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

[Herlock Sholmes]

Fair points Roger. Perhaps my choice of words like 'ridicule' wasn't the best but but Ike's post was unnecessary. Especially when I haven't resorted to comments like that.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock,

If I might inject a note of civility into a conversation that has gone badly off-the-rails, I wouldn't say that I'm motivated by a desire to 'debunk and ridicule' the Battlecrease provenance but, rather, to try to understand why people believe in it. To weigh, if I can, whether it is plausible or believable or if the 'evidence' is what some claim it to be.

If, from Ike's point of view, his opponents are motivated by a desire to 'ridicule' his ideas, it is perhaps understandable why he would be hesitant to agree to a free exchange of ideas and information. He is blood and bone and nerve endings like the rest of us. Perhaps Ike would violently disagree with the following, but in thinking it over, it seems to me that the excerpt he posted from the Feldman/TMW conversation is so damaging to the diary that I find it a little difficult to believe there is anything worse that he is deliberately withholding, so I'm hesitant to accuse him of any nefarious motivations. I don't know if there is any point in continuing, but I would hope that we could lower the temperature if we do continue. Good night to all.

[Lombro2]

The Murphys had plausible deniability. It’s called an antique store.

Nothing real. Nothing new.
Nothing else to do?
When you think you still have to solve the case?
Really! What an absolute disgrace!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Smug twat.

I see that having been caught bang to rights you're reduced, for the second time today, to childish and indefensible personal abuse, clearly against the forum rules.

What brought you down to this level?

Well we can see that your excuse of yesterday for not posting more of the 1994 Feldman/TMW transcript, namely that "I have it from Keith so it's his call not mine", has been exposed as the hollow excuse that everyone suspected it was.

The truth is that you've always been at liberty to post whatever you want from the transcript, without any restrictions placed on you by Keith Skinner, yet you pretended that this is not the case, until I forced the truth out of you. As Roger has already observed, "you leave the impression that you can't do so without permission. But then, in practically the same breath, you admit that you have no restrictions."

Now we have the inevitable tantrum and insults, as you show your true colours, when you would surely be better served posting the evidence to support your own claim that Martin-Wright was a "witness" to something important which shows that the diary came out of Battlecrease. But it all seems to be falling apart. The story is full of holes and contradictions, different people say different things and their accounts are withheld and kept top secret to avoid Roger and myself (and others) ridiculing and debunking them.

What an absolute disgrace.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have “Plausible Deniability”.

You have “Implausible (even for Michael Barrett) Stupidity”.

“I’m going to make a Ripper diary forgery. Let me ask a guy to put an ad out for an unused or partially used Victorian diary. I hope they all look the same.”

So how would acquiring an unused or partially used Victorian diary created by Mr John Smith of Oxford in 1886 have enabled Mike to plausibly deny being in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary?

[Lombro2]

I have “Plausible Deniability”.

You have “Implausible (even for Michael Barrett) Stupidity”.

“I’m going to make a Ripper diary forgery. Let me ask a guy to put an ad out for an unused or partially used Victorian diary. I hope they all look the same.”

[Iconoclast]

I'm confused, Ike. You seem to be saying that you've taken it upon yourself to post, without permission, "useful snippets" of information Keith has given you but feel that you're not allowed to post more than those "useful snippets" because you think you need permission from Keith to do so, even though he's never told you that need permission to post anything he's sent you, but you aren't ever going to ask Keith for that permission. Have I got that right?

It sounds kind of barmy to me.

So, are you still going to send me Keith's email address? Now that you're saying that Keith didn't give you permission to post that partial extract of the Feldman/TMW telephone call and hasn't refused permission for you to post it in its entirety, because it's entirely your decision not to do so, which has nothing to do with Keith Skinner, what is it that you want me to ask him?

Is it that you want me to email him, as you suggested, asking him what terrible secrets he's keeping from everyone? Or should I just ask him, at your suggestion, to send me the full transcript from the 2004 telephone conversation and his full note of what Feldman told him in 2004 for me to post on the forum?

