Lord Orsam's Blog

[Caroline Brown]

Talking (bragging) of his posting of an example Anne Barratt’s handwriting, Lord O claims:

So no-one could possibly have put that particular issue to bed 'years ago'. The data wasn't available years ago. Now that it is available, we can see that there are uncanny similarities between Anne's handwriting and the Diary author's handwriting as foretold by Mike Barrett more than ten years ago in the pub.

Presumably, then, Anne Barratt learned to write in order to furnish his Lordship with a sample of her handwriting. Either that or everything she had previously written had been destroyed.

I hope I’m not misunderstanding this.

No - it's just His Orsamness talking out of his bottom as usual, and using his royal 'we'. We can see 'uncanny similarities', can we? My Aunt Fanny. Funny how nobody else noticed any, including those who believed Mike was heavily involved.

IIRC, the forensic handwriting examiner, Sue Iremonger, who concluded that the diary handwriting did not match James Maybrick's will [although she saw a similarity between Michael Maybrick's handwriting and the will], was also given samples of the Barretts' handwriting for comparison purposes, way back in the early 1990s. If she noticed any similarities between Anne's and the diary, she didn't think to mention it. Nor did she voice any suspicions that Anne's sample was not in her natural handwriting, or that she could have penned the diary using a disguised hand. She would have been on the lookout for any such indications, for obvious reasons.

It seems that Lord O is claiming to know more about forensic handwriting examination than the professionals in that field. If only his woeful ignorance on the subject of how to win friends and influence people didn't get in the way, he might attract a few more believers in 'La Plume de Ma Graham' than his current crop of earwigs with learning 'differences'.

Love,

Caz
X

[R. J. Palmer]

I don't think he was a 'top myself' denier as such, but it must have pained him to see you drill another hole in the modern Barrett hoax theory.

Does it "drill a hole"?

The last time I checked, Caz, time is linear and chronological.

Gary's research does indeed punch a hole in Dr. Kate Flint's claim that 'top myself' didn't come into common usage until the 1950s, but how does that tell us anything whatsoever about Barrett's involvement in the creation of the text?

It might seem unfair, but anachronisms only work in one direction. Anything written or spoken in 1877 could still be written or spoken in 1992. So no, it really doesn't punch any hole in the 'theory' (I'll be generous) that Barrett was involved in the creation of the Diary. I think even Barrett would have been smart enough not to refer to Timex watches and Culture Club when writing a "Victorian" typescript.

As for Lord Orsam's blog, I haven't read all of it yet, but I am grateful that he responded to your response to me, which saves me the trouble.

The idea that Graham was too smart to have helped Barrett is an odd suggestion. Anyone who has read their local newspaper for three or four decades must surely be aware that the courts are frequently filled with cases of otherwise intelligent husbands or wives (or 'significant others') who have become entangled in the mad schemes of their spouses. I don't know how true it was--I assume Keith Skinner would have attempted to verify it --but Anne Graham claimed to have been an abused wife--both emotionally and physically--so that, alone, would mean that all bets are off. But as Lord O rightly points out in his discussion of our little exchange, when AG's actions are written down in stark objectivity, it is very hard not to conclude that she was right there with Barrett, pushing the Diary forward. Her phone call with Doreen Montgomery in April 1992, discussing the safety of the diary from fire or theft, is an interesting one--an incident that I had forgotten about. Frankly, part of me would like to think of Anne as merely a wallflower, shrinking away from Barrett's madness, but the stark facts in the timeline seem to suggest otherwise...

It also strikes me that AG's entry into/exit from the Diary saga's front and center seems to be intimately connected to Paul Feldman's needs and wishes. She must have mentioned 'Paul' a half a dozen times during her bizarre Radio Merseyside interview. And every time the interviewer asked her a difficult question she giggled like a schoolgirl and said she couldn't rationalize her behavior. Of all the spokespeople for the diary, she strikes me as both the weakest link and the strangest. It's little wonder she decided to cancel the Cloak and Dagger event; she wouldn't have been able to stand up to questioning from a skeptical audience. It's clear even in Feldman's book that she needed a circle of wagon trains around her.

