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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 705
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2004 - 9:49 am: |       |
Mike Barrett is not 'known' to have 'owned' a book containing the one line of poetry that appears in the diary.
At the end of September 1994, Mike announced to Paul Feldman's secretary that he had found the line in a library book, adding that this discovery would make others believe his claim to have forged the diary himself.
In the first half of October, after Shirley Harrison had confirmed this book was available in the library, Mike told her he would be taking his own copy to his solicitor.
Mike's solicitor has denied all knowledge of ever seeing the book, and Mike finally handed over a copy to private investigator Alan Gray, two months later, in early December 1994, outside the solicitor's office.
At some point during this period, Mike told Shirley he had come across a copy in a Liverpool bookshop, although her enquiries failed to confirm either the find or details of a purchase.
Mike told the authors of Inside Story, in 2002, that he 'came across it' in a 'shop in Mount Pleasant - it was there'. Asked how long it would have taken to come across that, Mike replied that it 'didn't happen over night - six weeks, seven weeks, I don't know'.
The book itself has not been released for independent examination and potentially crucial confirmation of the earliest or latest date Mike could have acquired it, and how he obtained it.
Love,
Caz
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 182
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2004 - 9:59 am: | |
"Mike Barrett is not 'known' to have 'owned' a book containing the one line of poetry that appears in the diary."
and
"Mike finally handed over a copy to private investigator Alan Gray, two months later, in early December 1994, outside the solicitor's office."
Huh? So Mike did not "own" the copy he "handed over?"
What the heck?
--John
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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 709
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2004 - 1:27 pm: | |
Hi John,
So you have evidence that Mike didn’t just nick it from a bookshop or library?
I’m not claiming he would have done anything of the sort (I think it was his ex-wife who asked him a similar question about the diary though). But you sure do pick a funny person to believe when you want to. 
Anyway, it’s all food for thought. Digest whatever you want and spit out the rest.
Love,
Caz
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 183
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2004 - 5:53 pm: | |
Caz,
It doesn't matter; even if he nicked it from a bookshop or library, he still owned it at that point.
So your initial sentence is simply false. It is known that at some point Mike Barrett owned a copy of that book.
So let's review what we know for sure.
1. Mike Barrett handed Doreen Montgomery a book which contained five unidentified words from an obscure 17th century poem.
2. Mike Barrett later told everyone where those words could be found.
Now then, there are only two possibilities.
1. Mike knew when he handed Doreen the book where the words were from because he had already seen them somewhere else.
2. Mike took the the five words after the fact and, with no clue where they might have originated, discovered their source himself.
And you're asking me which of these two scenarios I believe?
It's not even close, no matter what Mike happens to say or not say.
All the best,
--John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 718
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 2:13 pm: | |
Hi John,
I apologise for preferring not to include the word ‘legitimately’ in my initial sentence, thereby rendering it ‘simply false’ as it stood alone, from a literal point of view. I was rather hoping the context would do the necessary for me here.
Anyway, I already know which of your two possibilities you believe, and I do appreciate why this might be your own smoking gun, and why it might override everything else you have ever written about the diary, including the lengthy analysis of the entire 63-page text. And your desire to see more forensic tests carried out so we can all know if your beliefs are sound ones is an admirable desire.
A third possibility I just thought of would be that someone else, either an academic who knows his Crashaw (and possible sources of same) better than anyone who had read the diary up until September 1994, or the person who actually wrote the diary, pointed Mike in the right direction, perhaps unaware of what Mike might try to do with this information.
I assume you are happy to stick with possibility numero uno whatever further information might be forthcoming, from whatever source? I agree that nothing Mike says or doesn’t say will ever prove anything by itself. But the evidence does allow for the possibility that he was actively looking for another copy of volume 2 at some point after his library ‘discovery’ and managed to find one, handing it over to Alan Gray in the December so he could finally support his forgery claim. If your belief is that Mike had already seen the words of that quotation somewhere else by the time he offered the diary to Doreen, you would presumably argue against the possibility that Mike would need to find his own copy in 1994, as he would presumably already have the necessary evidence, in whatever form, to show inside knowledge of his involvement in a modern hoax.
I have no way of discounting this possibility, and not being able to take Mike’s word for anything doesn’t make it go away. The book he handed over to Gray has never to my knowledge been seen by anyone still investigating, which leaves us all free to speculate about what evidence it might contain to show when Mike could, or could not have acquired it.
Love,
Caz
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 215
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 5:17 pm: | |
Now we all know that this line from that Crashaw poem is no way trouble for the diary, and most especially not because Mike Barrett claims to have seen it in the Sphere Guide.
Why?
Well, first of all, there's absolutely no possible way that Mike Barrett could have known that, early in the 17th Century, Crashaw lived in Whitechapel as a child. After all, it didn't even say that in the Sphere Guide.
I mean, sure, it doesn't say that in the diary either. But it's true! And it must mean something, right? So the writer could have only used these five words if they knew that Crashaw's father, over a couple of hundred years before the Ripper, lived in that part of town for a while. So that's evidence right there, my friend.
It's as plain as the nose on your face.
