'App 'n It Might Be Him

A major investigation was set to get underway today following startling new evidence in the case of Professor Brian Thrupiece, the eminent Culinary Bio-Ethicist whose disappearance from a Swiss hotel Room whilst attending the Edna Awards in 2005 has never been satisfactorily resolved [or some say, satisfactorily investigated]. In late April of that year the esteemed, multi-talented and much-decorated Professor was due to give the Annual Association lecture at his old Cambridge College - Alma Mater College - but failed to show up, triggering several police forces and later INTERPOL to begin belated inquiries into his disappearance - quite possibly some days and perhaps even some weeks prior to his much-anticipated Cambridge engagement. After several abortive inquiries and as many dead-ends, the Professor's status was officially categorised as "missing presumed absent" and has remained so, pending a much needed break-through in the otherwise stalled investigation.

Just such a breakthrough may now have been delivered to the investigating forces thanks to an unexpected benefit [unintended consequence? [Ed]] of the new Threadsoft App CHRONICITY - which enables those subscribing to it to create a simulacrum of any given face projected 20,30, 40, 50 or more years into the future.

The CHRONICITY-generated reconstruction which went viral several hours after its demonstration-only-intended unveiling.

As part of the demonstration launch, Threadsoft had performed just such an operation on a photograph of Professor Thrupiece taken in 2004. Chosen almost at random ["he was simply a face everyone knew"] and with no eye to advancing any ongoing inquiries, the image of an 80-something-year-old Professor Thrupiece rapidly "went viral" and in the process came to the attention of Mrs Pee Pinnkk-Tomme, an ordinary housewife who makes her home in the delightful metropolis of Muscliff. Out for her "daily constitutional" with her three dogs Freeman, Hardy and Willis, she spotted a man waiting for a No 601 trolley bus [Rossmoor to Alder Hills, twice weekly Tuesdays and Fridays] and looking, she later told reporters, "a little bit shifty as well as a tad unsteady on his pins".

Mrs Pee Pinnkk-Tomme's photograph has sparked a good deal of interest not least amongst transport enthusiasts who had no idea that the twice weekly No 601 Rossmoor to Alder Hill route was still serviced trolley buses

A responsible citizen [How refreshing [Ed]], she immediately photographed the man and handed it to her local constable - PC Passitton - who passed it on to the RDC's Data and Image-Handling HQ in Great Heaving. There experts were quick to enhance the image, compare it against the brand new digitally rendered CHRONICITY-App reconstruction and declare the two "a remarkable pairing, with 338 points of similarity and a suggested 2.4% chance of a match".

Whether or not this allows the RDC - or even Les Authoreés Suisses - to re-open their "cold case" files and institute an immediate search of the Muscliff area alongside a full-blown Gestapo-style interrogation of all of its citizens remains to be seen. Chief Constable Sir Rising Crimewave declined to be drawn on the matter, leaving the RDC state-of-the-art HQ and Crime Fighting Facility covered by blanket from which could be heard muttering something along the lines of "budget constraints, precious resources, overspend, waste of public funds, CONTRIK-69 priorities, double vaccination con, Police Complaints Commission, I did not accept a bribe, Lady Crimewave has no involvement in the matter, innocent until proven guilty [in may case anyway] etc etc".

A graphic illustration of the complex matching process [Courtesy the Royal Dorset Constabulary].