Okay...

...so you didn't go for the movie idea. A shame, really, as you'd have been ahead of the game if you had. Or did I not mention my special gift? I can see into the future, you see. Yes, really. It's one of a few, shall we say, special features I have. Like being able to breathe through my skin. Hence the tights. *Much* better ventilated than your average pair of trews and, as an added bonus, they make for a rather nifty air filter too. Very handy in Los Angeles or Beijing, I'd imagine. And of course, they do show off my incredibly sexy long legs too, which is nice. The two hearts come in handy too. And did I mention the multiple sets of genitalia? No, I don't suppose I did - you probably would have been a bit keener on the movie pitch if I'd led with that now I think of it. Oh well, you live and learn. Mind you, when you're 1.2 light years old (that's several thousand millenia in old money - I lost count after you bastards nailed that beardy bloke up for telling you to get your acts together) you are prone to the odd lapse in concentration.

So, where was I? Oh yes, the old wedding tackle. Well, it's not actually quite as impressive as I maybe suggested earlier. I have just the three sets actually - one of each and a wierd sort of feathery thing that's quite handy for pollination in some of the less developed solar systems - I'd imagine it would probably go down quite well in marine circles here on planet Humanoid too...not that I've ever tried it, you understand. Although I did have a close encounter with a couple of porpoises once that could have got quite interesting if I hadn't had to come up for air. It's the legs - great on land; bloody dangerous underwater, I can tell you. It's quite popular with the Earthlettes too, of course - for obvious reasons - although I did have one bizarre request from a lady of, shall we say, a certain age who wanted me to give her bannisters a quick once over after I'd performed the painful duty on her. Honestly, some people, eh?

So there you have it; that's me. Just your average, common all garden extraterrestrial, really. Brain the size of a minor galaxy, astonishing powers of extra-sensory perception, the ability to see into the future and extraordinarily well hung. Just your standard model really. Oh and I sing too; strange uneartly songs they are; uncanny glimpses of the future that awaits you all, if you would just open up your eyes and see it. A bit like that Carpenters one only with a bit more guitar, obviously. You know the kind of thing...

L.U.V. on ya

xxx
Bob

Anon: the autobiography...

This is the working title for a novel. The idea is simple. It's set in the London of the not-too-distant future. Barring a handful of rebels and an increasingly dwindling pool of veil-wearing Somalian immigrants, *everybody* is a celebrity. Even the servants and hangers on of the fairly-well known have acquired a renown that would put today's reality TV stalwarts to shame. Anyone who is not a celebrity is such a novelty that they are treated with the same jaw-dropping, flash-bulb popping adoration as would previously only have been merited by huge stars of the silent era; Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, perhaps. Invariably, with the help of modern technology, they don't remain unknown for long; there is, for instance, a separate youtube chart for 'Big Issue' sellers who can command huge performance fees for personal performances, some of the biggest stars of street corner begging having been replaced by 'virtual' spots outside Marks & Spencer and so on where people can watch looped performances of them shouting "'Gisshew" and then make online credit card payments to have the magazine downloaded onto their mobile phones. In such a world, anonymity becomes the most powerful condition it is possible to aspire to; hence the naming of the novel's eponymous heroine: Anon.

Anon. goes to great lengths to disguise her true obscurity - wearing expensive cast-offs; Jimmy Choos and designer snakeskin trousers purchased from the new breed of charity shops - Help the Wanted; War on Ageing; Sexfam etc. She flees the city where she joins a small band of rebels who make night raids on the city, smashing the ubiquitous flat screen TVs that show the sex-lives of the fairly well-known in all major public places, spraying out the names and slogans on advertising hoardings and so on. Anon. and her fellow rebels are eventually captured and after being tortured and villified by the Head of the State (a thinly veiled Simon Cowell - no, I didn't know he was a Muslim either...) they are publicly crucified. Ironically, in death the rebels achieve only the worst kind of martyrdom and become the most celebrated of all celebrities as their lives are revered and worshipped down through the centuries in a wicked travesty of the obscurantism for which they gave their lives.

I'm thinking Blanchett or Paltrow in the lead role. Bill Nighy as the O'Brien character, perhaps? Maybe Mel Gibson as Barabas. Kind of thing.

So, whaddaya reckon?

L.U.V. on ya,

Bob