[Kattrup]

We can see 'uncanny similarities', can we? My Aunt Fanny.

I don't know about your aunt, but David Orsam has shown many examples of similarities, so perhaps take a gander at those?

Like the snippet he posted, the word "things" in diary and in Anne Barrett's writing, attached below.


Is there a similarity, do you think? I definitely see a similarity, but perhaps it does not qualify as uncanny.

Funny how nobody else noticed any, including those who believed Mike was heavily involved.

Funny how you forget David Orsam's point, namely that no-one else has bothered or been able to compare diary writing with AB's normal (i.e. undisguised) handwriting. No samples of AB's normal handwriting were provided back in the day, so no comparison was possible.

IIRC, the forensic handwriting examiner, Sue Iremonger, who concluded that the diary handwriting did not match James Maybrick's will [although she saw a similarity between Michael Maybrick's handwriting and the will], was also given samples of the Barretts' handwriting for comparison purposes, way back in the early 1990s. If she noticed any similarities between Anne's and the diary, she didn't think to mention it. Nor did she voice any suspicions that Anne's sample was not in her natural handwriting, or that she could have penned the diary using a disguised hand. She would have been on the lookout for any such indications, for obvious reasons.

Why would she have been on the lookout for that and how do you know that she was? Perhaps you can post the relevant section of her report where she states this? Because you seem awfully certain, I mean. Again, David Orsam's point is that if Anne Barrett wrote the diary, she might not have provided a sample of her normal handwriting to check against. You then assume that Sue Iremonger would have considered this and been on the lookout etc. because,I don't know, you for no reason think this would have been detectable - but do you have anything to back up this wishful thinking? Was Iremonger asked to consider it or was she asked to compare diary handwriting to other handwritings?

It seems that Lord O is claiming to know more about forensic handwriting examination than the professionals in that field. If only his woeful ignorance on the subject of how to win friends and influence people didn't get in the way, he might attract a few more believers in 'La Plume de Ma Graham' than his current crop of earwigs with learning 'differences'.

I doubt David Orsam is claming that and fail to see any such indication. Could you point out where it seems so? As I recall his postings, he normally has great respect for professionals and in fact seems to adhere more to them than you do, i.e. actually reading and understanding their reports.
It seems that you are again wilfully missing the point, just attacking David Orsam as a waste of space (would that be a decent description of you, do you think?) in lieu of countering his arguments (because you cannot). Disappointing, but entirely expected. It is unfortunate, that Paul Begg is mistaken in his belief that you pursue an answer to the "mystery" of the diary. It is clear to me that you don't - you seek a continuance, to prolong forever the discussion and pretence.

[Kattrup]

What you had posted was a link to Orsam’s blog. Are you really telling me that you didn’t realise that that was what I was referring to? The word ‘shortcomings’ was a clue - you had said they had been exposed in the blog. I was asking ‘whose shortcomings?’ I obviously meant those exposed in the blog.

Since the blog was a tsunami of ‘childish word vomit’ (to use his Lordship’s delightful phrase) directed at several individuals, I was interested to know which attacks in particular you were referring to that were causing so much joy to you and dismay to others.

Miraculously, you seem to have made your way through my impenetrable prose, worked out what I actually meant and provided a crystal clear answer, ‘Primarily Mike Hawley.

Many thanks for that. That’s just the question I must have been clumsily trying to ask: who was the ‘primary’ target of his Lordship’s bile.

Hi Gary


Responding as I did was a way of being precise while distancing myself from the hostile tone of yours and other's posts about David Orsam.


It was not, in fact, me who exposed or claimed to expose any shortcomings, so I just wanted to point that out. I feared that had I begun to mention that you, among others, were singled out, a discussion might ensue about Cowan's sugarworks or whatever.



