The Literature prize has been awarded to Mr. George W. Bush, the president of the United States. The chairman of the committee expressed surprise at the apparent disbelief of journalists present, stating that the prize was nearly always awarded to those who wrote in, or at least communicated in, some obscure dialect, little known to the world at large. 

Unconfirmed rumours persist that Mr. Bush's native language is, in fact, English, but these stories are being cooly ignored by the Nobel committee. 

Another White House connection emerged with the awarding of the prize for Chemistry to Mr. Roger Clinton, for his ground-breaking 
research into the distillation and purification of certain natural alkaloids native to Central America. 

'I always knew that boy would amount to somethin' someday', said mother Virginia Clinton, before her death in 1994. 'He was kinda wild compared with his brother, but give that boy a couple of spoons and a bunsen burner, and anythin' was possible'. 

Tabby was awarded the prize for her work in solving certain paradoxes which had become apparent in the probability wave function of quantum mechanics. 

The research was not only original but extremely dangerous, a factor which clearly influenced the judges' choice. 

On the evening before the ceremony Tabby showed reporters and other guests what role she had played in the decisive experiment which had climaxed the project. 

Possibly the biggest shock of the award announcements was the citation of Usama bin Laden as the Nobel Peace prize winner. 

The committee were quick to justify their decision by pointing to many of the Peace laureates of the past. 

'At least one of the ways in which a person can be awarded the Nobel Peace prize', said Dr. Rosencrantz Guildenstern, the chairman of the committee, is for a thoroughly bad man, who has spent most of his life murdering people, to stop doing so for a few months. When that happens he is almost certain to be awarded the Peace prize. It has absolutely nothing to do with peace; surely everybody knows that'. 

Dr. Guildenstern raises some interesting points. Yassar Arafat is a Peace laureate, and Henry Kissinger. Possibly the most extraordinary choice in history was Le Duc 
 Tho, which makes one think that Hitler 

'He may not be in the same category, but who was the only American president to publicly call for a war as a morally cleansing act?' asked Dr. Heddy Gabbler, who was one of those who nominated bin Laden.

'And', she added quizically, 'who is the only American president to win the Nobel Peace prize?' 

Those close to the Saudi Arabian prince believe that his presence at the ceremony is extremely unlikely. 

There has been considerable speculation about the likely winner of the prize for Medicine, and eyebrows were raised when Britain's Harold Shipman was announced as the winner. 

The English physician had earlier been praised by National Health Service chief executive Nigel Crisp for single-handedly lifting a great deal of the burden on the harrassed system by his radical approach to the relief of pain and suffering in elderly patients. 

Shipman's extraordinary work in the much-neglected field of geriatric medicine has earned the fulsome praise of no less an authority than Professor Peter Singer, of Harvard University. 

As with Usama Bin Laden, the chances of Shipman being present in Stockholm to receive the award personally are very remote, stated a spokesman for Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons.