How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (55 page)

[62]
  Appa were a Sveltish pop band on Fem made up of two lasses and two blokes.  The lasses wore distinctive beanie hats which Eric referred to as ‘Appa Hats.’

[63]
  Another popular nightclub on Ko Pagna Beach.

[64]
  The author would like to point out that not all vegetarian’s bums are saggy.  Some vegetarians still get a fair bit of protein in their diet and manage to maintain a decent amount of firmness in their bum.  Not that I’m an expert on bums or anything.  I’m just, like, saying.  That’s all.

[65]
  Which was actually blank cos she had already been told backstage who the winner was.  But for announcements such as these the Femling public demanded envelopes so that was the charade that Keyla had to go through with in order to keep the viewers happy.

[66]
  So just to avoid any possible element of doubt, the phone voting on the Star Maker final ran totally smoothly.  Nothing went wrong with it at all.  The central telecommunications processor functioned perfectly that evening.

I trust that clarifies the situation.

[67]
  Jixyl and Azleev had programmed Eric’s G.O.T. unit to substitute any reference to booze with a reference to diquintenol, to trick him into believing their whole ‘we don’t drink alcohol to get drunk, we drink diquintenol’ charade.

[68]
  Well, apart from that whole ‘diquintenol’ patter which he told Eric.  Ar … and apart from one or two other majorly big lies which he had told Eric, which will soon be revealed in greater detail.  So in fact when I say ‘true to his word as always,’ it would probably be more accurate to say ‘true to his word … in a dramatic break from convention.’

[69]
  The makers of A.T.S. had, for whatever reason, applied a twenty friend limit to group recommendations.

[70]
  Well maybe not like a twenty ton mallet cos that would kill him.  Unless, perhaps, it was a very light tap.

[71]
 
You might deduce from this comment that Monty’s arithmetic skills weren’t that great, but you’d be wrong.  He was normally pretty sharp at mental numeracy but the sheer shock of the last few minutes had temporarily affected his usually sharp brain.

[72]
  Sorry, I’m stretching the joke out a bit now though, aren’t I, so I promise I’ll make that the last ‘lazy profanity’ reference.

[73]
  Until a couple of weeks ago Garth had been employed as a lawyer but had opted for voluntary redundancy as the package on offer was too good to turn down.

[74]
  Garth had recently split up with his girlfriend, Sarah, but it wasn’t mentioned in the story as I deemed it canny insignificant compared to the impending destruction of the Earth.  Admittedly the impending destruction of the Earth has now turned out to be a sly bluff by Jixyl and Azleev, but nevertheless Garth splitting up with his lass happened ‘off-camera’ so to speak.

[75]
  A Femling day, like a Fyraling day, lasted slightly longer than an Earth day and therefore Fem had a different system of telling the time to the system we use on Earth.

Incidentally, isn’t a bit weird how every country on Earth uses the twenty four hours per day system?  What with everything else, like weight and distance and volume for example, all having different measuring systems around the world, you’d also think there’d be a few places on Earth that would have different units of time as well, rather than just hours and minutes everywhere.

Actually … just ignore uz.  I’ve since found out that the remote W’ta Tutu tribe in the hilly Northern regions of Peru use a different system for measuring time from the rest of the world, so my last comment proved to be true.

Ha! Ha!  Sucked in!  I was just full of patter!  I just made that stuff up about the W’ta Tutu tribe using a different time system.  The W’ta Tutu tribe doesn’t even exist!  I just made them up!  Ha! Ha!  Sponge!

Well … I mean, as far as I know they don’t exist.  If they
do
exist it’s just by a fluky coincidence.

[76]
  Apologies for the excessive amount of swearing in recent chapters, but in the characters’ defence there’s been a lot of intense emotion floating around at the moment so it’s probably understandable.

[77]
  A screen that admittedly could be edited, but Azleev had purposely never mentioned this screen to Eric, Monty or Garth, and therefore he hoped that it was unlikely that Monty had edited the details on it.

[78]
  Monty and Garth had indeed done a runner as they had previously discussed.  The reasoning behind their decision to go to Magalluf was twofold:

Firstly, Magalluf is a very busy holiday location and busyness, they reasoned, equalled safety, as Jixyl and Azleev were unlikely to want to head to a busy location as this would present a high chance of them or their spaceship being detected.

And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they chose Magalluf because it was totally full of fit horny lasses.

[79]
  Honest people don’t need to point out when they’re being honest because they’re always being honest.  It’s only liars that need to provide clarification, and when they do so they are quite frequently lying.

[80]
  A Femling fruit named by G.O.T. after a similar fashion to chork.

[81]
  A Femling spirit.

[82]
  As you can see, Flon possessed the mathematical skills of a footballer.

[83]
  Sunderland fans.

[84]
  He had clearly grasped the concept of being deaf.

[85]
  This was quite a common way of selling concert tickets on Fem.  When a band was big enough that they knew they would definitely sell out a venue they would often hold an auction to see who were the lucky fans to get to see them.  That way, so the argument went, the fans who wanted the tickets the most would bid the most and get to see their heroes.  And conversely, anyone that wasn’t really that fussed would probably only bid a small amount, so that in the event that the gig was oversubscribed the most dedicated fans would be the ones that got to see the concert and the casual fans would be the ones that missed out.

At least that was the publicly expressed reason for concert ticket auctions.  In reality, the main motivation for concert ticket auctions was that that way bands made more money.  They squeezed the maximum amount possible out of their fans.