I find the remarks made about David Orsam by those he repeatedly points out as incapable or unwilling (i.e. dishonest) to be generally too much to engage in. He's stupid, he's a waste of space, he surrounds himself with fawning acolytes and earwigs with learning difficulties.



Remarks made because people have no counterarguments, they know it but are not actually engaged in trying to further their own or our collective understanding.


So I don't really want to engage in that sort of thing, but of course sometimes I cannot help myself, like my recent response to CM.


I find David Orsam's arguments persuasive since they are well-thought out and well-researched. He actually reads things and does not rely on gut feelings or fanciful imagination. Ripperology needs more of his kind of researcher. That is why I posted about an unexpectedly early update to his blog, which is the subject of this thread.

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Gary


Responding as I did was a way of being precise while distancing myself from the hostile tone of yours and other's posts about David Orsam.


It was not, in fact, me who exposed or claimed to expose any shortcomings, so I just wanted to point that out. I feared that had I begun to mention that you, among others, were singled out, a discussion might ensue about Cowan's sugarworks or whatever.



I find the remarks made about David Orsam by those he repeatedly points out as incapable or unwilling (i.e. dishonest) to be generally too much to engage in. He's stupid, he's a waste of space, he surrounds himself with fawning acolytes and earwigs with learning difficulties.



Remarks made because people have no counterarguments, they know it but are not actually engaged in trying to further their own or our collective understanding.


So I don't really want to engage in that sort of thing, but of course sometimes I cannot help myself, like my recent response to CM.


I find David Orsam's arguments persuasive since they are well-thought out and well-researched. He actually reads things and does not rely on gut feelings or fanciful imagination. Ripperology needs more of his kind of researcher. That is why I posted about an unexpectedly early update to his blog, which is the subject of this thread.

How would you describe David’s theory that Eyewitness confused the names Cohen and Schwartz because they were both Jewish names? Does that not come under the heading of fanciful imagination?

I think it does. Very much so.

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Gary


Responding as I did was a way of being precise while distancing myself from the hostile tone of yours and other's posts about David Orsam.


It was not, in fact, me who exposed or claimed to expose any shortcomings, so I just wanted to point that out. I feared that had I begun to mention that you, among others, were singled out, a discussion might ensue about Cowan's sugarworks or whatever.



I find the remarks made about David Orsam by those he repeatedly points out as incapable or unwilling (i.e. dishonest) to be generally too much to engage in. He's stupid, he's a waste of space, he surrounds himself with fawning acolytes and earwigs with learning difficulties.



Remarks made because people have no counterarguments, they know it but are not actually engaged in trying to further their own or our collective understanding.


So I don't really want to engage in that sort of thing, but of course sometimes I cannot help myself, like my recent response to CM.


I find David Orsam's arguments persuasive since they are well-thought out and well-researched. He actually reads things and does not rely on gut feelings or fanciful imagination. Ripperology needs more of his kind of researcher. That is why I posted about an unexpectedly early update to his blog, which is the subject of this thread.

Incidentally, Kattrup, if you had wanted to distance yourself from hostile tones, perhaps you shouldn’t have so gleefully posted a link to Orsam’s hostile ranting. How did you expect people to respond? The manner in which you introduced the link came across as shit-stirring. But at the time I was unaware of your aversion to hostile tones.

[Gary Barnett]

Hostile Tony

Hostile Tony took a comment by Caz:

Too bad nobody - diary 'defender' or
'debunker' - has yet been able to answer one very simple question, which could have put the thing to bed years ago: whose handwriting is it in?

and scrupulously tore it apart, doubtless casting Caz into a deep pit of dismay. Look away Caz:

Within a few hours of her post, the question that no-one in the entire word was supposedly able to answer was answered by Abby Normal who suggested that the handwriting of the Diary might be 'Annes deliberately (not so good) disguised handwriting?'.
That must have shocked Caroline Morris. Having said that 'nobody' was able to provide an answer to the question 'whose handwriting is it in?', a forum member immediately gave her the likely identity of that person!!!