And besides, even though we all agree that Mike Barrett could not have possibly written this thing -- just ask everyone who's ever met him, they all offer the exact same opinion -- it's impossible -- we know as well that he is certainly the most likely candidate to discover before anyone else on the planet the source for these five completely unidentified words. After all, he's a legendary researcher with obviously super-human, if not miraculous, library skills.
In fact, he doesn't even need a book of poetry or 17nth Century literature or an anthology of English verse. Nope. Not Mike He doesn't even need to find the poem itself. Or the author.
Mike can find just that line!
All by itself, in an essay about an entirely different author, in a book of prose.
The man's a genius (but not such a genius as to be able to write this little book -- no, he's definitely not that smart).
And then, to top it all off, Mike at some point manages to own a copy of this very same book of essays, too?
Well, this is definitive proof that he could not have been the one to see these five lines first and put them in this diary. No way, no how.
Uh, wait.
See, what I meant was...
Well, let's look at it another way. I mean sure the same one line that's excerpted in one book also appears in the other, and the same guy at some point owns both books, but that's just circumstantial! Yeah, that's it. It's a coincidence.
And maybe the entire history of English literature and the place in the 19th century canon of Crashaw and his fellow metaphysicals and the publishing record of the time all argue against he real James Maybrick having the foggiest idea who the guy was, let alone remembering off the top of his head one of the guy's lesser known and never anthologized works. But that's all just academic scholarship and subjective detail. It's still possible, right?
Just like it's possible that whiz-kid Mike pulled that book off that shelf in that library and found that page with that line on it before anyone else could even identify the poet.
And in fact, somehow this is even stronger evidence that the diary really was written by the killer or at least written in the nineteenth century.
I'm not sure how just yet, but I'm still working on it.
Hey, coincidences really do happen, you know.
All the time.
Honestly.
They do.
It doesn't mean anything.
Uh, bye.
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 905
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - 4:57 am: | |
Hi John,
Good to see you enjoying yourself so much.
Love,
Caz |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 223
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - 6:40 am: | |
Caz,
It's the exuberance of the newly converted.
Infallible logic like that found above has swayed me to the faith and now, like so many others, I just feel I must testify.
Yours in spirit,
--John
|
Keith Andrews
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 12:43 pm: | |
The bookshop on Mount Pleasant in Liverpool, is called "Reid of Liverpool" and it has been there since around 1989.
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Robert J Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 2:19 pm: | |
It is quite simply wrong for John Omlor (and his assortment of anonymous PhDs, whom we are told, are too afraid to be identified) to assert dogmatically that the historic James Maybrick could not have known those five crucial words by Richard Crashaw: Oh costly intercourse of death.
They are from a seventeenth century poem Sancta Maria Dolorum and both the poem and the poet were highly admired in the second half of the nineteenth century. One Victorian academic at Oxford University, William Stebbing, described the poem ecstatically, as “an inspiration, incomparable – a combination of woe and triumph, submission and sovereignty, pathos, spiritual sublimity, everything!”
Another Victorian author, the eminent critic Edmund Gosse, writing in 1883, explained that he had chosen to write an essay on Richard Crashaw in his book, Seventeenth Century Studies, rather than on George Herbert, who is much better known today, largely for the reason that Crashaw’s poems had become readily available to the Victorian public in new editions. There was one edited by William Turnbull in 1858 and a better edition by Dr Grosart in 1872. Waller’s edition was to follow in 1904. Today there are no editions of Crashaw’s poetry in print, but in 1888 neither Crashaw nor the poem were obscure, as is often claimed on these boards.
Gosse also confirms the serendipitous and little known detail, that Crashaw’s Puritan father was “Vicar of Whitechapel”, a fact which would certainly have been of interest to the diarist.
John Omlor, is entitled to offer as his opinion that Maybrick was unlikely to have known those five words, but given the revival of interest in Crashaw and the publication of two new editions of his works during the second half of the nineteenth century, it is absurd and unscholarly to assert that James Maybrick “could not” have known them.
What it boils down to is this: if Mike Barrett wrote, or contributed to the diary, the quote must have come from the Sphere Guide. But if Maybrick wrote it, then he knew those five words, either directly from the poet’s works, or indirectly: people are always quoting snippets of poetry, without the slightest idea of who wrote them. As the diarist makes three errors in writing those five words, we can reasonably assume, that he did not have the printed words to hand.
We can, if we wish, continue forever the debate about the relative merits of an unknown forger and of James Maybrick as the author of the diary. But it won’t be settled by debate, and that is why we urgently need someone or some people to organise comprehensive scientific tests, or, to find indisputable evidence of the identity of the forger(s).
Remember it was not an historian or a handwriting specialist who proved Hitler’s diaries to be a forgery, but scientists, who produced the evidence that the paper was manufactured several years after Hitler’s death.
All best,
Robert
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 481
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 10:31 pm: | |
Out of nowhere, Robert returns to somehow make it seem possible that the real James was quoting this obscure line from this obscure and unanthologized poem from a Catholic poet whose place in the canon of the 19th century was far less prominent than it is even today and whose collected works during that time were available only in a handful of limited editions.