Interesting, btw, that you have nothing to say about how James Johnston misled Orsam in 2018 but that's entirely up to you, although I would have thought that one way to ensure that it doesn't look like you're covering something further up would be to simply post the information in your possession which doesn't appear to be secret or confidential in any way.

Smug twat.

[Herlock Sholmes]

He received a stolen diary. He called an agent. He spent a month covering his tracks. The rest is history.

That's what I call simple.

Your solution is like an Italian translation. Ten times longer than it should be in English.


"Hey Anne. Can you help me write a fake diary about a domestic abuser who is Jack the Ripper."

"Sure no problem, Mike. Maybe fiction will be a better outlet for you and for us."

"He spent a month covering his tracks". There lieth the problem. The search for a Victorian diary with blank pages is explained away as "covering his tracks" when it cannot conceivably have been doing that and when I've asked you to explain it, you just can't do.

More desperation.

[Lombro2]

He received a stolen diary. He called an agent. He spent a month covering his tracks. The rest is history.

That's what I call simple.

Your solution is like an Italian translation. Ten times longer than it should be in English.


"Hey Anne. Can you help me write a fake diary about a domestic abuser who is Jack the Ripper."

"Sure no problem, Mike. Maybe fiction will be a better outlet for you and for us."

[Lombro2]

A turd on the street is a simple thing too. It doesn't mean it doesn't stink.

Stink. Stank. Schtonk.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I couldn't give a ****, mate.



Those who have given me material (primarily Keith) have never once put restrictions on what I can post but I have made it clear consistently that I don't consider it to be my material to post (bar useful snippets). I'm not a ******* postman, ask him for stuff yourself.

I have absolutely no idea whether I sought permission from Keith to post a fragment of the discussion with TMW. It's perfectly possible that I just posted it off my own back. But all of this material is Keith's so ask him for it, not me, if you want the full Monty. That applies to everything I've got so includes the 2004 account. I have given my reasons for not posting complete material that is not mine to post on at least two occasions relatively recently but you just ignore everything you don't want to consider and rinse and repeat back to whatever position you actually want to adopt.

I also have absolutely no interest in cunningly dodging your questions nor in generously answering them.

Honestly, being such a smug twat is never going to encourage anyone to assist you in any way.

I'm confused, Ike. You seem to be saying that you've taken it upon yourself to post, without permission, "useful snippets" of information Keith has given you but feel that you're not allowed to post more than those "useful snippets" because you think you need permission from Keith to do so, even though he's never told you that need permission to post anything he's sent you, but you aren't ever going to ask Keith for that permission. Have I got that right?

It sounds kind of barmy to me.

So, are you still going to send me Keith's email address? Now that you're saying that Keith didn't give you permission to post that partial extract of the Feldman/TMW telephone call and hasn't refused permission for you to post it in its entirety, because it's entirely your decision not to do so, which has nothing to do with Keith Skinner, what is it that you want me to ask him?

Is it that you want me to email him, as you suggested, asking him what terrible secrets he's keeping from everyone? Or should I just ask him, at your suggestion, to send me the full transcript from the 2004 telephone conversation and his full note of what Feldman told him in 2004 for me to post on the forum?

Interesting, btw, that you have nothing to say about how James Johnston misled Orsam in 2018 but that's entirely up to you, although I would have thought that one way to ensure that it doesn't look like you're covering something further up would be to simply post the information in your possession which doesn't appear to be secret or confidential in any way.

[rjpalmer]

I find your response rather strange, Ike.

If I fervently believed something important had occurred, but I posted partial information that raised more questions than answers among my audience, why wouldn't I want to post additional information that might help clarify my beliefs and set the readers' minds at ease?

Instead of simply doing so, you leave the impression that you can't do so without permission. But then, in practically the same breath, you admit that you have no restrictions.

