Lord Orsam's Blog

[Gary Barnett]

Actually, I was half tempted yesterday to ask why you thought David's point about the reference to an "aunt" was nonsense.


Certainly you can argue that it's not absolute proof that the diary is a fake, because the real James Maybrick might have referred to a godmother loosely as an "aunt". That's true in a sense. But it's a bit meaningless, because it's also true that there can't really be any absolute proof of anything outside pure mathematics. People will always be able to think of a way around any evidence that the Diary is a fake, if the desire is strong enough. Even if it's only that the real Maybrick was so high on drugs that the details of what he wrote - and even the hand he wrote it in - aren't relevant.


But given that everyone here seems to agree that the Diary is at least probably a fake, why do you call this point about the aunt "nonsense"? Hasn't David identified the source from which that reference to the "aunt" originated - if the Diary is a fake - and hasn't he demonstrated by reference to the information that was based on, that that source was in error? In the light of that, is it reasonable to argue that the reference to an "aunt" wasn't an error made by the faker?

That’s it, Chris. My comments about that and ‘one-off’ were made in the context of the search for a single irrefutable etc point that proves the diary is a modern fake. There isn’t one as far as I’m aware. David believes he has ‘proved’ things that he hasn’t - that’s nonsensical.

[Gary Barnett]

Incidentally, the context I was referring to was the entirety of Stevens’ inquest testimony. Who knows, he may have described himself as McCarthy’s employee. Or explained how he, a mere labourer a few years before and subsequently a lowly employee of his brother-in-law, had managed to accumulate sufficient wealth to become a substantial property owner - of at least 12 letting properties generating 5/6s a week in rental income.

Did they have a lottery in those days?

[Caroline Brown]

Not a squeak since then and the only 'aunt nonsense' has come from others, such as Caroline Morris' false claim that Margaret Baillie was Florence's cousin (still uncorrected by her).

It wasn't my false claim. Both Bernard Ryan and Trevor Christie describe Margaret Baillie and John Baillie Knight in their books as 'distant cousins' of Florence Maybrick, and Bongo Barrett is alleged to have taken his material for the diary text straight from Ryan.

It is clear that Florence made arrangements to stay with Margaret Baillie, and did so. What is not clear is whether she also tended to her sick Godmother during the same week, which is what she told Dr Hopper after the event was the main purpose for her visit to London. This was a lie. Her main purpose was to see her lover, which naturally she kept to herself.

I don't have any real aunts, but I did have several "Aunties" who were in fact my maternal first cousins once removed, and one who was my mother's closest friend. Oddly enough, when writing the many thank-you letters for birthday and Christmas presents over the years, I can't remember ever starting off with: "Dear first cousin once removed Sybil/Katie/Joan" or "Dear Mum's best friend Stella". They were always "Auntie" to me and my brothers.

Poor old David, never having had the 'pleasure' of writing a thank-you letter to an aunt who wasn't an aunt, for the crisp ten shilling note enclosed in his birthday cards. I expect mummy gave him plenty of jelly and ice cream and cuddles to make up for it - but not too much.

I've just been reading a book about Fred Shipman, whose mother worshipped him, but left him early for the next world. According to several professional psychologists, this robbed him of the emotional maturity needed as an adult and probably contributed to his God complex and obsessive need for respect. He had to believe he was intellectually superior to everyone around him, and needed all his patients to worship him like his mummy had.

Love,

Caz
X

[Gary Barnett]

It wasn't my false claim. Both Bernard Ryan and Trevor Christie describe Margaret Baillie and John Baillie Knight in their books as 'distant cousins' of Florence Maybrick, and Bongo Barrett is alleged to have taken his material for the diary text straight from Ryan.

I don't have any real aunts, but I did have several "Aunties" who were in fact my maternal first cousins once removed, and one who was my mother's closest friend. Oddly enough, when writing the many thank-you letters for birthday and Christmas presents over the years, I can't remember ever starting off with: "Dear first cousin once removed Sybil/Katie/Joan" or "Dear Mum's best friend Stella". They were always "Auntie" to me and my brothers.

Poor old David, never having had the 'pleasure' of writing a thank-you letter to an aunt who wasn't an aunt, for the crisp ten shilling note enclosed in his birthday cards. I expect mummy gave him plenty of jelly and ice cream and cuddles to make up for it - but not too much.

I've just been reading a book about Fred Shipman, whose mother worshipped him, but left him early for the next world. According to several professional psychologists, this robbed him of the emotional maturity needed as an adult and probably contributed to his God complex and obsessive need for respect. He had to believe he was intellectually superior to everyone around him, and needed all his patients to worship him like his mummy had.

