Matulevicz in Particle-Popping Pandemonium

Wed 05 Oct 2011

Renowned speed-skater and 'describer-of-teacups', stíobhart matulevicz has been embroiled in controversy once again. This time over his claims to have discovered a new sub-atomic particle, which appears to move faster than the speed of light. Matulevicz claims to have discovered the particle, which he has christened 'The Matuletron', by accident last weekend.

Speaking to a gathering of the world’s top Quantum Physicists at the CERN laboratories near Geneva in Switzerland, matulevicz explained how he’d been looking for a ballpoint pen in his living-room but could not find one. He then went to the corner shop to buy a pen, but was unable to complete the purchase, due to 'insufficient funds'. After a short altercation with the shopkeeper, during which blows and racial slurs were allegedly traded, matulevicz ran home crying —to find a similar ballpoint pen, lying underneath his armchair.

"I’ve ruled out every scientific possibilty I can think of to explain the phenomenon" matulevicz told the open-mouthed gathering "and the only logical conclusion I can draw is that the pen in the shop must somehow have been exposed to a beam of matuletrons, which caused it to travel back through time from the future —when I would have gone back, with the right money and bought it."

At this point the meeting broke up in chaos, as matulevicz’s customarily mild-mannered audience charged the stage and began beating him around the head with lengths of piping, torn from the Large Hadron Collider.

One outraged physicist, who wished to remain anonymous, told reporters that matulevicz’s theories were completely and utterly baseless. "In spite of matulevicz’s claims to the contrary, it is simply not possible to achieve timings of nanosecond accuracy by counting 'one elephant.. two elephant…​', while running home from the local newsagents!", thundered the boffin, with his hair all sticking up.

Speaking through a medium, Albert Einstein remained sanguine about recent events in the world of particle physics, "So maybe we’ll find something faster than light…​" he quipped, "..but I doubt we’ll ever discover anything slower than matulevicz!"