Lord Orsam's Blog

[Abby Normal]

Of course, but I try to be polite and respond when someone asks me something

I don’t think that is an accurate statement; how much of a match is needed and what would you match against while being aware that the forger would have attempted a different handwriting to his/her own? I believe David Orsam posted examples pointing clearly to similarities with Anne Barrett’s writing.


I think again you’re a bit fluffy on the details. The hitler diaries are actually instructive in this matter. Did they “quickly” land the forger in jail? Not really. The Maybrick diary was exposed as a forgery much sooner.


I think you must mean the total absence of proof that the Maybrick diary was NOT created by a Barrett etc

The problem is, there’s plenty of proof for the diary’s origins. You just choose to discard it. For instance, you repeatedly state that one cannot use Barrett’s own statements. A selective narrowing of available evidence.

So anyway. The diary has no provenance, the man who brought it to public attention admitted to forging it and we know he wanted to buy a blank Victorian diary. In addition to all the other points about phrases, spellings, ink etc all being compatible with early-1990s forgery. The only mystery here is why anyone would want to keep such a nonmystery going.

Hi Kattrup
bingo-those really are the only three things one needs to know to have the "proof" barrett forged it-The provenance begins and ends with him, he legally confessed to hoaxing it and he tried to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages. the last one really should be the final nail in the coffin to this silly thing.

[Caroline Brown]

I don’t think that is an accurate statement; how much of a match is needed and what would you match against while being aware that the forger would have attempted a different handwriting to his/her own? I believe David Orsam posted examples pointing clearly to similarities with Anne Barrett’s writing.

Could you point me in the direction of an actual handwriting expert who has seen Orsam's examples and confirmed there are clear similarities? I'm not one of those who, like Michael Gove, has "had enough of experts", because they favour a differing non-expert position or opinion. The danger is always that some people will see what they want to see, when their beliefs are based on the highly selective statements of a known liar, whether his initials are MB or BJ.

I think again you’re a bit fluffy on the details. The hitler diaries are actually instructive in this matter. Did they “quickly” land the forger in jail? Not really. The Maybrick diary was exposed as a forgery much sooner.

A bit 'fluffy' on the details? Compared with the artful dodger who penned the Maybrick diary, the forger of the hitler diaries would have been landed in jail 'quickly' if it had only happened yesterday! How do you imagine your Maybrick forger has managed to avoid a positive identification for this long? How do you explain the lack of enthusiasm on the part of modern hoax believers for thoroughly exposing the person responsible, with irrefutable forensic evidence that would have forced the ripper diary to share the same fate as the hitler diaries? They were dropped universally like a hot brick - not a single exception on the planet.

I think you must mean the total absence of proof that the Maybrick diary was NOT created by a Barrett etc

But that's not how it works. If you want to accuse a Barrett, or a Maybrick, or any other named individual, the onus is on you to provide the proof, not on me or anyone else to prove the suspect innocent. It's no different, whether we are dealing with a suspect for the ripper murders or a suspected forger.

The problem is, there’s plenty of proof for the diary’s origins. You just choose to discard it. For instance, you repeatedly state that one cannot use Barrett’s own statements. A selective narrowing of available evidence.

Proof? I wished. I can't discard proof I have yet to be given. If you put Barrett's own statements in a category anywhere remotely in the vicinity of the term 'proof', I can see the problem all right, and it's not mine.

Love,

Caz
X

[Caroline Brown]

To expand on this 'proof' business, as it relates to Mike Barrett's track record for lies and contradictions in the absence of proof...

During 1994, Mike saw his world collapsing around him. His wife had left him and was ending the marriage, having taken herself and their adored daughter away from him. To add insult to injury, Anne then accused him of sleeping with a new girlfriend, which he hotly denied. It was in that atmosphere that Mike went to the papers to claim he had written the diary himself. His solicitor quickly issued a retraction. The claim was clearly nonsense, and everyone, including the Barretts, knew it.

A month later, Anne scored a hat trick by taking the diary away from Mike too, by claiming it had been in her family all along. If Mike didn't get it from Tony Devereux, her claim was clearly nonsense, and the Barretts knew it.

