It's official! According to Threadbone Scrutineers Ltd [a division of Threadbone Scrutineers Inc], the most recent attempt to pass off as authentic a fake photograph of Professor Thrupiece has failed at Level 2 - the deeply forensic stage of the Threadbone Digital Laboratories' hi-tech fake detection process. As a result the reputations of Messrs Nigel Courtauld-Institute and Richard Loewe-Tekk (joint CEOs of Designs'R'Us the once famous Frome St Quintin-based graphic design company) have become even more mired in scandal and what they must have hoped would be a lifeline to commercial resurrection has become instead a dead weight destined to drag them deep into infamous notoriety. Watch this space!
This rapidly evolving story has taken every twist and turn imaginable and members of the general public will doubtless be puzzled and disappointed in equal measure. "To raise and then dash the hope of thousands is an unforgivable act" says Thrupiece watcher Mrs E Silley-Upset. "I don't deny there have been a few tears shed here at Thrupiece Watch HQ as we have ridden the roller coaster of hope, expectation and despair". Sister Ms Veri E Silly-Upset concurred. "I concur", she concurred.
So just how did the fraud become exposed? Here we explain the labyrinthine process and amazing technology involved in as straightforward a manner as we can:
FIRST: THAT TIMELINE:
28 August 2019: Photograph received at the Offices of the Sydling St Nicholas Sun. Editor Ron Nasty declares it "undoubtedly authentic"
29 August 2019: Photograph passed to Threadbone Scrutiny Ltd. Two hours later Photograph passes Level 1 scrutiny. ["It's definitely a photograph"]
30 August 2019: Photograph subjected to Level 2 scutiny
1 September 2019: Photograph declared "a certain fake"
NEXT: THAT DAMNING EVIDENCE:
A statement from Threadbone Scrutineers Ltd:
"This was an exceptionally clever attempt to pass off as authentic a manipulated image of Professor Thrupiece. The perpetrators might have succeeded but for the powerful and immensely complex algorithms employed here at the Threadbone Scrutiny Suite of the Threadbone Digital Laboratories. These algorithms are especially customised and designed to uncover even the most ingenious fakes. Powerful photographic enhancement programmes were thus deployed to reveal:
1. A hitherto undiscovered book protruding from the satchel held by the vagrant purporting to be Professor Thrupiece
2. The title of said book which was positively identified as a recent edition of Agatha Panthus's Death Comes to Brownstone.
Whilst this discovery might not - in and of itself - have aroused suspicion, contextual knowledge derived from The Official Thrupiece Comprehensive Knowledge DataBank™ was applied to establish that:
1. Professor Thrupiece owned a rare first edition of the book which must either have been lost, stolen, misplaced or otherwise separated from his person
2. Whoever is depicted in the photograph acquired a new copy (we know not how, neither do we speculate) no later than 1 June 2019 when the present edition (with new cover art) was published.
Significant and perhaps unanswerable questions are thus posed, the most critical of which is: why would the Professor - a known collector, bibliophile and horizontal jogger - discard a first edition and prefer instead a cheap and generally available inferior edition even allowing that he was "travelling light"?
It is clear that the sequence of events we are required to regard as credible in order to support authentication of the photograph must run as follows:
Professor Thrupiece knowingly discarded a valuable and treasured copy of a favourite book, went to the trouble of acquiring a new one and then allowed himself to be photographed in a degenerate state in possession of said inferior copy.
We believe this sequence of events to be so improbable as to discount entirely any notion that the figure portrayed in the photograph could possibly be Professor Thrupiece.
Signed
Bengt Reasoning
LEAD INVESTIGATOR"
SAMPLE AN EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK THAT REVEALED ALL HERE
VISIT THE THREADBONE CRIMESHELF WENDELL CHANCE WEBPAGE HERE
Commentaires