I’VE been very taken of late with the idea of human contact with intelligent extraterrestrials.
However, I remain a bit wary of raising the subject because it is regarded as a crankish and outlandish.
But look here, I am no crackpot conspiracy theorist.
And before considering (as many writers before me have done) what ETs (if they exist) might be like, I want to pause first to consider how extraordinary we humans are...
As a species we are full of surprises, compassion, love, passion, pain, pleasure and a whole host of other mind-blowing feelings and achievements.
Truly, we are sensational creatures. We are capable of great art and poetry, but we are also known to turn savage on quite frequent occasions.
And our capacity for evil and cruelty remains undiminished.
So, if sentient beings exist our there in the Cosmos (and I feel it’s most likely they do) then they are surely going to be interested in little old us – as we constantly spin and toil, build and destroy, make peace and love and war.
With our rugged individualism, we must appear a fascinating bunch to any intelligent species that’s watching us – perhaps with what passes for amazement, sorrow, incredulity or hilarity.
However, I rather fancy hilarity on the part of our alien observers doesn’t come into it.
Because it strikes me that humour is not necessarily universal. It seems a very human quality to me.
Now, as I think I have intimated in a previous posting, I have invented this race of ETs called the Wearons who have been planning to colonise Earth for the past 40 years, using a secret base in Liverpool’s Roman Catholic Cathedral.
Come on! That building doesn’t even look like it was designed by a human.
The Wearons’ mission on Earth is simple. They want to learn humour in all its forms.
In my imagined universe, you see, the Wearons, like all other alien life forms, do not ‘get’ humour, though they value it.
In fact, they desperately want to be funny – seeing wit and humour as a pinnacle achievement for any civilised race.
So they have come to Earth – and particularly to the comedy-rich city of Liverpool – to learn how to be funny … before routinely conquering our world and adding it to their empire.
They figure they couldn’t do any worse a job of governing the Earth and conserving its resources than mankind does – and they might have a point there.
And while they mean us no actual harm, and really do want to make our world better for us to live in, they have no time for (and no real understanding of) issues of ‘freedom’ and ‘self-determination’.
That’s a bit of a shame, of course, because freedom – particularly – is very dear to the human heart.
Now in case anyone is panicking about the Wearon invasion, don’t worry, they are purely a work of speculative fiction.
And anyway their plans for conquering our world keep getting stalled. That’s because they’ve chosen Liverpool (where nothing ever goes to plan or gets completed on time) as the HQ for their take-over of the world.
If you’d like to know more about the weird world of the Wearons, I have to tell you that I’ve been invited to give a public performance of a monologue I’ve written about them.
If I am well enough – and that is a big ‘if’ just now – then I will perform my Wearons routine, which is quite saucy by the way, at The Magnet club, 45 Hardman Street, Liverpool, on Tuesday, 19 February.
I should take the stage there at about 9pm. But, like I say, I might not be well enough to do it. Keep watching this space for confirmation or otherwise.
And you might like to know that other members of our poetry group, The Bards of New Brighton, are also planning to perform their various pieces at The Magnet on the date given above.
We’ve been invited to appear by the event’s promoter, John King, who sometimes comes to Bards meetings in New Brighton.
This special evening is chiefly about music, however, so there will be four young bands performing as well, including the indie group The Shabangs and experimental art rock from The Mong Club.
So look out, Liverpool – the Culture starts now.
Because the New Brightonians are coming!
PS My thanks to Posh Boots for keying in this posting from an audio recording I dictated. My headaches are still plaguing me to an extent that I daren’t write at a computer screen for fear of triggering off another attack of mega-pain of the sort that saw me carted off to Arrowe Park Hospital last time it happened.
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Humbug wrote...
Steve, hope the headaches clear up and it is nothing more than the Wearon mind probe adapting to human physiology. Like Boris, they talk out of their ar**
Hope to see you soon, Mike.
REGAN REPLIED: Er, yeah MIke, but who is this Boris you mention?
Posted by: Humbug | January 16, 2008 9:18 PM