Now Mike was no fool. He was painfully aware of his own shortcomings when it came to writing anything out by hand. He was barely literate, with terrible spelling, and had never mastered the difference between upper and lower case letters and where to use them in a sentence. That might help to explain why he couldn't do joined-up writing either. It must be a tad difficult when each word is a mixture of capitals and small letters.

While he could have fooled the general public with his initial claim to have penned the diary himself, he must have known it would never wash with anyone who knew the truth about his distinct lack of ability in that department - let alone that the diary was obviously not in his handwriting. Mike dearly wanted to portray himself as a writer of some talent, but secretly he knew he just wasn't cut out for it. It is an understatement that Anne had to "tidy up" anything he ever wanted published.

So it was a natural progression for Mike to change his original claim and say it was actually Anne who had written out the diary. Not only did it serve to rubbish her own 'in the family' story and to punish her for leaving him; it was the only way he could still hope to shaft Paul Feldman by claiming the diary was a fake. If nobody believed Mike was capable of penning the diary, who else was he going to accuse but Anne? Whether she was capable of doing it, and successfully disguising her usual handwriting over the 63 pages, to get it done in eleven days [or evenings, assuming she was working]; or whether she is the kind of person who would ever have contemplated doing such a thing, never seems to matter to the modern hoax believers. Mike said she did it; she is clearly more literate than he was; therefore she did it. It may sound logical on the surface, but it's very far from 'proof'. If Anne wrote the diary, why didn't Mike tell the truth with his first forgery claim? He already had it in for her by then. So why did he tell a stupid lie that he couldn't hope to sustain for more than five minutes?

I do see some parallels with the most confident Lechmere theorists. They think they have 'proved' that Lechmere is the strongest suspect for the Bucks Row murder, and therefore most probably the ripper. He was the first known person at the scene of a very recent crime; he alerted Robert Paul to his discovery; he allegedly lied to a policeman about it; he came forward using an alias and was apparently able to avoid giving his address at the inquest. So he fooled everyone there at the time, but today's amateur sleuths can see right through him.

The most confident modern hoax theorists think it has been 'proved' that the diary was not created until April 1992, and that Mike or Anne must have forged it, albeit in a handwriting that in nobody's imagination resembled Maybrick's. Mike was the first known person with access to the questioned document; he alerted Doreen Montgomery to the fact, using an alias; he lied to everyone about it whenever his lips moved. While it was clear to all that Mike's mysterious 'windfall' would need robust and painstaking scrutiny, nobody who examined the diary in those early days saw the least reason to suspect it had only just been written, let alone by Mike himself or his missus. But today's armchair sleuths claim an ability to see right through both of them. Well good luck with that.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Lord Orsam speaks

tomorrow. should be quite interesting. as usual.

[Kattrup]

tomorrow. should be quite interesting. as usual.

Yes, always a Good read. Too bad the diary defenders seem uninterested in studying the diary hoax.

[Howard Brown]

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

https://www.orsam.co.uk/sayslordorsam.htm

A Man in a Pub

https://www.orsam.co.uk/amaninapub.htm

[Caroline Brown]

Too bad the diary defenders seem uninterested in studying the diary hoax.

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?

So the very best of luck to anyone still spending their leisure time 'studying the diary hoax', while failing to come up with a remotely credible answer to that question. It looks like they'll be studying it for the rest of their days, and that's quite sad, isn't it?

Love,

Caz
X

[Paul Butler]

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

https://www.orsam.co.uk/sayslordorsam.htm

A Man in a Pub
https://www.orsam.co.uk/amaninapub.htm

I bet he's a a laugh a minute at parties. I lost the will to live before reading half of his latest unconvincing diatribe.

[R. J. Palmer]

Lord Orsam may have finally supplied Keith Skinner with an answer as to why Barrett never produced the auction slip. Keith inadvertently scared the living hell out of Mike by mentioning a policeman in the audience.

Somewhat ironically, there really was an Ann(e) Graham living in the Liverpool area in the early 1970s that was diagnosed with a personality disorder, but the age appears to be wrong for it to have been the future Mrs. B.

[Paul Butler]

Hi Kattrup
bingo-those really are the only three things one needs to know to have the "proof" barrett forged it-The provenance begins and ends with him, he legally confessed to hoaxing it and he tried to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages. the last one really should be the final nail in the coffin to this silly thing.