Robert's phrase "highly admired," in his second paragraph is both vague and misleading. In certain circles, both academic and religious, the metaphysicals were still certainly being read and discussed in the Ripper's era, but their position in the canon had in fact severely faded and would remain a minor one until they were "rediscovered" and rehabilitated by TS Eliot and his mentor early in the 20th century.
Incidentally, all three 19th century editions of the Collected Works that Robert mentions were cited by me right here on the Casebook, in an earlier summary of the available volumes at the time and all three were in fact limited runs.
And also, incidentally, there is no evidence anywhere, not a single word, not a single line on any page of the diary, that even remotely suggests that the diarist had the vaguest idea what Crashaw's father did for a living. That's just irrelevant and goofy and a clear indication of just how desperate for any possible vague dream this reading above really is.
I am in fact a fully qualified expert in the history and interpretation of literature. And the real James Maybrick, C of E cotton merchant in Liverpool, with his biography and his background and his lifestyle, was certainly not going around quoting these five words from this obscure poem. Words so little known that no one could identify them when they appeared in the diary itself.
Well, that's not right, actually.
Almost no one could identify them.
There was one man.
One super researcher.
One brilliant reader.
One expert of experts who could identify the five words -- who could find their source in the entire history of literature in English.
And who DID!
Who was this man, you are asking?
Who was this king of words?
Who was this walking encyclopedia of literature?
Three guesses.
It couldn't have been the same guy who brought the diary forward -- surely that would be too much of a coincidence for anyone to swallow, right?
Right.
Unbelievable.
But as always, good for a laugh.
I can't wait to see what's next.
--John
PS: I have no problem at all imagining someone "having the words in front of them" and still transcribing them as they appear in the diary. Of course, not someone with a lucid and clear and sharp and brilliant mind like Mike's, though. He never would or could have done that. No. Certainly not. 
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1151
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 31, 2004 - 1:18 pm: | |
Trouble is, some people do actually believe Mike's handwriting could appear in the diary, so these people would need a pretty convincing argument that Maybrick's couldn't, on the basis of appearance alone.
And incidentally, has anyone done any digging to see how many Liverpudlian friends or relatives of James Maybrick, who could have influenced or inspired each other's reading matter, were brought up as Catholics, or were otherwise connected with the faith?
To assert confidently, and to go on asserting, that it would have been out of the question for any non-Catholic in Victorian Liverpool to have come across and remembered those words (whether the facts pointed out by Robert neatly and finally demolish the 'obscure' argument or not), this digging ought to have been done long ago, and the findings should be available and presented here.
Otherwise, for all we ignorant readers know, James might turn out to have had some eccentric Catholic aunt who recited Crashaw's bloody words at him at every opportunity.
Well, you never know - I mean, wouldn't Mike Barrett be tickled pink to learn that Crashaw's old man was a Puritan and vicar of Whitechapel to boot - of all the parishes in all of England?
It's a small world after all.
Love,
Caz
X
(Message edited by Caz on July 31, 2004) |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 387
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 31, 2004 - 3:04 pm: | |
Caz
But once again, by concentrating on questioning exactly how obscure the quotation was, you're addressing only half the question. Of course, the point is not that the diary contains a very obscure quotation, but that the diary contains a very obscure quotation that only Mike Barrett was able to identify.
What are the chances of that happening? But I forgot, you don't believe in probability theory. No wonder ...
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 491
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 31, 2004 - 5:51 pm: | |
Chris,
It ain't never gonna' happen.
Believe me.
Caroline knows the probabilities.
Caroline knows the real James Maybrick wasn't quoting this poem from this guy.
Caroline knows there was no "eccentric Catholic aunt" or mysterious group of Catholic buddies digging up old Crashaw lines and feeding them to the real James.
Caroline knows the diary says nothing at all about Crashaw's real father or what he did or where he lived and that such an argument is utterly irrelevant to the question at hand.
Caroline knows Mike was lying about Miracle of the Liverpool Library.
Caroline even knows that the writing in this book is not the real James Maybrick's, that it's not even close.
Of course, you're not ever going to get her to admit any of this or even acknowledge the crystal clear probabilities that are obvious using even the simplest common sense.
Don't ask me why.
Just be absolutely assured of two things -- and here I'm speaking as a fully qualified expert.
The real James Maybrick did not quote this specific poem by this specific author in his 1888 diary.
And Mike did not just walk into the Liverpool Library and find these five words having never seen them before.
The rest you can figure out for yourself.
Loving our little trip up that river in Egypt,
--John
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Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1156
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 7:23 am: | |
A fully qualified expert on what, I wonder?
James Maybrick's personal reading habits?
The interior of the Liverpool Library, perhaps?
The interior of Mike's mind?
And John doesn't help himself one little bit by claiming to know the interior of mine.
He certainly is not a fully qualified expert on what 'Caroline knows'.
In fact, I don't think I've ever come across an individual less qualified in the 'what Caroline knows and doesn't know' department.
And since Caroline knows he is clueless when it comes to assessing this real live long-term fellow poster, it doesn't bode at all well for his self-proclaimed expertise on the intimate life and personal interests of a real but long-dead cotton merchant; on the knowledge and actions and motivations of the real live Mike Barrett; and perhaps least of all on the mind that produced the diary.
