Athens, 9 Dec 2008

The New Acropolis Museum in Athens, designed by award-winning architect Socrates Carbunclifidis, has been set on fire by Greek university students determined to sabotage their government’s attempts to secure the return of the famed Parthenon 'Elgin' Marbles.

For the last ten days, students from all over Greece have laid siege to the building in an attempt to persuade Britain to keep the ancient treasures incarcerated in the gloomy sepulchre in Bloomsbury known as the Duveen Galleries.

Last night, the new museum building, described by leading British architectural critic Charles Windsor as “a postmodern sanitary-towel dispenser”, stood in flames. The scenes echoed one of the darkest moments in Athenian history when the building’s ancient forebear was stormed by Venetian soldiers who set fire to a munitions cache stored inside the building by the occupying Turks.

“This is a terrible moment for Athens,” said Greek Culture Minister Mrs Fredi Mercouri as she stood on the ramp leading up to the new building, weeping into a copy of The Mart Newspaper as rioting students hurled home-made incendiary devices in the direction of the museum. The charred silhouette of the Kritios Boy, a masterpiece of transitional archaic Greek sculpture, could be seen burning in the distance as the marauding crowd advanced towards the surviving metopes from the Parthenon.

“Way to go, MacGregor!” screamed Semtexis Meinhofopolis, a first-year cultural studies student from Thessalonika, as she launched another petrol bomb towards an ancient statue of Pallas Athena.

Speaking from his office in Vauxhall, British Museum press spokesman Martian Bylaw commented, “This is a marvellous day for London. We’re all utterly delighted. We’d like to thank the Greek students for confirming what we’ve been telling the world ever since our great and illustrious friend Lord Bruce of Forsyth rescued the Marbles from their benighted home in Athens – the Marbles belong in London and the Greeks aren’t fit to look after them."

Swigging from a bottle of Metaxas 4X super lager, Mr Bypass began chanting, "Long Live The Encyclopaedic Museum! Long Live Jimmy Cuno! Long Live Mr MacGregor! Long Live Peter Rabbit!”

At this point a team of mental health operatives wearing white overalls bundled Mr Bypass into a waiting transit van and whisked him off to the Victoria Beckham Neuropathology Unit at St Thomas’s Hospital.

Award-winning sculptor Phil Davies was unavailable for comment.