nastiness.

You have a weird habit of inventing imaginary objections with no relationship to reality.

I think I've seen enough of your nonsense for one week, and it's only Monday morning.

[caz]

Absolutely. I think Martin Fido was closest to the truth when he theorized that Graham wrote the text. But by Anne's own admission (thanks, Tom!) her plan was to 'manipulate' Barrett into writing a 'story' about Maybrick so she could hardly have wanted Barrett to offer no contribution whatsoever.

But that was said by Anne in the context of giving the diary secretly to Mike via Devereux, which Palmer believes was a lie. So Anne would have been lying about her plan to 'manipulate' Mike, using the diary that had come from her father.

It's never as difficult as you try to make it, Caroline. Why you do these stunts in anyone's guess.

My stunts? Palmer's the one manipulating one of Anne's lies to make it work for him as a truth.

No matter how much anyone wants to squirm and invent straw arguments, the odd coincidence remains. The diarist disparagingly refers to his wife as 'The Whore,' and according to Harris and Gray, Devereux had the same quirk. I wasn't there, but I trust Harris. He could be wrong, but he wasn't a liar.

No; you're the only one who suggested that Barrett ran home and told Anne his wife about Devereux's habit. Why would he?

It's a purely invented objection. No one has suggested it but you. I guess there are worse hobbies.

Harris wasn't claiming the authorship as Mike's or Anne's, was he?

And it wasn't my claim, that Anne was the storyteller in chief, and it's not my claim that she was manipulated into copying the 'same quirk' Devereux had into the diary over and over again in her disguised handwriting, whether she ever knew about it or not.

Make it make sense!

[Herlock Sholmes]

I can see why you think bringing up our own life experiences is 'best avoided', when challenging any argument made, which relies on speculation about Mike's or Anne's, but thankfully you don't get to decide that for others.



Others, besides Lombro2, have remarked on this away from the boards without my saying a word - all of them male. So claiming to detect personal emotions like 'really upset' or 'angry' in my posts is very much 'best avoided', if you don't want your posts to come over like the worst of Messrs Palmer and Awesome combined [Awesome, sounds a bit like... oh, never mind] to both male and female readers alike. You are meant to be clinically assessing the meat of the post - you know, in relation to the facts, the evidence and the context - not making inappropriate and ill-advised remarks about the poster's emotional state or stamina, if you don't want to be judged accordingly. Claiming emotions for others, which they are not feeling and won't ever be provoked into feeling by reading your posts, can look like attempted gaslighting.

As I previously wrote, you shouldn't be taking lessons in mind reading and mind control from Palmer, who thinks I'm also easily 'intimidated' and prone to 'hysteria' - typically conditions attributed to females, and often by males who set out to intimidate them and then imagine the hysteria that follows.

So neither of you seem able to tolerate your arguments being trampled into the dust by a female of the species or a male you consider to be of inferior intellect.

Better now?

Didn't think so.

Yes, Caz, it's probably best avoided to bring your life into a discussion on these boards because it brings you personally into a debate, thus opening up aspects of your life and personality for discussion, which clearly risks you being offended by that. But if you don't want to take my advice, you certainly don't have to.

I doubt anyone cares what you've been told by unidentified people off the boards, whether they are male or female (not that I can see what their gender has to do with anything). Does it not occur to you that you probably mix with people of like mind who will tell you what they think you want to hear?

If you have any complaints about any posts I've made please identify them specifically or don't waste my time. Commenting on someone appearing angry is in no way a comment involving gender. From what I can see, this is another classic example of the pot attempting to call the kettle black. It’s a tactic. Perhaps you might want to think about the impression your own posts create before criticising others.

And if I ever see any of my arguments being "trampled into the dust" I'll be sure to let you know.

[rjpalmer]

My stunts? Palmer's the one manipulating one of Anne's lies to make it work for him as a truth.

Whoa there. Hypocrisy much?

We've seen you refer to Mike's tall tale of pestering Tony Devereux on the phone, changing it to Mike pestering Eddie Lyons.

So, you are fully aware of the concept of someone telling disguised truths when telling a lie. You just don't like it when anyone else suggests it--especially me.

Anne Graham made a blatant contradiction.

She denied helping Mike write the diary, telling Shirley Harrison--and others--that the idea of her collaborating with Mike in 1991-1992 was laughable ("absolute rubbish") because their marriage was on the rocks.

Harrison, American Connection p. 293:




Yet, Dear Readers, on another occasion, during what Ike calls the "tea and cake" conference, Anne Graham defends her barmy story of giving the diary to Tony Devereux, telling Keith that she and Mike WERE going to write a story together. Commonly known as "collaboration."

AG: You see, I had to be very subtle in my approach in as much that I couldn’t say to him, we don’t get it published, we write a story around it. I just sort of give it to him bit by bit to try and make him understand it’s come from his idea, it was his idea. But I couldn’t do it! I had managed to manipulate him every, years, so many things, I just [inaudible] this one [laughs ruefully].

So which was it? The idea of their collaboration was "absolute rubbish" or she planned on manipulating Barrett into a writing a story together?

The woman couldn't keep her story straight, but no one seems to have noticed.

Of course, I think the idea that Anne gave the diary to Tony is a complete lie. But I also think that, in giving her rational to Keith and Shirley, she is describing the creation of the Maybrick text in a roundabout way.

If you don't accept it, that's your prerogative. I offer insight, but I realize not everyone is in the market for that commodity.

[Lombro2]

Thanks for the deep insight into something we consider complete bull crap.

[rjpalmer]

Of course, you do. You also believe there is a connection between Sasquatch and UFO sightings.

If some of the diary crowd weren't so damned disagreeable, I might find their support for the hoax almost endearing. It really doesn't matter that a few souls still believe in the Flat Earth or the Cottingley Fairies or a spaceship crashed in Roswell. I'm no Melvin Harris. I don't think the world will end if a few people believe in fairy stories.

I draw the line at deliberate fraud, though. People shouldn't create bogus historical artifacts, and other people should have enough sense not to promote them.

I do try to remind myself that the diary supporters are victims. Or at least once upon a time they were. They were bamboozled by the hoaxers, but these days they are mainly fooled by themselves.

The only person that should really be answering questions still lives in Liverpool. Aloof and unconcerned. Instead, we indulge in the surrogate activity of bashing each other's brains in.