Love,
Caz
X |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 496
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 7:33 am: | |
The expertise, of course, is on the history of and interpretation of literature. And it comes in quite handy when people are claiming that the real James was allegedly quoting from this poem by this guy in his 1888 diary.
He wasn't.
And the expertise also includes the business of academic research. And it comes in quite handy when people tell impossible stories about miracles in libraries (and when other people believe them).
The stories are lies.
I don't need any expertise to determine what Caroline knows and doesn't know, of course.
I can read.
And since I see no direct or explicit claim here that she knows anything other than what I wrote, despite the paragraph saying I am both not qualified and clueless when it comes to offering such a list, I'll assume I am nonetheless reading accurately.
I'm sure she'll tell us otherwise, if I have misstated her position. I'm sure she'll tell us what it is, for the purposes of clarification.
I'll look forward to that.
--John
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 617
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 7:42 am: | |
HI,
so what are you saying John that this poem was not available in 1888 or that Maybrick wouldn't have found it?
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 497
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 7:53 am: | |
HI Jennifer,
I wrote an long post on the old boards offering all the historical reasons why the real James was not quoting from this poem by this author. The availability problem -- it was published on only three known editions of Crashaw's complete works out at the time and all of them in limited runs, two for very specific organizations that the real James had nothing to do with -- is not really the biggest difficulty even.
The history of Crashaw's place in the canon at that time (as opposed to this century, after he and the other metaphysicals were rehabilitated and found their way back into the schools and anthologies and popular texts via Eliot) and of his audience and of the real James's life and place and position all indicate to me as a trained expert that we have a serious problem here.
And it's funny. When I first mentioned to my ex-wife, who is actually a Crashaw scholar and who has published, coincidentally, on Crashaw's work as well as literature of the 19th century, that the diary had the real James Maybrick quoting this poem, she immediately laughed. This was way back before I even knew about the handwriting being wrong and the provenance problems and the matchbox line and all the rest, when I had just read the diary for the first time and learned where the line was from. She shook her head in disbelief and said, "No way." She recognized it, as did I, as a tell-tale sign that this was a fake.
Then I learn that the only person able to identify the five word line turns out to be the same guy that brought the book forward, and that he tells a completely impossible story about how he found it, and that he too has a copy of a book that has that very line conveniently excerpted in the middle of it....
Well, you don't have to be Sherlock to figure this one out.
You just need a little common sense.
In any case, the post I wrote on the old boards in now on the CD. It lists the precise names and dates and organizations that published the few editions of this otherwise unanthologized poem and it reviews carefully the history of Crashaw's place in the canon and his audience and the reasons why the real James wasn't citing this particular poem by him in this diary.
I can't reproduce the whole thing here again, but check it out.
Then write and tell me what you think.
All the best,
--John
PS: Yes, the ex is an accomplished and tenured literature professor and Dr. as well. Her published work is much more impressive than mine. Sharing a home did not work, but I am proud to say we are still the best of friends. In fact, we saw Coffee and Cigarettes just last night.
Loved it.
(Message edited by omlor on August 01, 2004) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 618
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 1:18 pm: | |
Hi John,
aside from the insight into your personal life thanks for that.
In other words the poem was available but not to James. Thats cool. I will look it up as soon as I can but really I find your word good enough!
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 499
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 3:10 pm: | |
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks. In any case, I'm not worried about the fate of my word in this instance.
Not only does all my literary training and my research and what I already know about the history of Crashaw's place in the canon and what I know about the real James Maybrick indicate that the real James was not quoting this poem by this author in his own diary, but all the other things I have since learned about the book and all the other evidence we have concerning the book all reinforce what I initially suspected when I first learned the source for these words -- that the real James wasn't quoting anybody in this journal, since the real James didn't write this journal.
So the fate of "my word" -- and my analysis -- seems pretty comfortable to me at the moment.
All the best,
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1162
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 5:54 am: | |
'The poem was not available to James Maybrick.'
Cool.
In a hundred years' time, someone who can only guess Mike Barrett's personal reading habits during the 1980s and early 1990s might well believe and claim the same thing:
'The poem was not available to Mike Barrett'.
But of course it was - in both cases.
What no one knows, and can't possibly claim to know, is when Mike first knew the lines in the diary came from a poem, and when he first knew what that poem was and who wrote it.
And what if he didn't know either of these things until September 1994, as the record currently indicates, as John would say?
Love,
Caz
X
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 395
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 7:38 am: | |
Caz
Do you think Mike Barrett identified the quotation purely by a lucky chance?
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 502
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 7:45 am: | |
Well, I "know" this much. He sure as hell didn't "know" the source of those lines only because he walked into the library and just found those exact five words out of the whole history of literature.
Once again -- the diary contains five completely unidentified words as a citation.
Only one man was able to tell us the source of those words.
That man was also the same man who brought the diary forward.
That same man told an utterly impossible story about how he learned the source of those words.
I do at least know these things.
(And I know exactly what's going on here on this thread as well.)
And I'm still waiting for anything new, anything real.