Love,

Caz
X

Caz,

You had better make it clear that you are responding to the post below or the Carrot will be accusing you of surreptitiously reading his b-log and implying that he has been sending you unsolicited emails.

Gary

[Gary Barnett]

That?s it, Chris. My comments about that and ?one-off? were made in the context of the search for a single irrefutable etc point that proves the diary is a modern fake. There isn?t one as far as I?m aware. David believes he has ?proved? things that he hasn?t - that?s nonsensical.

I seem to remember David tantalising us for weeks with the promise of a death blow for the authenticity of the diary before pointing out the aunt ‘mistake’. This, he announced, doing his best impression of the Great Oz from behind his curtain, ‘is another incontrovertible, unequivocal and undeniable mistake made by the forger which proves the Diary to be a forgery’.

It was immediately pointed out to him that there was a long-standing use of the word aunt to describe unrelated female family friends, older female cousins etc.

[Chris Phillips]

That?s it, Chris. My comments about that and ?one-off? were made in the context of the search for a single irrefutable etc point that proves the diary is a modern fake. There isn?t one as far as I?m aware. David believes he has ?proved? things that he hasn?t - that?s nonsensical.

Well, obviously he doesn't claim that proves it to be a modern fake, because the mistaken reference to an "aunt" was made at Florence's trial, and would have been accessible to a Victorian faker.


But apparently when you dismiss it as the "aunt nonsense" you mean in the very specific sense that it doesn't absolutely prove the Diary to be a fake.


But it seem you accept that if it is a fake - which apparently everyone here does accept - then David has identified the source for the reference in the Diary, and he has demonstrated by reference to the information that was based on, that the source was in error. In which case there can be no dispute that this was an error copied by the faker.


My point is that I don't think you are being fair or objective to dismiss this piece of research as "nonsense", solely on the basis that it doesn't absolutely prove the diary to be a fake. Because there is no piece of evidence that would absolutely prove that. Because someone would always come back with a possible alternative explanation, just as they always have done before.

[Gary Barnett]

?And, indeed, to the question, 'Is it really horseshit crazy'? the answer can only be YES it is horseshit crazy; it's an embarrassing, pathetic and laughable attempt to try and sustain an argument that the diary might have been written in 1888 and 1889 when that is simply impossible because the expression 'one off instance', which every intelligent, rational and indeed sentient person will understand and appreciate has nothing to do with immature horses, and means nothing more and nothing less than a unique or unrepeated instance, is a twentieth century one.?

Apparently I?m a diary defender, desperately trying to sustain the argument that the diary is genuine. I?m glad the Carrot pointed that out. I wouldn?t have known otherwise. I was mistakenly under the impression that I thought the diary was a modern forgery - I even imagined I was on record as saying so on more than one occasion.

What I thought I was doing was to question the comprehensiveness of David?s incontrovertible ?one-off? proof research by highlighting a Victorian use of the term that he seems to have missed. (Missed or deliberately omitted are the two possibilities.)

But then this is the man who told us (I?m paraphrasing) that no Victorian could possibly have thought of using a manufacturing term for a unique item to describe a person or an event. They certainly ?broke the mould? when they made David.

[Gary Barnett]

Well, obviously he doesn't claim that proves it to be a modern fake, because the mistaken reference to an "aunt" was made at Florence's trial, and would have been accessible to a Victorian faker.


But apparently when you dismiss it as the "aunt nonsense" you mean in the very specific sense that it doesn't absolutely prove the Diary to be a fake.


But it seem you accept that if it is a fake - which apparently everyone here does accept - then David has identified the source for the reference in the Diary, and he has demonstrated by reference to the information that was based on, that the source was in error. In which case there can be no dispute that this was an error copied by the faker.


My point is that I don't think you are being fair or objective to dismiss this piece of research as "nonsense", solely on the basis that it doesn't absolutely prove the diary to be a fake. Because there is no piece of evidence that would absolutely prove that. Because someone would always come back with a possible alternative explanation, just as they always have done before.

More pedantry?

If the diarist had written, ‘After I’d watched Steptoe and Son on the telly last night, I took a draught of my medicine’, that would be ‘incontrovertible’. Referring to someone’s godmother as their aunt isn’t.

You can see the difference, I suppose?