But, like, good on them and all that.  I’m not knocking them or anything.  I’m a firm believer in capitalism.  The way to change the world is by the power of self-interest.  So if bands can make loads of money by doing a tour then they’re more likely to do more tours, so that means you get to see them play more often.  So, like, everyone’s a winner.  So, like, three cheers for greedy capitalism.  That’s what I say.

Cos, like, if the profits from this book were going to charity d’you think I’d have bothered writing it?  No way!  If I was getting no cash out of it then I’d rather be going out getting boozed up every night than stopping in writing this.  No doubt some people might think that was a good thing, but anyway hopefully I might make a bit of cash out of this so that’s what motivates uz to write it.  Self-interest is a very motivating factor.  Obviously if the world was full of Mother Theresas then we wouldn’t need capitalism and everyone’s inner charitableness would be enough to motivate everyone into doing stuff, but the world isn’t full of Mother Theresas.  So that’s why I’m such a big fan of capitalism.

As long as it’s properly regulated, obviously.  Obviously the government should have lots of clever legislation to reward the sound companies and punish the snidey companies and stuff.  Like, when you’ve got companies like Microsoft exploiting their operating system monopoly then obviously the government should completely stitch Microsoft completely over, like.  Cos exploiting a monopoly isn’t proper capitalism, like.  But, like, in general I have to say that proper capitalism is totally excellent, like.

[86]
  On Fem even cheap watches were waterproof to a hundred metres as standard, so wearing a watch to a pool party wasn’t a problem like it would be back on Earth.

[87]
  A flare kick was a celebration Eric used to do in his youth to celebrate scoring a goal.  It basically consisted of running a few steps then jumping up in the air and twisting your legs up and to the side, then kicking them together in mid-air, then landing facing the opposite direction and posing with your arms in a ‘gansta stylee’ as you land.

[88]
  Fem’s equivalent of an mp3 player.  I’ve mentioned this already but it was a canny few chapters ago so I just thought I’d remind you again just in case you’ve forgotten.  Apologies if you remembered though, and you’re thinking, ‘Here, man.  I know.  You’ve already told uz.’

[89]
  Apart from dancing, that is.

[90]
  This was the equivalent Femling gesture of giving someone the fingers.

[91]
  A type of meat on Fem that was roughly similar to beef, only more tender and with a noticeably stronger flavour.

[92]
  You know by now obviously that diquintenol doesn’t actually exist and that it was just a sneaky made-up invention by Jixyl and Azleev to ensure Eric didn’t get drunk and blab or ask awkward questions.  So you might be wondering why I’m still making references to getting DQed up, rather than making a reference to getting drunk, which is what Hex would actually have said.

Well basically the settings on Eric’s G.O.T. were still programmed to replace all references to getting drunk with references to getting DQed up, so that was why I translated Hex’s comment to read ‘DQed up.’  Technically, I suppose you could probably argue that Eric wasn’t within earshot so why in this instance am I following the rules of his G.O.T.?  But without Eric’s G.O.T. Kesta and Hex would be speaking Femling, and I don’t start typing Femling every time Eric isn’t present.  I stick to the Geordie English that Kesta and Hex’s comments get translated into thanks to Eric’s G.O.T.  I do this partly because I don’t myself speak Femling, but also because no-one reading this book speaks it either, so typing in Femling would be a bit rubbish.  But anyway, for whatever reason, I don’t start typing Femling whenever Eric is off the scene – I stick to what his G.O.T. would translate – so that’s why I just decided to stick to the settings on Eric’s G.O.T. when translating Hex’s comments.

Or maybe you didn’t give it a second’s thought and I’ve just wasted a minute of mine and your time by typing out a load of irrelevant patter.  If so, then soz.  I’ll try to more accurately judge your level of curiosity in future.

[93]
  Two lasses in two days.

[94]
  The owner (hopefully former owner by the time you read this) of Newcastle United who, on buying the club… (censored for legal reasons) …and then went on to lose three hundred million on a spread bet.  This should act as a lesson to everyone to be grateful for what you have and not to plead poverty unless you actually are hard-up.  Alternatively, if you don’t mind risking karma teaching you a lesson, then feel free to… (censored for legal reasons ) …and so before long he had become a hero … on Wearside.

Thanks by the way to nufc.com for highlighting the numerous occasions when… (censored for legal reasons).

[95]
  Or, as already pointed out by Eric, by being a class mother and wife, if you’re a lass.  Please note, Eric wasn’t being sexist by talking in the male sense.  He was just simply thinking about things from a personal point of view.

[96]
  At this stage Eric was still oblivious to the fact that there were actually four victims.

[97]
  Good news!  Books 2A and 2B in the How To Save The World trilogy have now been published and are available from amazon.com and amazon.c
o.uk.

Well …
it’s good news if you enjoyed this book, I mean.  If you didn’t enjoy it then I suppose you could more accurately describe it as ‘news of little significance.’

But if you enjoyed this book then the next two books in the saga are now available.  Search ‘Fudgemuffin’ in the amazon search engine.

[98]
  And also by being a class husband or wife.

[99]
  At the time of writing.

[100]
  Back then it was originally titled ‘A Lush Snaky Trick’ but this later evolved into ‘How To Save The World’ once I realised that the term ‘a lush snaky trick’ didn’t really mean much to anyone outside of Newcastle.

[101]
  Or even just click the ‘like’ button.