Meanwhile, feel free to decide for yourselves what all of this tells us,
--John
PS: Sorry Chris, we were writing at the same time and overlapped.
PPS: In fact, the record does not indicate anything at all about when Mike first saw these words, it only records when he first told someone he knew their source. That's completely different.
(Message edited by omlor on August 02, 2004)
(Message edited by omlor on August 02, 2004) |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 684
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 8:08 am: | |
Caz,
I am sorry but please. The idea that Mike Barret just happened to walk into a library and plucked a book from the shelf and lo and behold found that quote and coincidentally he just happened to have that exact same book home in his attic just strains credibility a tad too much.
I'm sorry, no, it's not possible. He would have been much smarter to have just let the quote go unidentified than try to prove it by providing the author. And now I know you will say well why didn't he just do it then, blah blah. No one has ever claimed Mike was the brains of the outfit.
 |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 624
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 8:38 am: | |
I have just come to wondering - how did anyone know those lines came from a poem. The diary author (James?) could have made it up. How did those investigating know to look for Crawshaw and poetry to find such a quote..
What about the rest of the diary any other obscure quotes in there?
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 625
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 8:48 am: | |
Hi Caroline,
sorry perhaps my post was not clear enough let me rephrase it for you. John you are saying that the poem was not available to James Maybrick. I thought thats what you meant - thats fair enough.
Caz, I hope this is clearer for you. I see I needed to elaborate slightly.
I will read the posts that John pointed to for his deliberations but I guess he recollects the correct information.
If John says that at that point that it was very unlikely that James could have accessed the poem, I believe him, he is the professor of English not me!
After all wasn't it your good self who early in the year me and Chris P. were debating the difference about something being impossible and something being unlikely with??
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 827
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 9:34 am: | |
Hi, Jennifer
To answer your question, the wording "Oh costly intercourse of death" is the only obscure quote in the Diary, which makes it all the more mystifying why it should be in there. Apart perhaps from different plays on doggerel such as the "Eight Little Whores" poem which the writer tinkers with in order to be upsides with the Jack the Ripper letters and the idea that Jack wrote "funny little rhymes."
I agree that the fact that Mike Barrett, the man who brought forward the Diary, owned the Sphere book that contained, in an essay by Christopher Ricks, a quote from a long metaphysical poem by Richard Crashaw that features those words, is very suspicious. But I also think that Mike has not been shown to be the penman or to have lucidly explained how the forgery was done, go against the idea that he was the main man in the forgery scheme.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 629
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 9:42 am: | |
Hi Chris G,
Thanks for the info.
Cheers
Jennifer
ps I wasn't trying to accuse Mike of forgery.
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 505
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 11:34 am: | |
Thanks, Chris,
I'm at school today and just now saw Jennifer's question.
I suspect, Jennifer, that the reasons people recognized it was a quote and not another bit of silliness from the author were the "Oh" that begins it (a mistranscription of the original) and the language of the line.
So all of a sudden, all by itself, you see five words -- Oh costly intercourse of death -- and you think that's not the author, that's probably from somewhere else, that's like poetry or something. I wonder where those five words come from?
But you yourself ask a version of the million dollar question -- "How did those investigating know to look for Crashaw...."
Heh, heh.
Super literary sleuth Mike Barrett was supposedly "investigating."
How did he know to look for Crashaw, you might ask.
Good question, especially since the place he says he found it was not in a Crashaw poem, was not even in an essay about Crashaw, but was in an essay about Herbert in a book not of poetry at all but of prose, the five words being conveniently excerpt for comparison purposes in the middle of a page.
And guess what, that's also the book he happened to have a copy of himself at home (though not the one he says he found it in during his allegedly miraculous trip to the library where the angel of all things Diary came down and struck him and placed these five words out of the whole history of literature into his hands for the very first time).
At least, that's the story he tried to sell to those people to whom he brought the source for the quote.
Mike, of course, was lying about how and when he first saw these words. There's no way the miracle happened.
The rest you can decide for yourself.
All the best,
--John
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 638
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 11:45 am: | |
Hi John,
thats the point i was trying to make. How did we realise it was crawshaw, how did we know we were looking, how ...............
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 506
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 11:58 am: | |
Yes.
How?
Indeed.
(Unless super sleuth Mike already knew the author and where to look when he was given the five words to identify. But no, we mustn't think that -- it's too obvious.)
Incidentally, we tried a little experiment here a while back. RJ Palmer, I think it was, gave us all five words (something about a red hand) and asked if anyone could find their source without using a computer or any other resource that would have been unavailable to Mike.
Of course, no one ever came up with the source of the words.
I mean five completely unidentified and obscure words, totally out of context, out of the whole history of poetry....
But Mike did it.
'Cause he's the man, man.
Just having fun now,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on August 02, 2004) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 640
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 12:09 pm: | |
John,
I written you a reply but then I got cut off darn it!
but anyway, maybe he just got lucky
chance would be a fine thing (Jonathan Creek)
Thats another thing if I were forging something a few lines from JC might get into the mix but Crawshaw? No offence to him, I've never heard of him before in all my life.
