Armed with "the sword of truth and the shield of righteousness", the Threadbone Corporation has begun its fight back in the case of Professor Thrupiece versus Professor Resorte, as the now infamous dispute between the literary executors of the late Professor Brian Thrupiece and the Danish laboratory science group headed by Professor Lars Resorte has been dubbed.
Earlier Professor Resorte had suggested that his research group had found evidence which, whilst not conclusively disproving that Professor Thrupiece was sole author and architect of the famous Thrupiece Tables of Culinary Bio-ethical Ambivalence, "at least opened serious questions about the collaborative nature of his achievement". But today in a huge corporate fightback Mrs Threadbone has revealed that Group solicitors Messrs Suem, Fleecem & Clubbam had been given instructions to take the case to the highest court necessary to clear away this "unwelcome and unwarranted calumny". She confirmed in the lead article of the Group's staff Newsletter Great Heavings that she had authorised the expenditure of whatever resources were required to prosecute the case. "We are confident", she says, "that Professor Thrupiece's work and reputation will emerge from this debacle not only unscathed but enhanced". She was later quick to add that it was ludicrous to suggest anyone else was even partly responsible for the breakthrough. "Who in their right mind would spend their life doing this sort of thing surrounded by little but fluff and the occasional overnight female visitor?", she asked. Assembled journalists agreed that she had a point.
The Empire Fights Back: A strong rebuttal of Professor Resorte's case appeared in this weeks edition of Great Heavings penned by Mrs Threadbone herself.