Can you see what Hostile Tony does there? To ridicule Caz, he pretends that he doesn’t understand the meaning of her post. He pretends she meant that no-one ‘in the entire world’ was able to provide any kind of an answer to the question. Is that what Caz really meant? Did she really believe that I couldn’t have posted, ‘The Diary was in Queen Victoria’s handwriting’? I don’t think so, I think she meant that no-one had yet provided convincing evidence of whose handwriting it was. And Hostile Tony knew that was what she meant.

So what did HT achieve by this cheap trick? Beyond a swelling of joy in the bosoms of his acolytes, sweet Fanny Adams.

[Gary Barnett]

Hostile Tony took a comment by Caz:

Too bad nobody - diary 'defender' or
'debunker' - has yet been able to answer one very simple question, which could have put the thing to bed years ago: whose handwriting is it in?

and scrupulously tore it apart, doubtless casting Caz into a deep pit of dismay. Look away Caz:

Within a few hours of her post, the question that no-one in the entire word was supposedly able to answer was answered by Abby Normal who suggested that the handwriting of the Diary might be 'Annes deliberately (not so good) disguised handwriting?'.
That must have shocked Caroline Morris. Having said that 'nobody' was able to provide an answer to the question 'whose handwriting is it in?', a forum member immediately gave her the likely identity of that person!!!


Can you see what Hostile Tony does there? To ridicule Caz, he pretends that he doesn’t understand the meaning of her post. He pretends she meant that no-one ‘in the entire world’ was able to provide any kind of an answer to the question. Is that what Caz really meant? Did she really believe that I couldn’t have posted, ‘The Diary was in Queen Victoria’s handwriting’? I don’t think so, I think she meant that no-one had yet provided convincing evidence of whose handwriting it was. And Hostile Tony knew that was what she meant.

So what did HT achieve by this cheap trick? Beyond a swelling of joy in the bosoms of his acolytes, sweet Fanny Adams.

He further demolishes Caz’s comment (or so he and his acolytes joyfully imagine) by pointing out that it hadn’t been possible to determine whose handwriting it was until he 😇 had obtained a sample of Anne’s handwriting. Of course, it presumably had been possible to obtain an example of Ann’s handwriting and compare it to that in the diary in Caz’s words ‘years ago’. So yet again, it’s yet another futile exercise in verbose ‘hostility’.

[Gary Barnett]

When I pulled Hostile Tony up on his silly ‘McCarthy’ theory, he wriggled and wriggled like a worm on a hook trying to obscure his errors.

He claimed the man’s real name was McCarthy. I pointed out that in subsequent criminal records McCarthy was shown to be one of his aliases.

At first he denied he had ever said that McCarthy was his real name. Later he went on and on about it, to such an extent that I gave up reading, let alone responding, to his nonsense. He took that to mean that he had proved me wrong and I had slunk off to ‘lick my wounds’.

Ditto with my comment about (a) Charles Lechmere not giving his address at the inquest of the child he killed.

If you took all the sneering hostility out of his blog, it might actually be readable. And people might respond to it in a non-hostile way.

[Caroline Brown]

Gary's research does indeed punch a hole in Dr. Kate Flint's claim that 'top myself' didn't come into common usage until the 1950s, but how does that tell us anything whatsoever about Barrett's involvement in the creation of the text?

Hi R.J,

What it tells us is that we should not have relied on a lecturer in Victorian literature to conclude, on the basis of a phrase like 'top myself', that the diary could not have been written until after 1958. She was out by a massive 80 years.