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 507
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 2:15 pm: | |
Hi Jennifer,
The sort of "chance" you are talking about, when all the factors are considered, including where he allegedly found the exact five words (in a work in the wrong genre in an essay on the wrong poet), the fact that he is a known and repeated liar about all sorts of things, and of course the fact that he just happened to be very same guy who brought the diary with the mysterious words in it forward in the first place, makes it not just a question of getting "lucky" -- it would, if it took place the way he said it did in the library, be an out and out miracle -- The Miracle of Liverpool Library.
Of course, there is always that more obvious and common sense explanation -- Mike lied.
As for Crashaw, if you write me e-mail, I'll be happy to give you some more info about him and his work and why we read him in college today. It'll also help you understand why the real James Maybrick was not quoting him in this book.
Happy to oblige,
--John (who is sadly forced to admit, despite his faith in all things magical, that the chance of Mike having lied is exponentially, even immeasurably greater than the chance that the Angel of Diary World came down and struck him and the Miracle of Liverpool Library occurred... Ah, well, I guess we just live in secular times)
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 644
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 3:21 pm: | |
Hi John,
the main thing that's bugging me is that I can't remember which episode of JC that line comes from!
But seriously,
i agree with you I find it hard to believe that 1) anyone would know that line as opposed to others was worthy of note and 2) that it would be easily identified as Crawshaw.
However, as you mention the book in which it was located was not on Crawshaw but in fact it was on a different subject matter. therefore it could have been chance.
I find the version of events very unlikely but possible.
As for miracles lets not go there.
I will be happy to email you as a search on the casebook cd rom proved fruitless.
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 508
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 - 5:01 pm: | |
Hi Jennifer,
I've sent you mail.
"Possible?" Only in the sense that it's "possible" that space aliens built the pyramids and humans once played with dinosaurs. Only in the sense that it's "possible" that the Earth really is flat, despite all the compelling evidence to the contrary.
Only in the sense that all crafted lies are, in some way, I suppose, "possible."
Perhaps "possible" is the wrong word.
Miraculous, maybe. But from the mouth of a known liar, the "miraculous" is even less likely to be true than it would be already.
Mike lied.
Count on it.
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1163
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 7:25 am: | |
‘The idea that Mike Barret just happened to walk into a library and plucked a book from the shelf and lo and behold found that quote and coincidentally he just happened to have that exact same book home in his attic just strains credibility a tad too much.’
I agree with Ally here – which is why I doubt Mike ever did have such a book home in his attic at the time he claimed to have found the quotation in the library. The record allows for him to have located a copy of the Sphere book for himself much later, and shortly before handing it over to Gray in the December of 1994.
Hi Jenn,
Can you not tell the difference between a claim that the poem was ‘unavailable’ to James Maybrick (and therefore ‘impossible’ for him to have ever come across the quotation), and ‘very unlikely’ that he could have accessed it?
With his list of ‘what Caroline knows’, John is now trying desperately to claim that my own interpretation of the facts is actually the same as his; he wished.
And where does he get this unique insight from? Apparently, from my posting history on these boards. So what was all that begging about, then, and trying to beat it out of me with a stick, since he now says he ‘knew’ all along what ‘Caroline knows’, so there, simply from having read all my previous words on the subject?
There can only be two possible explanations:
Either: John thinks I have been indulging in some huge, highly elaborate, pains-taking and frankly loony ‘double-think’ plot to deceive everyone with every single word I have written on the subject since 1998, which would tell us rather more about his own thinking and judgement than it does about mine.
Or: John is demonstrating just how completely he can misinterpret the written word itself, if he seriously believes anything I have ever written demonstrates that ‘Caroline knows’ all the things on his list.
Our fellow readers will have to judge for themselves, of course, but John’s claimed ability to judge anything about the anonymous person who wrote (or didn’t write) the diary, either from what he thinks he knows about all the usual suspects, or straight from the text of the diary itself, is now looking to me as suspect as Mike Barrett’s ability to win best straight story of the last decade.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 646
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 8:07 am: | |
Hi John,
My God your right......................,
space aliens could have built the great pyramid!!
But no wait seriously,
'possible' because I don't think it is necessarily true that Mike wrote the thing.
Hey Caz,
You lost me on some of that there but the main point was understood.
Yes I do know the difference. I accept it. I did not say John, your soooooo right the diary must be a forgery written sometime after 1970? I said John had clarified what he meant. I was simply trying to find out what John meant.
Like the space aliens its not impossible but it is very unlikely - I did not say it was impossible did I? If i did i sure did not mean it, it was a mistake of me to imply that this was what I meant.
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 687
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 8:23 am: | |
Space aliens did build the pyramids. Don't you people watch Stargate?
Caz,
What was Mike's tale for how he got his very own copy of the Sphere book again? I am sure I read it somewhere but can't for the life of me discover it. Either way, I thought he gave a story of getting those books for a charity drive or something sometime before he located the Sphere book in the library and just didn't know that it was there sitting in his attic. Am I mistaken or was that not the case? I mean I realize that he told you all a different story, but I am sure I read a few years ago that he said he had acquired the book in a lot and didn't know he had it.