[Gary Barnett]

The equine x-off is a compound adjective in use in the Victorian era that could easily have been used to described a person or a person’s activity. Think ‘coltish’. David either missed it or concealed it.

He has been outed for doing so, and he is ‘horseshit crazy’ about it.

(50 words)

[Chris Phillips]

More pedantry?

If the diarist had written, ?After I?d watched Steptoe and Son on the telly last night, I took a draught of my medicine?, that would be ?incontrovertible?. Referring to someone?s godmother as their aunt isn?t.

You can see the difference, I suppose?

I think the point I'm making should be clear enough, to be honest.

[Gary Barnett]

I think the point I'm making should be clear enough, to be honest.

But you are wrong. The ‘nonsense’ I am referring to is the idea that the use of aunt is a death blow to the authenticity of the diary. It clearly isn’t. Steptoe clearly would be.

[Gary Barnett]

I think the point I'm making should be clear enough, to be honest.

Chris,

I’m starting to detect double standards/bias here. You’re taking me to task over the perceived inappropriateness of my use of the word ‘nonsense’ and yet so far you haven’t criticised a single droplet of Orsam’s word vomit (his description of another researcher’s reasoned arguments).

Gary

[Gary Barnett]

A post on the Horse and Hound forum.

Coltish Behaviour?
Thread starterleanne1122 Start date22 May 2014
22 May 2014#1
L
leanne1122
New User
Hi,
I'm just looking for abit of advice about my soon to be 1 year old colt, he has very suddenly become naughty. I've had him since he was around 5 and a half months old, for the first couple of months he had to live in his stable and was good for the most part. He would go through phases of being naughty, nipping and bounding around the stable with me inside. But this was all sorted once he had been turned out and he released some of his energy. From around the middle of april he has been living out in a winter paddock on hay and has been golden for the last month. On sunday evening he got moved into a new summer field, this field has really long grass, literally up to my knees. On monday when i entered the field he went to nip me and then when i shouted 'no' he reared at me. Later that day he pawed at me and reared at me a further two times while in the field. I didn't back down or move, i simply shouted 'no' at him and he ran away from me. Wednesday he got brought out of his field and taken down onto the yard, he was good, had a groom etc. When it came to time to lead him back to his field he was fine for about 3/4 of the way. He then tried to nip me, when i shouted 'no' he continued to rear multiple times at me and in the end i ended up walking him round for around an hour until he calmed down. Repeating the same process over and over again. Once he had walked round calmly he got put back into his field. He's biting everything in site, leadrope, headcollars and wooden posts. He isn't putting his ears back or anything so I'm not sure if he thinks I'm there to play? In no way do I think this behaviour is acceptable, I'm not there for him to play with. He seems to become more and more frustrated the more times he is shouted at. Today my boyfriend went into the field and he reared at him and was pawing, at which point I gave him a whip to hold out infront of him to not let the colt get too close. This worked amazingly well, he stayed at a distance and later we went up to him. Ensuring that we went into his space and not the other way around, at this point there was no biting or rearing. He is not fed any hard feed and this sudden change in personality has only been since he got put onto the rich spring grass. Could this just be a phase like the others? He is still whole and will have to stay this way intill autumn as summer is in full swing at the moment. I'm just looking for people's opinions on what this is and if anybody has had the same type of experience? Any help is appreciated, thank you

[Gary Barnett]

If x-off was a classification of colts in common use in the 19th century, and coltish behaviour is as described below, is it absolutely ‘horseshit crazy’ to wonder whether a violent Victorian might try to excuse his behaviour by describing it as a ‘one-off instance’? Or to wonder why David didn’t raise this in his ‘one-off’ masterwork?

I don’t think so, but I do think the idea that the use of the word aunt by the barrister (can’t recall his name) is incontrovertible proof that the diary is a fake is nonsense.

I must leave it there. David seems to believe that the fact that people don’t respond to his multi-word responses is that he has proved them wrong and won the argument. It isn’t, it’s because most people don’t have the time or the desperate need to have the last word (or thousands of words) that he clearly has.

[Caroline Brown]

Caz,

You had better make it clear that you are responding to the post below or the Carrot will be accusing you of surreptitiously reading his b-log and implying that he has been sending you unsolicited emails.

Gary

WTF??

I never implied any such thing, Gary, but if he chooses to infer it from what I wrote, it would just be more evidence of his self importance. I don't believe he has ever sent me an email and would imagine it's not his style to make house calls in any case.

The only stuff I have read, relating to his work, is what is posted on the message boards or sent to me by well meaning individuals.

Love,

Caz
X