Japanese culture is one of honour. This means, conversely, that it is necessarily a culture of shame for those who cannot meet these standards of honour. This is not a bad thing, however, because the power of this shame can be harnessed, and channelled into compelling prime-time television.

While in Australia we are fortunate to have many things, like Neighbours, funnel-web spiders and racism, one thing we do not have is compelling prime-time television. What is certain, needless to say, is that our Chinese friends from Japan do not share the same problem. This ingenuity is no surprise from the race that brought us The Baby Mop:

An example of this ingenuity on television is the groundbreaking Japanese game show, 男人的夢想游戲, which I think is roughly translated as “Sexually Objectifying Women While A Group Of Men Carry Out Ridiculous Tasks That Demean All Involved”, which consists largely of sexually objectifying women while a group of men carry out ridiculous tasks that demean all involved.

This is just as awesome as it sounds, as men carry out various challenges to try to see a woman naked. One involves a man throwing a ball at panels that are hiding a woman having a shower. The catch is that they must do so while on a slippery slide that angles down into a pool filled with, depending on the mood of the shows loveably sleazy and eccentric host, hot water, cold water, mud or if he’s feeling playful, boiling squid ink. The thrower is also tied to elastic that pulls him back down the slide and towards the pool, and he is also, for some reason, wearing only underwear.

Straight away I know what you’re thinking – genius. But it doesn’t end there. Every time the guy actually knocks out all the panels, the camera jumps, and in the shower instead of the attractive girl is this weird naked bald guy who then slides down with his legs up into the man who threw the ball and his team-mates. Hilarity inevitably ensues.

Meanwhile, in Australia, we have fucking Masterchef. This is a television show, as far as I can understand it, in which the audience is subjected to having to watch people cook meals. That’s it. Watching people cook. Or try another popular prime-time Australian show, The Biggest Loser, where the audience is made to watch extremely fat people in their underwear. And it's not even in a freakshow way, where the fatties are humiliated, an idea which might have potential; they're just trying to make a point about a healthy lifestyle. All this, when we could be watching guys try to see women shower and fall in boiling squid ink. What madness!

There is another challenge on that Japanese show involving a tank of water (boiling, of course) and a woman sitting on a stool wearing a bikini (obviously several sizes too small for her). The task requires the man (naturally in his underwear) to touch a sensor pad at the bottom of the tank of boiling water for the longest possible amount of time. His team-mates often are kind enough to assist him, usually by holding his head underwater or sitting on him. This sensor pad (now this is the genius part), is linked to the stool on which the girl is sitting, so that when it is activated the stool rocks from side to side, which in turn moves the girls body, leaving her scantily clad breasts little choice but to jiggle merrily.

While we are stuck watching The Block, the lucky fuckers in Japan are seeing jiggling boobies and a guy trying to rub ice on his burning skin. I mean, come on! Now The Block takes awful television to a new low. I know that to say something is like watching paint dry is a cliché for boredom, but watching people paint is getting way, way too close for comfort. Give me Japanese television any day! Even when the Japanese do a cooking show in Iron Chef, at least it has a host who feels the need to have a sword and bite capsicums, but feels no need to explain the presence of either of these things. Iron Chef  was on Australian TV, but not on a commercial channel, and certainly not prime-time.

We should have a show like they have in Japan called Silent Library, where participants must sit around a table in a library while performing humiliating and painful challenges, all the while trying to remain silent. Challenges include such brilliance as sitting on a pin, an old man taking his teeth out and nibbling your neck, or even having someone drive a remote control car into your forehead. You can’t write this stuff! It’s pure inspiration, and we need it over here before Channel Ten reach the logical conclusion of their reality television programming and release a show where each week contestants must compete for who can take the biggest shit. In fact, that’s what the show could be called: The Biggest Shitter.

Or, MasterShit.

Or maybe even, So You Think You Can Shit.

Kill me before that happens.

 Dear Diary,

Christ, what a fucking day! The first thing I wake up to is my personal assistant, Bertoni, telling me that I had to rush breakfast because there was a lot on today. I was like, "bitch, this is my house!" What could be so urgent anyway? It was barely 1pm! To be fair, I've been getting absolutely done up the arse in the media lately for not realising that Pope John Paul II and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin are in fact different people. It probably didn't help that at his Beatification last month I quipped that by now his Soul had definitely found "a stairway to heaven". I guess now I know why nobody laughed. You would think being down with Led Zeppelin would be a good thing anyway, considering the drilling I've been getting for not being in touch with youth. There's this perception that the senior members of the Catholic Church aren't cool and that we're not "in touch with kids these days". It’s like, don’t worry about us, we're in touch with the kids.



I munched my Coco Pops down like a boss and looked over the research I had planned to do today on a recently discovered scroll that proclaims the reincarnation of Jesus may be among us in the guise of a chocolate-faced American rapper called Snoop Dogg. But there was no time for that, as Bertoni told me that we had a meeting with the cardinals today and that I was already 15 minutes late. I had already downloaded the Doggystyle album for my research! At this point I was thinking this day couldn't get worse! At least I found out that the horse I bet on last night – Beelzebub Billy – placed second, and I won fifty bucks. Suck it, Sportsbet. Winning!



The meeting with the cardinals was such a drag. I was so bored that I taxed Cardinal George Pell's iPhone while he went to take a piss and logged onto his Twitter account, tweeting: "In the joy of the Risen Lord, let us move forward. He will help us, and Mary, His Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. I love cock." I showed it to Cardinal Anthony and he immediately retweeted it. What a bold motherfucker!



At the meeting we discussed homosexuality, child abuse and the millions dying in Africa of AIDS due to our stance on condom use, but after a while we got bored and decided to come back to them at a later date. Besides, we had more important issues at hand – a referendum on whether or not to allow Wonder White to sponsor us and be added to the Lord's Prayer. I was hesitant, but "give us this day our daily Wonder White bread" both sounds good and brings in some extra cash. I heard some moans from the others, complaining that it goes against tradition and it'll be impossible to justify to Catholics. I just smiled and screamed, "Is this the Vati-CAN or the Vati-CAN'T!" The table erupted! People were like "tweet that shit!" or like “nice one homie!” or like “maybe we should think about getting some actual work done” and other shit like that. I think I've finally really found my place and become the funny one in the group.



At the end of the meeting someone suggested that we allow women to join the priesthood to match gender equality that is now common in the wider society. After a solid fifteen minutes of laughter, we realised that the meeting was over, and, I suggested that we retire to my house because I had torrented Zoolander last night. I'll never forget Cardinal Michael's face in tears of laughter after I said, "I can Benedict my own balls!" during the movie. I was being high fived like a motherfucker! The hilarity was compounded by Cardinal George’s realisation of what I had done to his Twitter account. He would've killed me if we weren't so baked at the time. Later on someone said something about the Sistine Chapel, to which I shouted, "More like Fistine Chapel...am I right guys?" which received only light chuckles. Deserved more, I would have thought.



So here I am, Diary, tired as a bitch. I seriously cbf with all the shit I have to deal with. I hope God guides me through, and I know He will, because I swear to Him, if I hear anything more about faggots getting married, condoms or how good Inception is, I'm going to lose my shit. Right now I gtg work on some jokes and bring the ruckus to the fellas tomorrow. 

Fuck it, I’m going to set up my own Twitter account so I can let the world hear about it. These gags are too good to waste!!!