BY ALLEN MYERS
The excitement is building. The torch has passed from West Wybelong to East Woop Woop.
Only 700 hours to go. Australian athletes are in training. Aussie Aussie Aussie.
In Sydney, an emergency public transport system is under construction after the discovery that most Olympic tourists will not bring their cars with them. Hurry, hurry!
Tomorrow the torch will pass between West Woop Woop and North Wybelong. Rain or snow or sun are possible. Hardship. What grit.
Four hundred and twenty-seven million Olympic tickets have been delivered to the lucky purchasers, only 13% of whom couldn't remember ordering them. If you didn't get your tickets, scream into a telephone immediately.
Aussie Aussie Aussie. Mum and Dad are watching their offspring in the final weeks of his/her training. Will he or she win gold? Possibly. Or not. The tension is clear in the voice-over.
At least 16 lucky Olympic ticket purchasers have filed lawsuits for the right to compete as part of the Aussie team, claiming that's what they thought they were purchasing when they put their money down. Three have won their cases.
Time is racing: only 41,000 minutes till the opening flame. Billy Bunkum is carrying the torch between someplace and someplace else. Bunkum won the silver medal for minding his own business at the 1944 Geneva Olympics. The fever is rising.
To celebrate the Olympic spirit, Mabel Hepplewhite, of Grapefruit, Victoria, has taught her two pet koalas to play badminton.
In Sydney, it will be illegal for non-chauffeured persons to use a car during the Olympics. Stay home and watch the television: thrilling things are happening.
On Tuesday, the torch will be carried between two different people by Horace Scrutch, who took out the bronze medal for card sharping in the 1958 Monte Carlo Olympics. Horace says it will be a bigger buzz than the time he dealt himself five kings while playing poker against a mafia capo.
This may be your last chance: there are only 312 million Olympic tickets left to be sold. Buy one for a friend, too; if it's not sold out, NSW will be bankrupt. Aussie Aussie Aussie.
Lap, the official Olympic sponsor for dog food, has called for the closure of all NSW butcher shops to prevent "ambush marketing" by competitors.
Long-range weather forecasters are on tenterhooks at the possibility of a cyclone striking Sydney in late September. The Bureau of Meteorology believes this is a result of the Reverend Fred Snyde's years of praying for rain to fall on the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras: the prayers were sent to the wrong address, and have been accumulating.
On Friday, the torch will be carried by a relay team of Afghan terrorists who have been granted the honour as consolation for being refused entry into the Olympic grenade-putting event, beginning in only 2,237,000 seconds.
NSW public transport has been closed for the duration, because it might get in the way of IOC members' cars. It will be sold after the Olympics, to cover unpaid bills.
Five-year-old Pilbara resident Curtin Goldfish has begun training for the 2016 Olympics, which his mother says he expects to be held in Perth. Curtin is a junior champion wombat wrestler, and wet himself with emotion when he learned that wombat wrestling had been introduced as a demonstration event at the Sydney Olympics. Aussie Aussie Aussie.
NSW Police Commissar Colonel Colonel Colonel Colonel has called on terrorists and the homeless of Sydney to cooperate fully with the Australian Defence Forces, which will be conducting manoeuvres, possibly until well after the next federal election.
Now there are only 2.193 billion milliseconds to go. The excitement has become almost unbearable.