No. He legally, if that's the right expression and I'm sure it isn't, denied writing it to his dying day as far as I'm aware. Talk about being selective in choice of what to believe and what to discard.

There are two things almost certain about the diary. James Maybrick didn't write it and neither did Mike Barrett. Why the need to pin it on the latter in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary beats me.

That's the power of the diary I suppose. People still seem willing to take leave of their senses and believe any old nonsense that fits their particular prejudices.

[Abby Normal]

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?

So the very best of luck to anyone still spending their leisure time 'studying the diary hoax', while failing to come up with a remotely credible answer to that question. It looks like they'll be studying it for the rest of their days, and that's quite sad, isn't it?

Love,

Caz
X

hi Caz
Annes deliberately (not so good) disguised handwriting?

[Abby Normal]

No. He legally, if that's the right expression and I'm sure it isn't, denied writing it to his dying day as far as I'm aware. Talk about being selective in choice of what to believe and what to discard.

There are two things almost certain about the diary. James Maybrick didn't write it and neither did Mike Barrett. Why the need to pin it on the latter in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary beats me.

That's the power of the diary I suppose. People still seem willing to take leave of their senses and believe any old nonsense that fits their particular prejudices.

Ive lost the will to live reading posts like this.

"Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enters Here" is the sign that should be on the entrance to all Diary threads lol.

but at least we have researchers like Lord O to get to the truth of the matter.

[Paul Butler]

Ive lost the will to live reading posts like this.

"Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enters Here" is the sign that should be on the entrance to all Diary threads lol.

but at least we have researchers like Lord O to get to the truth of the matter.

So why bother with it if it's all so hopeless?

Why post selective and inaccurate statements to support your prejudices?

All they do is prolong your self inflicted agony.

Better leave it to us nutters who are less easily pleased.

[Paul Butler]

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?

So the very best of luck to anyone still spending their leisure time 'studying the diary hoax', while failing to come up with a remotely credible answer to that question. It looks like they'll be studying it for the rest of their days, and that's quite sad, isn't it?

Love,

Caz
X

Whilst you're here Caroline, I've been meaning to run this one past you for ages.

On page three of the diary text we get "If Smith should find this then I am done before my campaign begins." A strange little walk on part for George Smith, the book keeper at Maybrick and Co. Why worry about Smith in particular finding out what he had written, particularly as no murder has as yet taken place?

On page two, a mere nine lines earlier in the text he writes, "Two in a night, indeed pleasure", when referring to his fantasy of "taking" both Mrs. Maybricks in one night, one after the other.

As far as I am aware, no-one besides the diary author had made the connection between "wife" number one, Sarah Anne Robertson and George Smith until very recently. Him and Sarah being first cousins, and who lived at the same house in the East end when James was there.

No wonder he was concerned at what might happen if "Smith should find this" dirty little fantasy he's just written about his cousin

Shabby hoax? My arse.

[Caroline Brown]

Lord Orsam may have finally supplied Keith Skinner with an answer as to why Barrett never produced the auction slip. Keith inadvertently scared the living hell out of Mike by mentioning a policeman in the audience.

I would gently suggest to you, RJ, that if Mike had been the sort of chap to let a policeman scare 'the living hell' out of him, he wouldn't have forged Maybrick's diary in the wake of the Hitler Diaries, only to voluntarily confess to the newspapers, several months after Scotland Yard had come sniffing round and found nothing, and still be making forgery claims during a recorded meeting five years later! That man had balls of brass - or he knew it was all hot air, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Somewhat ironically, there really was an Ann(e) Graham living in the Liverpool area in the early 1970s that was diagnosed with a personality disorder, but the age appears to be wrong for it to have been the future Mrs. B.

Good to see you appreciating the difficulty of pinning the diary handwriting on the right Anne Graham [with an e and of the correct age], who emigrated to Australia in 1969 and lived there for five years before returning to Liverpool. If she had a personality disorder too [because you know what women called Ann or Anne Graham are like], it didn't stop her working as a nurse down under, while your Ann was knocking about in Liverpool.

Love,

Caz
X