I have never read or listened to so much vacuous, vaporous, venomous cyanide-infused diatribe as when Obama was the target of vilification for being a Nobel Prize winner.

I was beginning to wonder if these people have suddenly been afflicted with adult version of Attention Deficit Disorder, all too known to younger siblings, and, wondering why the Norwegian politicians have not paid any heed to them.

The rhetoric expanded and constricted like a wheezy asthmatic.

To mention a few: ‘The prize undermines the selfless triumphs of earlier winners’; ‘It’s a message of support for America’s first black president’; ‘It is premature, ill-judged and embarrassing at a time when he is pre-occupied with fighting a war in Afghanistan’; ‘A pointless prize awarded to a fool lost in his own mystique’.

Similar criticisms were leveled against Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973), and Mohammed ElBaradei (2005) was not immune to this razor-wire fascination.

These flagellants and ranters are not always the soundest of judges of character and events. Their words held wisdom, but mostly inconsistent; at times modest and conciliatory, but often blustery and dismissive.

Perhaps the Nobel Peace Committee, intensely illuminated by the fires of greener issues, decided Mr Obama would become the ‘arbitres’ of the financial world and, perhaps, the ‘mediatrix’ of peace (I have deliberately left Mr Brown out, as he has confirmed his intention to ‘save the world’).

Little did they know that their humble choice would evoke such seismic reflections of metaphysical nature that accompanied so much conversation about Mr Obama on that weekend.

All said and done, the award went to Mr Barack Obama.

Dr Francis APALOO, Shear Bank Road, Blackburn.