New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[rjpalmer]

I notice you haven't commented on Shirley Harrison's statement, Ike.

"I hope you all have better luck like than I did with... Oathwaite...."

Doesn't really inspire confidence, does it?

[rjpalmer]

Hello again, Ike.

I'm not sure how that extra word creeped in. The correct quote is:

"I hope you all have better luck than I did with...Oathwaite."

One detail that if often ignored is that it is something of misnomer to call it "Mike's affidavit."

It might be more accurate to call it Alan Gray's affidavit (written for and signed by Mike) which would explain some of the glitches and contradictions.

Of course, on hearing this you'll hold the yellow card high in the air and announce an infraction.

[Iconoclast]

One detail that if often ignored is that it is something of misnomer to call it "Mike's affidavit." It might be more accurate to call it Alan Gray's affidavit (written for and signed by Mike) which would explain some of the glitches and contradictions. Of course, on hearing this you'll hold the yellow card high in the air and announce an infraction.

I'm afraid that one would not even need to go to a VAR review - it would be a straight red and you'd be off the pitch. One of the things I learned during my self-imposed absence from the first team is that too much is said on the Casebook which is fundamentally reliant upon inference. Herlock's amazing Lord Orsam impersonations have reminded me that we must be ultra-circumspect in our claims: only the evidence really makes any difference. One can infer from the evidence, but not too far, nor too wide, nor too long. Keep the ball on the pitch but - yes - spray it around a bit, get it down the flanks then play through the channels, regain possession with the high press and defend what you've got with the low block. But keep the ball on the pitch, lads and lasses! Oh, and don't mark Big Dan Burn from Blyth with a 5-feet-zero lightweight midfield maestro - it's always going to end in tears. Yes, tears of joy!

If you accept that 'Mike's affidavit' is actually Alan Gray's affidavit then you mustn't call it evidence because it is - for obvious reasons - littered with errors. How did Big Dan Burn score that towering opening goal on the hallowed, mainly unfortunate turf? Well, it depends if you ask him or if you ask the hapless Mac Allister who - in a surreal moment of optimism - thought no-one could score from beyond the penalty spot. If Alan Gray struggled to get Mike to write his own affidavit and resorted to writing one from what he felt Mike had said previously then it is no wonder that what we got was a confused smorgasbord of inconsistency and downright error and absolutely no-one should be calling it evidence and no-one should be building new castles on such dry sand.

Ike

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thank goodness - for the pursuit and defence of the truth - the breweries have run dry and I have finally sobered-up ...

And not a day too soon, it appears, as someone has to point out that you cannot say categorically that 'they checked the wrong dates' unless you are seeking to mislead people.

The bit that you rely on is where Barrett claimed in his January 5, 1995 affidavit:


We know the red diary was ordered in March 1992 (and paid for in May 1992) so you want everyone to believe that the only possibility based upon Barrett's January 5, 1995 affidavit is that he misremembered the events of 1992 for two years earlier.

But you intentionally (because you have an angle to spin here) disregard the bit that buggers up your argument:


Tony Devereux sadly died on August 8, 1991, as well you know. So Barrett could not have been remembering 1992 at all when he went to O&L so the red diary could not have been required for the 1992 'hoax' you cling so desperately to. Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise which totally buggers up your argument that the purchase of the red diary is evidence that he was seeking a vehicle for a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper in the run-up to the only O&L auction that month (the 31st). He already had the scrapbook, didn't he (according to Barrett)? It had already been completed and there was a delay in operations due to the unexpected passing of co-conspirator Tony on August 8, 1991. The dates can all be ignored. All we need to understand is that the affidavit you place such faith in clearly states the following timeline: the red diary is ordered, it is too small, so Barrett gets the scrapbook from an O&L auction, the scrapbook is completed, Tony D sadly dies, and you and your lot are jolly rogered up the arse by man's inability so far to travel back and forth through time.

The red diary theory doesn't work, does it? Unless you argue that Tony D was still alive in March 1992 which can obviously be firmly contradicted by the sad evidence. And you can't believe some bits of the affidavit which you like and which work for the angle you're aiming for here and simultaneously skip over the awkward bits which make the 'key' bit of your theory simply incorrect, can you? I'm sure you can't. After all, as I understand it, your sort are almost bunged-up with all that integrity inside you.

Nope, 'they' didn't check the wrong dates. They checked the right dates - the ones the affidavit tell us must be the true ones. Ha ha.

It's all in black and white, Roger - Howe your team's strategy falls apart before it ever got started. Puts me in mind of a game of football I saw recently ...

Hi Ike,

With regard to your statement: "Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise", I don't think it's "very clear" at all. It may be your interpretation, and perhaps it is what Alan Gray thought had occurred, but it's by no means clear that Michael Barrett was saying this.

I assume you're referring to the sentence:

"During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990."

Taken on its own, this could simply be a reference to the writing of the diary's text, in draft form, during 1991, prior to the purchase of the photograph album, while Tony was alive. Different from Anne (if she was the scribe) writing out the same text in 1992.

It seems to me that it's only because the previous sentence says that "Anne and I started to write the diary in all it took us 11 days" that you are linking the writing done while Tony was alive with the writing that Mike said was being done by him and Anne in 11 days. So it could just be Gray having got muddled by what Mike was had told him and mixing up "drafting" with "writing" when he typed Mike's affidavit. It's just not a good enough basis for saying "the red diary theory doesn't work".