Today's post is sponsored by SnakeOil Ltd, "celebrating the all-new vaccine-resistant CONTRIK-69 Indian Variant".
In an era in which even a minor German poet, novelist and playwright like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe can expect to command a 32 volume biography, it would seem the height of ambition - make that the height of folly - to try to summarise the life - nay, the rise and fall no less - of the towering figure that is and remains Professor Brian Thrupiece in a single volume of barely 150 pages. And yet that is precisely what Comissionneur Arsène Bèrglare of the now infamous l’Autorités Suisses has set out to do in his new ghost-written book The Rise and Fall of Professor Thrupiece: Anatomy of a Murder [The Threadbone Press]. [Available in all branches of Threadstones and via the orinoco store digital-portal. Price £16.99 or €3.]
Over the years, many hundreds of volumes - fat, slim, introductory, erudite, specialist, comprehensive, illustrated, annotated, official and unauthorised - have been written about single aspects of his life and work as a scientist, diplomat, humanitarian, astronaut, sportsman, racing driver, inventor, artist, photographer, sculptor, novelist, playwright, poet, entrepreneur, bon viveur, ascetic, traveller, philosopher, teacher and lover and yet, as one recent appreciation put it, "we have only begun to scratch the surface of one pimple on a man who defies definition just as he defies detection".* [A. Boyle [2029] Eine Geschichte der deutschen Pharmaindustrie Volume I: von Akne bis Germolene [Threadbone-Gutenberg Verlag]
* the detection reference alludes to the fact that, despite early claims that he had died in a Swiss hotel room in 2005 - almost certainly from either an accident involving a small electrical appliance [nasal clipper] or a conspiracy involving Cornarvin co-resident and FIFA president Sceptic Bladder - l’Autorités Suisses so bungled subsequent investigations ["leur travail si elle peut être ainsi décrite est de la merde"] that early reports that a body had been found have been quietly buried [unlike the body] meaning that Professor Thrupiece's status is now definitively classified as "disappeared presumed missing" or, occasionally "missing [presumed disappeared"**.
**the distinction is unclear but then again so - according to RDC reports - are the minds of l’Autorités Suisses.
So how does a man whose incompetence - with and without a pen - is acknowledged throughout the former EU manage to "pull off the big one" and write not only of the Professor's so-called "fall" [something about which every review has established he knows little and understands less] but also of his "rise" [something about which the book itself makes clear he knows and understands even less]***?
*** Our Biography Correspondent Greta Lyffe writes: "To speak or write of a man's rise and fall is, surely, to aspire to describe and carefully consider the whole arc of his life, contextualising as necessary, highlighting where significant and critiquing whenever necessary. It is an all-encompassing project requiring, in the case of an Olympian figure, an author with an equally Olympian mind. Neither Comissionneur Arsène Bèrglare nor his "dictated to me in his absence and subsequently invented by me in my own absence" collaborator - hack journalist Agost Ryter - can claim even a Branscombe Harriers Sackrace mind: "more "I'll Limp On" than Olympian in both cases".
And yet Bèrglare, widely known in European crime fighting circles as Le Charlie Chaplin de l’Autorités Suisses, is indeed "at it again". As we reported some years ago [-2018 PC-69****] the hugely self-regarding yet highly incompetent Comissionneur has always sought to place himself up front and centre stage in the increasingly bizarre events surrounding the Professor's disappearance. Now, however, he has ventured on to ground which even he must realise is decidedly shaky, though much of the blame must lie, of course, with the avaricious publisher and a reading public "quite unable to tell its arse from its elbow" [Hacksaw and Cleaver [2002] Don't Try This At Home: Anatomy For The Enthusiastic Beginner [Threadbone Self-help Library Classics]]
**** Pre-Contrik-69 - the new form of dating now mandated by the RDC Post-CONTRIK-69 New Calendar Enforcement Unit
So is there anything new in the The Rise and Fall of Professor Thrupiece: Anatomy of a Murder or just the now familiar rehash of well-known events, achievements and yet more conspiracy theories surrounding his demise? According to Thrupiece watcher and voracious reader Iysla Reede-Anyfink, the book is "just the now familiar rehash of well-known events, achievements and yet more conspiracy theories surrounding his demise", though it may contain one significant assertion. The fact that the subtitle is Anatomy of a Murder may be a significant clue to the way the Comissionneur's mind is tending. As Ms Reede-Anyfink astutely notes, "Murder is an interesting word and one I tend to associate with homicide. It's a subtle point but definitely something worth noting*****."
***** Mr Joshua Threadbone of Threadbone, Threadbone and Threadbone adds:
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.
Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus that a person convicted of murder should receive harsh punishments for the purposes of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation. In most countries, a person convicted of murder generally faces a long-term prison sentence, a life sentence, or even capital punishment.
[Please contact l’Autorités Suisses before making any decision to commit such crimes. Sentences may vary according to circumstances, the mood of the jury and the satisfactory or otherwise nature of the judge's or presiding magistrate's luncheon menu.]
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