(Message edited by Ally on August 03, 2004)
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 509
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 8:31 am: | |
Yes, Jen, you must be careful about just how much you agree with me. Otherwise.... 
But you're right -- "Like the space aliens, it is not impossible."
Now Caz writes above, speaking of Mike...
"The record allows for him to have located a copy of the Sphere book for himself much later..."
Excellent.
Everyone notice what happened?
We've gone from "the record indicates" to "the record allows for."
Just like that.
Why?
Well, because there is no actual evidence anywhere of any sort that Mike did acquire the book much later. But Caroline needs to offer that possibility, otherwise the Miracle is not only impossible but also too much of an indicting coincidence. So she just makes it up, says it, and hopes it's true.
Again, desperation and desire outweigh reason.
Again, excuses are formulated, a la Smith and Feldman, purely in order to keep hope alive.
It's fun to watch.
She then writes six paragraphs about my list of things she already knows.
Nowhere in those six paragraphs does she correct even a single item on that list by stating her own position. Nowhere in those six paragraphs does she tell us exactly what she believes as a way of clarifying just where and how my own list was mistaken. Nowhere in those six paragraphs does she even answer Chris's resulting question.
Of course, I'm not surprised at this.
I know why.
So does she.
But as always in Diary World, I'll be here waiting if she'd ever like to correct specifically this horrible set of misinterpretations I have offered.
Still nothing new, still nothing real,
--John (who is happy being on the side that argues that aliens didn't build the pyramids, the Earth isn't flat, the real James wasn't quoting Crashaw, and the Miracle of the Liverpool Library never occurred. Mike lied.) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 648
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 8:44 am: | |
Hi John and Ally,
Ally,
no I don't watch Stargate (I apologise I don't think its on UK 'normal' TV at the moment) if only I did I would know the great truth about Pyramids.
In relation to the sphere book i recollect the version of events as you did, I will get Caz's book for a check ASAP.
John,
Another illusion shattered you mean the earth is NOT flat?
But seriously,
i don't really understand what Caz is arguing. I thought the version of events was that Mike forgot that he had the book?
What happened in Liverpool library - I do not know. I'm not even sure I care, there you go!
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 400
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 8:46 am: | |
Caz
You didn't answer my question, which is just as well, as I made it far too easy for you to wriggle out of.
I'll rephrase it:
Can you suggest any way Mike Barrett could have identified the quotation, consistent with the authenticity of the diary, other than pure chance?
Chris Phillips
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1172
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 6:25 am: | |
Hi John,
You will just have to carry on believing ‘this horrible set of misinterpretations’ you have offered. I know from experience that nothing anyone could ever say would move you to reconsider any of your beliefs, so firmly entrenched have they become in your own mind from your habit of repeating them daily for yourself (and for Chris P and for Jenn).
So you tell me – why on earth would anyone bother even trying to give anyone so demonstrably closed-minded as yourself a piece of their own mind?
You don’t need it for your own peace of mind, you can’t use it, so don’t keep asking for a piece of mine.
Hi Ally, Jenn,
Regarding when Mike first set eyes on the copy of the Sphere book handed to Gray in December 1994, unfortunately we only have Mike’s word to go on.
You can choose to believe him, when he said he had owned a copy of the Sphere book since – rather conveniently for his forgery claim – 1989; or you can choose to believe him when he said he got the completed diary from Devereux; or you can choose to believe whatever else he has claimed at various times since 1992.
I won't accept anything he has ever said if it can't be verified independently. From my own experience in the library, its layout and the physical characteristics of the volumes in question, I do actually think it's possible that, given enough hours to kill, the motivation, and the suggestion of 'old English poetry', Mike would have found the quotation by himself, and then it would just be a matter of locating a copy of the same volume to hand to Gray over two months later. But as I said, I would need other evidence before I actually went on to accept this particular version of events.
It’s not the kind of book I imagine would normally have stimulated Mike’s interest and creative juices, unless in 1989 he saw its potential as an aid to forgery, looked inside and found that quotation – limiting himself (the idea of Mike ‘limiting’ himself strikes a slightly incongruent note too) to using just the one for his otherwise original (some might say unique) oeuvre.
And then you’d have to believe that Mike went on to keep this book indoors for the next five years, perhaps anticipating that he might want to confess one day. Or perhaps it served as light bed-time reading to keep his brain ticking over during the difficult early diary years. Or perhaps he forgot he still had the book, and the cameo role he had given it faded from a memory dulled by drink and one diary disaster after another.
But then you’d have to believe that, at some point after his confession in June 1994, Mike suddenly remembered owning the book, or simply decided it was about time he used it to his advantage. And then you’d also have to believe that before doing so, he made up the whole library story to give a certain utterly baffling (not to say unnecessary and shooting-himself-in-the-foot) edge to his later explanation of how he suddenly realised (or remembered) that he had the same book and had used it to put the quotation in the diary himself!
In short, if you believe anything Mike said about the Sphere book, or indeed about the diary itself, and if you believe his claims about when he first saw both, you have already swallowed quite a few unbelievable things along the way. Bon appetit!