It might seem unfair, but anachronisms only work in one direction. Anything written or spoken in 1877 could still be written or spoken in 1992. So no, it really doesn't punch any hole in the 'theory' (I'll be generous) that Barrett was involved in the creation of the Diary. I think even Barrett would have been smart enough not to refer to Timex watches and Culture Club when writing a "Victorian" typescript.

You 'think'? I trust you are not judging how smart Mike was by what's in the diary, so how are you judging his capabilities? In the early days of the 21st century, he sent Robert Smith an extract of a novel he was hoping to get published. My daughter could have done a better job at the age of seven. It was tripe, but worse than that, he based it, like the diary, on a linking of two infamous historical events. The problem was, the two events Mike chose were the murder of Mary Kelly and the terror attacks on the Twin Towers, because he thought they happened on the same date - 9/11. Just let that sink in for a bit.

If Mike had tried to create the Maybrick diary, and Anne had been insane enough to go along with, or encourage such an ambition, she'd have had to rip up any of his efforts and start from scratch, taking over and doing all the work for him, not just 'tidying' it up. It would have become her baby, with zero input from Mike. An immaculate conception and an exercise in cutting his balls off. Yet Martin Fido once expressed his surprise that Anne would have allowed such a poorly written piece of work to go out.

As for Lord Orsam's blog, I haven't read all of it yet, but I am grateful that he responded to your response to me, which saves me the trouble.

I'm grateful too, because I have no intention of reading his unsolicited responses to other people's conversations. It is quite clear that he is not a 'people' person, so why would I consult his views on the Barretts, when he has never met them, and can have no idea what made them tick? They are pawns on his chess board, to be moved around to suit some barking mad theory on how and when the diary came into being. You may as well consult my cat on the subject of nuclear physics. At least a "don't know, don't care" twitch of his tail, and a disdainful glare, would be an honest response, and he wouldn't be trying to fool you with knowledge he could not possibly purr-sess. Orsam thought he was a man outstanding in various fields, including human psychology, and look where that got him. He is now out standing in his own bloggy field, talking to the wind and impressing the occasional turnip.

The idea that Graham was too smart to have helped Barrett is an odd suggestion.

Not half as odd as the insistence that she must have done, and therefore she can't be smart enough to have known better.

Her phone call with Doreen Montgomery in April 1992, discussing the safety of the diary from fire or theft, is an interesting one--an incident that I had forgotten about. Frankly, part of me would like to think of Anne as merely a wallflower, shrinking away from Barrett's madness, but the stark facts in the timeline seem to suggest otherwise...

I should think her main worry was how Mike really came into possession of the diary, and whether its rightful owner would miss it and demand its safe return. Why would she suddenly be concerned about fire or theft if it had been knocking about in their home since the early summer of 1991? And I'm not going anywhere near the outlandish notion that it was knocked up over 11 days in early April and then had to be put in a bank vault for its own protection. Mike's madness was one thing, but Anne was merely mad at the situation he had put them in.

It also strikes me that AG's entry into/exit from the Diary saga's front and center seems to be intimately connected to Paul Feldman's needs and wishes. She must have mentioned 'Paul' a half a dozen times during her bizarre Radio Merseyside interview. And every time the interviewer asked her a difficult question she giggled like a schoolgirl and said she couldn't rationalize her behavior. Of all the spokespeople for the diary, she strikes me as both the weakest link and the strangest. It's little wonder she decided to cancel the Cloak and Dagger event; she wouldn't have been able to stand up to questioning from a skeptical audience. It's clear even in Feldman's book that she needed a circle of wagon trains around her.

On that we are in complete agreement.

My own suspicion is that Anne has been waging a personal battle since March/April 1992 to try and hide the fact that she knew damned well Mike didn't get the diary from his dead pal back in 1991. It must have been a blessed relief to her that nothing came of the rumours about a theft from Battlecrease. After that, she was able to reel Feldy in with her 'in the family' story, while maintaining Mike's 'dead pal' story, which he probably gave Doreen before Anne had a chance to discuss it with him.

