Spectator Competition: Out of this world

In Competition 3383 you were invited to submit a Tripadvisor-type review by an alien who has visited Earth for the first time. Frank Upton pointed out that it could have been titled ‘Mostly Harmless’, Ford Prefect’s entire entry for Earth in The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The submissions were full of inventive detail and hard to whittle down. I liked Bill Greenwell’s prankster alien: ‘Staid the nihgt on Manhattan, enjoyd the screeming, skyscapers were a pushover.’ Jonathan White’s extraterrestrial dug jazz (‘an audible chaos I could resonate with’) while Mark Ambrose’s was amused by Earthlings believing Stonehenge to be manmade: ‘Some of the ancient stones from Kalibor’s moon have fallen down, but you can still make out the first landing site.’ Chris O’Carroll’s visitor was pithy about humanity’s prospects: ‘We wish them well.’ The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to the following.

From intergalactic space, Earth enticed; a warming blue-green bauble: so much for advertising. On arrival, we found two whole thirds of the place ocean, which was both unhealthily saline and monotonous to experience, while too much of the land proved beige. The so-called ‘sights’ were predominantly stretches of peculiarly convex or concave landscape, the remainder being pathetic architectural sallies on the part of the natives to compete with same. Abstract beauty at times distinguished the flora, though the best of it flourished in areas devoid of properly educative signage. The resident bipeds kept insisting upon taking us to their leaders – convinced the idea was ours – though we are apolitical and only wanted a drink and a sit down. We asked these leaders what there was to do on Earth, receiving a surprising number of invitations to participate in armed combat on their behalf. Asvacationers, we naturally demurred.

Adrian Fry