It's all very strange. In theory, there might be a way to reconcile the problematic nature of Mr. TMW's two differing accounts, but you don't exhibit any sense of urgency in attempting to resolve it.

Which--rightly or wrongly--leaves this reader with the impression that you can't reconcile the differing accounts.

But if you don't care, you don't care, so that's the end of it, I guess. If you don't care, then I certainly don't.

[Iconoclast]

I might add that you quite cunningly haven't answered my question.

I couldn't give a ****, mate.

"Are you saying Keith Skinner gave you permission to post a partial extract of the Feldman/TMW telephone call but refused permission to post it in its entirety?"

It's a very simple one, Ike. For which the answer is within your personal knowledge. Do you now want to have a crack at answering it?

Those who have given me material (primarily Keith) have never once put restrictions on what I can post but I have made it clear consistently that I don't consider it to be my material to post (bar useful snippets). I'm not a ******* postman, ask him for stuff yourself.

I have absolutely no idea whether I sought permission from Keith to post a fragment of the discussion with TMW. It's perfectly possible that I just posted it off my own back. But all of this material is Keith's so ask him for it, not me, if you want the full Monty. That applies to everything I've got so includes the 2004 account. I have given my reasons for not posting complete material that is not mine to post on at least two occasions relatively recently but you just ignore everything you don't want to consider and rinse and repeat back to whatever position you actually want to adopt.

I also have absolutely no interest in cunningly dodging your questions nor in generously answering them.

Honestly, being such a smug twat is never going to encourage anyone to assist you in any way.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Do you want me to PM you his email and you can ask him yourself what terrible secrets he's keeping from everyone?

Well it's funny you ask me that, Ike, because I've been looking back in the archives and see that on January 31st 2018, in the thread "Acquiring a Victorian Diary", when David Orsam was pressing James Johnston hard about the Battlecrease theory, Orsam pointed out that, in the published version of Tim Martin-Wright's story, it was only stated that "a diary" had been offered to him, nothing being mentioned of it having been a diary of Jack the Ripper (#800).

In his reply on the same day (#805), James Johnston said:

"Tim Martin-Wright was referring to 'Jack the Ripper's Diary' from as early as June 1994 - the first time that he contacted Feldman. That is documented."

That strikes me as a highly misleading statement because we now know that while Tim Martin-Wright did refer to "Jack the Ripper's Diary, he said that Dodgson had been shown a copy of that diary in a pub, something completely at odds with the published version of the story. It seems to me that Johnston must have deliberately withheld that critical piece of information from Orsam which only emerged in 2024 when you published an extract of a transcript of the 1994 call, six years after the Orsam/Johnston exchange, in an attempt to prove to Roger that Alan Davies had mentioned Jack the Ripper's diary (even though Alan Davies wasn't referred to by Martin-Wright in the quote you posted).

This demonstrates the importance of the full evidence being presented, not selective and potentially misleading extracts.

Johnston went on to say in 2018 that:

"According to the account which he gave to KS in 2004 - the document that was being offered to him (via Alan Dodgson) was being touted as 'Jack the Ripper's diary'. "

Are you in possession of the account Martin-Wright gave to KS in 2004? If so, can we see it?

I can't see much point in writing to him Ike if he's either going to refuse to provide any information to me or if he's going to provide information but tell me it has been kept confidential. It seems to make far more sense for you to write to him to ask for his permission to post the information openly so that everyone can see it.

I might add that you quite cunningly haven't answered my question. You just deflected. Here's my question:

"Are you saying Keith Skinner gave you permission to post a partial extract of the Feldman/TMW telephone call but refused permission to post it in its entirety?"

It's a very simple one, Ike. For which the answer is within your personal knowledge. Do you now want to have a crack at answering it?

[Iconoclast]

Are you saying Keith Skinner gave you permission to post a partial extract of the Feldman/TMW telephone call but refused permission to post it in its entirety?

How extraordinary! What is it that you think he's trying to hide?

Do you want me to PM you his email and you can ask him yourself what terrible secrets he's keeping from everyone?