Hugh Riminton, Lord Monckton, and a joke's a joke except when it's a joke ...

(Above: funny how a joke's a joke, except when it's a joke, and then it's not a joke at all, or how Lord Monckton's Nobel laureate is a serious matter except when it's a joke except of course the joke is deadly serious).

Who'd have thought it possible to produce a lighter raspberry sorbet for the weekend than the thinly clad body of Miranda Kerr, the girl from Gunnedah?

Enter Lord Monckton and that dangerous radical ratbag Hugh Riminton, senior political reporter for the nest of rampant socialist lefties infesting Network Ten.

Riminton's entree into the world of The Punch, Australia's best dinner party blathering blithering water cooler talking point? Good Lord, Monckton is no Nobel laureate.

And for his first outing, he's played a considered innings, and knocked up over a ton of comments. Well stroked, sir.

Riminton has the cheek to suggest that Monckton isn't entitled to the Janus-like activity of claiming a Nobel Laureate for himself, while at the same time claiming that it's all a joke.

Especially when you read this kind of drivel on the Science and Public Policy Institute:

His (Monckton's) contribution to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 - the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise - earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA.

Riminton also seemed to take exception to the way Lord Monckton carried on his debate while doing a grand tour of the antipodes:

The third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley was in Canberra yesterday. He held a private audience with Tony Abbott. Then he addressed an adoring audience who were quite happy to join him in an oddly schoolboyish display.

Lord Monckton would bellow “ETS?”. The crowd needed little encouragement to shout back “NO!” And so on.

But isn't it great that a flock of old farts should think they're somehow in a time warp and back at an Alice Cooper concert, when a beer was a beer, and school was out forever.

Fierce investigative reporter Riminton even rang up the Nobel Committee and spoke to committee secretary Geir Lundestat about Monckton's pin ... who dismissed it as ridiculous and also mentioned that they didn't hand out pins.

Well surely Monckton handing himself a pin is a marked improvement on that kind of reserved, discreet caper. How can you look positively spiffing without a nice set of pins on a double breasted gold buttoned navy blue casual jacket?

Naturally the unhappy allegations sent the loons on the pond into an unholy squawking session. All about attacking the messenger, playing the man, not understanding a jest or a jolly jape amongst chums, or the splendid irony, the sharp satire worthy of Archie typing out a poem about Mehitabel, not to mention anxiety about Gorian alarmists (presumably without the lad having read the chronicles of Gor), along with many other solemn warnings about Labor party stooges and rabid lefties.

Which still doesn't explain to me why Lord Monckton won't let the whole world in on the joke. Here's a handy re-write for him, if I can be so bold:

His (Monckton's) contribution to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 - the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise - proved the exercise was completely useless, and as an ironic commentary on the folly of the IPCC and Al Gore being given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, he (Monckton) unilaterally decided to award himself a fictitious laureate to send the process up shitless. His post ironic ersatz meretricious nonsensical Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA at a beer and pretzels and crackers evening dedicated to light banter and absurdist surrealist plays by Breton, Artaud, Lorca and Jarry.

That should do it. What, you think I should have worked in a mention of Obama and Kissinger getting the peace prize, and Nobel having invented dynamite? Steady, let's just celebrate Monckton's wonderful sense of humour and his resolute refusal to pass himself off as something he's not.

In all the fuss, I think the best comment came from a loon citing Paul Sheehan's Facts conveniently brushed over by the global warming fanatics as convincing evidence that the award was a splendid tongue in cheek claim.

Which leads to the meta-absurdity of a loon claiming a loon writing about a loon means Riminton is clutching at straws.

How sad I was to see that I was the only person "reading this now", when I revisited Sheehan's pile of tosh, suggesting that like us all, once the ship has sailed on, Sheehan's ramblings are just another bunch of digital dribbles, not even useful for wrapping fish and chips, occasionally visited by loons in search of a crumbed prawn of truth.

Made worse by the way Sheehan never bothered to tackle the question of the Nobel prize and the pin in his inept attempt at balance, in Ten anti-anti-commandments and Lord Monckton's verbal bombs.

Well any good circus must have its clowns, and just as it's hurtful to read people calling Monckton out for not having a sense of humour, when he's determined to be the cosmic class clown for the world.

Better to head off to likes of Miranda the Devine worshipping the good lord up close at a small lunch, as she did in Climategate gives lord of the sceptics plenty of ammunition:

In person, Monckton is taller and more serious than he appears on screen. Being a mathematician he has a logical mind, as well as irrepressible self-confidence, which makes him a formidable opponent for climate alarmists.

Well as a mathematician myself - oh did I forget to mention, I decided the awarding of university qualifications was hopelessly biased and irrelevant, so I awarded myself an honours degree and a university medal in mathematics - the medal was presented by a friendly university professor at a barbeque where chops were served with vin rouge - I'm comforted that anyone can claim expertise in any field, even when their BA honours degree might be in classics, and a diploma from a university college might be in Journalism studies.

Meanwhile I expect to release my polymorphous perverse geometric puzzle on the world momentarily, even if paying off the prize means I will have to sell my house, even if the story about me having to sell my house to pay off the prize might only be a publicity stunt.

Thankfully I'm not peculiar like some, who might wonder why a lord who isn't a member of the house of lords (not a single vote), and a mathematician whose degree is in classics, and whose claims to a Nobel Laureate and a pin are just an absurdist surreal joke, and who consistently has these qualifications flourished about as reasons to take such a well qualified person terribly seriously, is given a private meeting with Tony Abbott and taken as guru extraordinaire as he takes a promenade through the antipodes in best lordly fashion.

Where would loon pond be without such splendid humour? That's right, stuck with Miranda Kerr.

It's time Riminton learned that a joke is no laughing matter.

(Below: and now the good news. You too can have a Nobel Prize button, just like Lord Monckton, and for a very modest price, by rushing off to Zazzle).