Categories
Good News Week

The Olympics are not about fun (Good News Week 4/8/08: monologue)

In the lead up to the Olympics, Chinese officials have closed down bars and clubs, expelled prostitutes and clamped down on entertainment. Because they want to show the world a Beijing just as dull as the world expects.

Because the last thing you want at an Olympic Games is entertainment.

In the lead up to the Olympics, Chinese officials have closed down bars and clubs, expelled prostitutes and clamped down on entertainment. They really know how to please.

Who’d’ve thought the Chinese Government would crack down on fun? Seems so out of character.

The only fun the athletes will be allowed is helping harvest organs from the Falun Gong. / is holding down Falun Gong members while someone removes their organs.

International athletes will not be allowed to have any fun, but they will be allowed to sing the glowing praises of the glorious peoples’ fatherland. / but they will be allowed to express their admiration for the triumphant rational democracy of the Chinese Government.

The Chinese Government says that running very quickly or jumping over things should be fun enough for anyone.

The Chinese government says if they don’t like it, athletes can just go home. No-one’s forced to compete in the Olympics. Except, of course, for the Chinese athletes.

The Chinese government are also thinking of imposing restrictions on how fast foreigners can run and swim.

For the duration of the Olympics, the Chinese government is placing a virtual ban on fun. No organ-harvesting, no water-torture, no driving over people with tanks, nothing!

And the only athletes allowed in will have to be serious competitors.

Anyone caught smiling will be shot on sight.

And visitors who go overboard on the soy sauce will be shot.

The Olympics is an opportunity to remake their image. They wouldn’t want any parties or entertainment to spoil it.

The government are trying to ensure that Westerners don’t have any fun. After all, Chinese students are taught that we’re incapable of it – if they learn we have the ability to smile, they may flee en masse.

Even English language clubbing and lifestyle magazines are being forced to close down. English language journos are expected to focus on writing about what a fabulous time they’re having, rather than actually having it.

In the lead up to the Olympics, Chinese officials have closed down bars and clubs, expelled prostitutes and clamped down on entertainment. They’ve really pulled out all the stops – stop drinking, stop having fun, stop loitering, stop celebrating the Olympic spirit…

In the lead up to the Olympics, Chinese officials have closed down bars and clubs, expelled prostitutes and clamped down on entertainment. That way, people are more likely to go to the monk-bashings.

The all-night parties of previous Games will be hard to find in Beijing. Although night-owls will be able to attend all night literature burnings. / protestor shootings. / readings from Mao’s Little Red Book.

Officials are suddenly enforcing a little-known rule that bars and clubs shut at 2am. These Chinese communist tyrants! It’s almost as bad as living in Melbourne!

Authorities have issued a list of 57 rules for foreigners. But that’s what it’s like living in a totalitarian country. Almost as bad as World Youth Day.

Trying to fit even a few extra people into Beijing means that there isn’t any room for fun. / to fit so many extra people into Beijing means that there isn’t any room for fun.

The Chinese Government has now said that people should shut up and be thankful they’re still allowed sport.

It really doesn’t matter what fun they take away – the Chinese Newspapers have already written that it was the best Games ever.

They’re closing bars, expelling prostitutes, enforcing curfews, and cracking down on all things yummy.

One company’s program of corporate hospitality events had been cut down from 17 at the Sydney Olympics to just one at Beijing. Which means the weightlifters and the synchronised swimmers mingling together – and that can lead to trouble.

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

Leave a Reply