Hi Chris,
I’m not arguing for authenticity, and any suggestions I might choose to make about how - or more crucially - when and where Mike first saw the quotation, are bound to be speculative in nature, based on information currently available, and therefore of little use to those who have already made up their minds. Those who have yet to do so can judge that info for themselves, and decide for themselves whether or not any speculation I may indulge in has merit.
I look at what we’ve got so far, and try to ascertain what we really know, and what we still don’t know.
And I can’t take Mike’s word for it that he owned that Sphere book at any time before late 1994. Others may do so at their own risk.
Love,
Caz
X
(Message edited by Caz on August 05, 2004) |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 406
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 6:51 am: | |
Caz
Sorry, was that a "yes" or a "no" to my question?
Chris
|
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 705
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 7:39 am: | |
Caz,
You say it is convenient that Mike claimed to have owned the Diary before 1989 to back up his forgery claim, is it not also similarly convenient that he conveniently told you guys that he bought it in a shop to back up his claims? It's nice to know that you pick the "lie" for presentation to the boards that most closely matches what you choose to believe and sell to the world, but those of us who believe otherwise are just swallowing a bunch of malarky at our own peril. I think we are clever enough to see where the BS is being sold if not actually manufactured.
|
John V. Omlor
Chief Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 524
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 8:05 am: | |
First things first.
In case anyone missed it, still not a single "misinterpretation" of mine has been corrected by Caroline. Another excuse is offered for not doing so, but they still remain unclarified and uncorrected. Perhaps this is because she doesn't wish to take the time to point out where I might have been wrong. Perhaps. Or perhaps, despite the language of "misinterpretation" and all the rest, they are simply correct.
It would be easy enough to settle. So the fact that they remain specifically unchallenged should be duly noted for our readers here.
It is not, of course, in any way surprising.
Meanwhile, back at the other game, Caroline warns us about believing Mike Barrett's tales.
I have six words for her.
The Miracle of the Liverpool Library.
Of course it never happened. Of course Mike Barrett was lying, as he often did. Of course we don't believe it, right?
So, since that was a lie, how DID Mike know the source of those five words.
Let's review. Let's, as Caroline says, look at what we’ve got so far.
Mike brought the diary forward.
The diary contained five words no one recognized.
Only one person could provide the source for those five unidentified words.
He could not rationally explain how he knew them.
He was THE SAME GUY WHO BROUGHT THE DIARY FORWARD.
(Oh, And he owned a copy of a book with those exact same five words excerpted in the middle of it.)
You don't need to believe Mike about anything to know that he sourced the quote and he lied about what happened in the library.
Literary super-sleuth and crack researcher Mike Barrett found five unidentified words without context and identified the right author and the right poem from the whole history of literature, right?
Caroline is correct. There's no point in believing Mike when he claims this.
So how else would he have known where the quote was from?
And how come the guy who walked in with the diary was the only guy who knew where the five words in it no one could identify originally came from?
Everyone here already knows the book is a fake.
Everyone here knows Mike lies all the time and that the Miracle of Liverpool Library was another lie.
Everyone here knows Mike Barrett identified the source of the quote for the world.
I trust everyone here is skilled enough at putting together pieces of evidence to draw their own conclusions -- despite the desperate death struggles to keep hope alive that continue in the face of such explicit facts and events.
Carry on,
--John
|
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 707
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 9:25 am: | |
I mean, let's just look at this for a moment. Are we actually expected to believe that first, Mike manages to accidently stumble across the Sphere quote in the library by sheer accident and then manages to locate a used copy of the Sphere guide in some random bookshop for sale within a couple of weeks?
That is what we are expected to believe, that not once but twice, Mike Barrett manages to pull of the impossible and the improbable and find this quote in the middle of this book and then secure a copy for his own use to present?
Or is it more likely that he just had the book in his attic all along....
Hmm...let me think.
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 674
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 9:45 am: | |
Hi,
so what is the problem. He did have it in his attic. he said so, right?
I mean if i'm feeling trusting i might add there are plenty of things in my attic i dpn't know what they all are!!
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 675
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 9:45 am: | |
Hi,
so what is the problem. He did have it in his attic. he said so, right?
I mean if i'm feeling trusting i might add there are plenty of things in my attic i don't know what they all are!!
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 408
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 12:21 pm: | |
Jennifer
Though I doubt Caz will admit it, the problem is one of probability.
If Mike Barrett spent months at the library going through hundreds of books looking for the quotation, then it could be argued that he would have stood some chance of finding it. Clearly this would still be a tiny chance, considering the hundreds of thousands - or probably millions - of books there would be to search in total.
But if this obscure quotation was in a book he actually owned, the odds against this happening by chance become astronomical.
Either way, though, the probability of Barrett finding the quotation by chance is obviously extremely small. This small probability has to be multiplied by the small probability that Maybrick would have quoted from Crashaw anyway. And all the other small probabilities associated with all the other unlikely explanations that have been suggested to get round all the other problems with the diary.
That's why I'd be confident in estimating the odds as (at least) billions to one against the diary being authentic.
Chris Phillips
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Chief Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 678
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 05, 2004 - 3:12 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
i know what you mean. Totally agree, but it is possible! if unlikely.........
Cheers
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
|
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