Dr Al-Hosepipe insists that the international community have exaggerated the looting. "There used to be a very small, teensy-weensy bit of looting once upon a time, but now it's finished, over, gone, dried up, ironed out, resolved, terminated, closed down, done and dusted - history."

The controversy first surfaced in a spectacular report by the world's most illustrious arts journalist Martian Bypass in the world famous cultural journal The Mart Newspaper.

"The Mart Newspaper can now reveal," The Mart Newspaper revealed last month, "that we can now exclusively reveal that the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq never actually happened, but was a figment of the imagination and, what is more, The Mart Newspaper can also reveal that we can now exclusively reveal that the Iraq War never happened either."

Under a new law passed this week by the Iraqi Parliament, any children found looting will have their hands chopped off and will be sent to bed with no supper.

Tom Baroli