Memorial service for a great man

Minister: Friends, Romans, and Countrymen - lend me your ears. I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him.

Omnes: Who?

Minister: We are here to remember Nelson Mandela / Doris Lessing / Graham Stark / Nigel Davenport / Mark 'Chopper' Read / Ralph Miliband / John Cole / Cliff Morgan / Mike Winters / Margaret Thatcher (delete as appropriate), who was clearly the greatest person of the 20th century, or indeed of any century. In the words of Peter Oborne, "Blimey O'Reilly, he could have taught Christ a thing or two!"

The great man meets another great man.

He was known to his friends as Madiba / Scoobie Doo / Goofie / Maggie / Chopper / That Leftie Bastard / Hondootedly / Professor / Fatty / The Deacon from Hell, and it is as his friends that we honour him today.

At this point someone famous who once met the deceased (and this may be Barack Obama, Bono, Stephen Fry, Peter Hain, Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown, Hillary Clinton, or, if we're unlucky, all of them) or will get up and say a eulogy.

We all owe so much... so let's borrow more.

Celebrity: Let us not forget that as a result of spending 27 years in prison / on the golf course / in the pub / screaming at his neighbours / telling bad jokes / playing rugby he single-handedly eliminated apartheid / communism / halitosis / fascism / vegetarianism / New Labour / Darth Vader / Australian cricket / Islam / homophobia / dandruff from the world. Except for Croydon. As a pious Methodist / atheist / Catholic / agnostic / Satanic fire-worshipper / Jedi / Muslim, his actions were always guided by his deeply-held faith.

I remember when he met me he quipped: "Who are you?" / "Get out of my way!" / "Could you lend me a fiver?" / "Aren't you on the telly?" / "I thought you were dead!" / "Would you like to come back to my place?" Truly, he was the greatest man of the century, greater even than Churchill / Lenin / Gandhi / Eric Morecambe / Mother Teresa / Charlie Chaplin / Idi Amin / Chesterton / Spike Milligan / Liberace / Cary Grant (or he may name some other great person). Can I have my fee now?

At this point the 3 biggest numpties in the congregation will grin like jackasses and take a "selfie" of themselves, while their nearest and dearest sulk in deep embarrassment.

Minister: I've had enough. Depart in peace before I throw you out.

Congregation: Are the pubs open?

Can Peter Oborne be compared to Jesus Christ?

It was his pureness of heart and sanity of judgement that made Peter Oborne one of the three greatest comedians of the 20th century. The other two were Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin.

The Telegraph's chief political comedian.

Whereas many other people decided that Gandhi was a dirty old man who hated Western Civilization, only Peter Oborne in his simple ignorance saw him as a hero who embraced humanity - even the ones who didn't want to be embraced. Indeed, Oborne is probably unique in listing both Churchill and Gandhi - who hated each other and had diametrically opposite views - as his personal heroes.

We should judge Oborne in the context of Telegraph comment and blogs. The list of those with an epic generosity of spirit is small: one might name Damian Thompson, with his universal courtesy and kindness to his enemies such as David Cameron, Tim Yeo, Russell Brand and Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor. Or James Delingpole with his Olympian tolerance of windfarms, "green" taxes, and the inanities of his nonagenarian colleague Geoffrey Lean. Yet only Oborne stands out as genuinely - but unconsciously - a comic genius.

Ayatollah Khomeini - "one of the greatest theologians of our time".

The recent book A Dangerous Delusion: Why the Iranian Nuclear Threat is a Myth is just the sort of text that Jesus would have written, if he had been as clever as Peter Oborne. In it, Ayatollah Khomeini is described as "one of the greatest theologians of all time" - at least if our friends at Wikipedia aren't having a little joke here. All time, you notice. Tough luck, Augustine, Aquinas, etc., you just didn't have the intellect of the sage of Tehran!

Po of the Telegraphies - was she so named because of her resemblance to P.O.?

Oborne himself rose to fame as a sports journalist, with biographies of the great cricketer Basil D'Oliveira, and of Alastair Campbell, the spinner for Tony Blair. But he turned to politics, and our American readers will doubtless admire his article Why the US is now our great enemy, written in 2005, when the UK and USA were bitterly fighting a cold war. Please check this, someone.

Jesus Himself is known to have said to Himself on many occasions, "What would Peter Oborne do?" and this is obviously a precept that we should follow ourselves. Note that Our Lord gave the name Peter to his greatest disciple, intending that he would model his life on that of the great Oborne: inevitably he fell short. In more recent times Damian Thompson said to our hero "You are Peter, and on this rock I shall build my blogs. And I have given you the keys to the executive washroom."

Ye must be - oh, born again!

The death of Peter Oborne's credibility diminishes the earth we walk on. Even now that it has gone, it is essential for the sake of our common humanity that we cherish its memory and try as best we can to remember the lessons that he taught.