‘For months now, Deryck has displayed characteristics which suggest he is fully conscious of the continuing oppression of the proletariat,’ said Dr John Portland, a senior lecturer in Socio-biology. ‘He waxes lyrical against every action of police officers, he blames Margaret Thatcher for almost everything and insists that the labour movement remains the means by which the working class will throw off their shackles. He also only eats fairtrade bananas.’

At first scientists were concerned that the phenomenon was just a case of Deryck repeating, rather than understanding, phrases such as ‘dialectical materialism’ and ‘false consciousness’. ‘It soon became clear, though, that we’d managed to radicalise Deryck by revealing to him the suffering his ancestors experienced in the 1980s,’ explained Dr Portland. ‘After seeing how they were forced to dress in demeaning proletariat garb and move pianos up and down stairs for no greater reward than regular cups of PG Tips, he was a changed chimp.’

‘But we finally knew Deryck had really developed strong socialist convictions when we returned from lunch one day to find he had ‘seized control of the modes of production’ – or the student union bar. The statement he’d pinned to the faculty noticeboard denounced our ‘commodity fetishism as nothing more than the opium of the people’ and heralded ‘the end of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’. We only managed to talk him out on the promise of improving his pay and conditions, and so a tyre on a rope was fitted in his enclosure the very next day.’

Scientists are now celebrating after persuading Deryck to shun his revolutionary tendencies and accept that there is a third way to achieve social and economic equality between peoples. ‘I’ve joined the Labour Party,’ enthused Deryck. ‘That way I can feel loyal to my fictional roots without actually lowering my standard of living like real socialism would.’

benjball

Organisers decided to pull the plug on the competitive element of the event within hours of the electricity supply finally being connected, citing concerns that firstly the competitors’ accommodation at the Games Village may not stay standing for more than a few more days, and secondly because there’s only so long you can go before a trained monkey security guard cracks and goes for a recuperating athlete eating a banana.

The event, now being dubbed ‘a 15-minute extravaganza celebrating the modern legacy of the old British Empire’, will see pyrotechnics and massive-scale choreographed dance routines, followed by a presentation of the athletes marching around the potholed running track. There will then be a pause for international broadcasters to describe the electric atmosphere in the stadium and patronise local culture, before Prince Charles, representing the Queen as head of the Commonwealth, will declare the Games open, and then shut.

A spokesman for the BBC in Delhi said that the Corporation was not too disappointed at the decision. ‘A lot of our key presenters were already in a lot of trouble at home at the prospect of their sidling off for another fortnight’s jolly when they’ve barely got over their hangovers from partying it up at the World Cup,’ he noted, ‘But don’t worry, BBC standards will be maintained — we’ve already filmed a few Slumdog Millionaire comparison pieces for Children in Need, and if anything big does happen in the next couple of weeks, like a stadium collapsing, there’ll be plenty of coverage we can pick up from YouTube.’

Despite the British public’s outbreak of indifference to the decision Craig Hunter, chef de mission of the England team, said it was a shame that his athletes’ involvement would only amount to a quick trot around the running track. ‘The event’s been unlucky in being plagued with bureaucratic problems, clashes with other important sporting events, and unexpected fever outbreaks, meaning many of the finest competitors the Commonwealth has to offer decided to stay away. But it’s a shame they couldn’t have stuck with it anyway. I mean with no-one else here, I think there was a fair chance we might have actually won something.’

‘When they beat us into space, I think we all assumed it was a matter of time before you had poodles and marmosets building kennels and tree houses on the moon,‘ said NASA chief Charles Boden. ‘But it seems neither species had the ambition or the organisational capability for the long haul. Years of careful monitoring have shown that canines turned their attention to cornering the home pet market, while monkeys have settled for drawing steady crowds at the zoo after dabbling in TV advertising.’

Although NASA is now confident neither dogs or monkeys have serious ambitions as astronauts, they admitted it wasn’t always clear cut. ‘Through close observation, we noticed that dogs spend a lot of time in kennels, many of which are shaped like rockets, but so far we have no evidence that they are any closer to being able to launch these structures or attain the velocity needed to escape the planet’s gravitational pull. And monkeys often seemed to be getting closer to leaving the earth’s atmosphere, but after a while they tended to come down from the tree-tops to grab themselves a banana or just throw shit at a mate.’

Despite dismissing the threat to the US space programme from dogs and monkeys, NASA recognises that others may still be seeking to steal a march on them. ‘Only yesterday we were alerted to a new threat by our friends the Russians and Chinese, and I give all Americans my word that we will not rest until we find out what it is cats get up to during the day.’

But the monkeys are furious at what they regard as an enormous snub of their creative endeavours and are already threatening never to reveal the outcome of Lydia’s Chlamydia test. ‘This is bloody typical of a writer’s lot – you file something way ahead of the deadline and everyone’s still whinging,’ said dominant male, Mr Tickles. ‘If we’d written another Complete Works we’d have been accused of plagiarism.’

A spokeswoman for the monkeys said the complaints from the literary world were a typical attempt by the establishment to undermine new writers, ‘There’s a saying in this business, if you throw enough shit some of it will stick. Something I discovered myself at the monkeys’ launch party last week’.

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