The case of the stolen spoof

Britain's extreme right wing newspaper, The Sunday Mail, oft known as The Sunday Racist is in trouble for taking online content from the Spoof website and passing it off as their own - It seems that two writers for satirical on-line publication TheSpoof.com have finally had enough of the Mail On Sunday and are planning a sit-in next Tuesday in a venue yet to be determined in protest at the MOS's blatant spoof Sherlock Holmes story.

Which they insist was rush released on the back of their stunningly successful Shylock Humes spoof stories. Which were published in the popular on-line organ's Magazine section.

Enjoying huge critical success.

Erskin Quint, a rum northerner with a dandified turn of surreal phrase, and armfeetandtoe, a rum southerner currently studying how to become a rum northern southerner with a Yorkshire accent and a bag of Pontefract cakes in the pocket of his donkey jacket, vowed to fight to the last breath, the last bullet, and the last Pontefract cake.

"This is shameful behaviour from a so-called reputable news organ," Quint said from the well appointed study/library in his ancestral home in Cumbria. "The blighters have plagiarised our intellectual property and we aren't going to jolly well stand for it - I can tell you. I can, can't I? Surely I can. I just did. Didn't I? Of course I did. In no uncertain terms. It was arm and I, not arm and hammer - which is some sort of tooth polish and merely clouding the isssue - who reintroduced the great detective to the British public, and then the MOS chips in with a spoof of its own - riding the wave of our success with a Spoof article entitled "The Pit Bull Of The Baskervilles" and making Mrs Hudson Polish. Then talking about Twitter and pit bull terriers. We started all that. The MOS just jumped on our shirt tails. We're not standing for it - we shall stage a sit-in in protest. If we allow them to take liberties like this, they'll be talking about narwhals and snoods next. We're bally well not having it."

Armfeetandtoe then chipped in:

"Tha'll atter forgive th'accent for nah. As not gorrit perfected yet, burram workin' on it dahn't pit wit faceworkers. Reet, and sethee, it's not reet that yon twats can eye-jack us tales o' t' great detective wit big pipe an' that beerstalker 'at wot he wears. Innit. Oops. Sorry abaht that - just addon identity crisis an that like. T'southern sometimes slips aht. Ollus appens when I've bin eating Pontefract cakes. Anyroad, we int standin' forrit. We's benner 'ave a sit in at t' mill, or summat. Bastids them is. But we'll 'ave 'em up an' under. No probs."

Mail On Sunday hack, David Thomas, apologised to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over the article. But that won't cut any ice with Erskin Quint or armfeetandtoe because Conan Doyle is dead.

The chances of working out a compromise seem limited. At best.

A Sherlock Holmes related 'dead giveaway' is expected at some point, possibly endorsed by the Mail On Sunday, but some observers consider it unlikely.