A question: if the diary project was being discussed in Goldie Street as far back as 1991, and Tony Devereux hadn't gone on to die unexpectedly before it was created, what had they planned to say about where it came from? It must have been even less satisfactory, if that's possible, than Mike's 'dead pal' story. So what on earth was their plan A, if plan B was so hopelessly inadequate? And how smart could Anne have been, if she had had any say at all in the matter? It strikes me that she felt like a fish out of water from the start of the whole sorry business, and certainly not the controlling force behind it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Robert Linford]

This has to be one of the most bizarre threads I've seen. I've no idea what it's about, or who Hostile Tone is, but can only imagine he's something to do with Hissing Sid or Captain Beaky.

[Gary Barnett]

The little I did see of Tony’s interaction with Pierre on Casebook was rather unedifying. It put me in mind of a school bully roughing up a smaller kid in the playground with the bully’s attendant hyenas occasionally sticking the boot in while under their hero’s protection.

[Gary Barnett]

I see Tony thinks of this as ‘my thread’. Yeah, Tone, it’s your thread in the way that The Great Dictator was Hitler’s movie.

It’s probably time I focussed on something more pleasant than all this. There must be a programme about coronavirus on the telly.

[Kattrup]

Incidentally, Kattrup, if you had wanted to distance yourself from hostile tones, perhaps you shouldn’t have so gleefully posted a link to Orsam’s hostile ranting. How did you expect people to respond? The manner in which you introduced the link came across as shit-stirring. But at the time I was unaware of your aversion to hostile tones.

Hi Gary

I honestly don’t think it was very gleefully done, and I fail to see it as shitstirring.

I posted: “ Updated, to the joy of most and dismay of some, I'm sure“


When Abby Normal posted:

tomorrow. should be quite interesting. as usual.

was that gleeful shitstirring as well?

Really, if my post came across that way, it was unintentional. I have a hard time seeing it but this is the internet, so nuances are difficult.

As for your other questions I don’t presently have time to respond in full and I’m not sure it would serve any purpose. Schwartz/Cohen, fanciful since they sound nothing alike but not imagination since there was such a refinery, so it was a suggestion. As you’ve stated yourself, someone made a mistake about Cohen and this was David’s theory of reconstructing it - I don’t think he claimed that it must be correct, but something to consider.

As for the CM comment, yes over the top. agree that less sneering hostility would enhance his arguments but as said, I understand the frustration that I imagine is behind it: repeatedly pointing out basic and possibly dishonest mistakes by the same people all the time, people who don’t want to listen and who are also not taken sufficiently to task but rather remain respected ripperologists.

Anyway I’m getting bogged down arguing all these things. My point was just that I like David Orsam’s meticulous research.

[R. J. Palmer]

Hi Caz. The long and short of it is this. What are our opinions and insights other than the sum of our own personal experiences? I've been around a lot of dysfunctional people in my life--enablers, alcoholics, etc.---and have observed a lot of dysfunctional relationships.

As such, I find it very easy to believe that a sensible woman might get sucked into helping a crazy drunk create a hoax, probably assuming (wrongly) that the project would eventually collapse due to its own lack of merit.

But it didn't collapse--and so here we be. I don't think it is any more complex than that.

You think I'm entirely wrong--which is fine. I'm I.R.A. and you're in the Orange Lodge, and that's not likely to change. Frankly, the only real interest I have left in the Diary is strictly a psychological problem. Was Anne more like Lady Macbeth, or more like Patty Hearst? I can't answer the question, but suspect it is the latter. The woman is an enigma and I doubt she will ever "tell all," so at least in that I share your frustration. Cheers.

PS. I thought 'Hostile Tone' was a rap singer out of Brooklyn. Or maybe that was 'Tone Hostile.' Orsam is a little like an old prof of mine. He kept you on your toes and made you think, but he also had a fondness for birch.