How To Be An Alien

There was some trouble with the Burburuk tribe in the Pacific Island, Charamak. A party of ten English and two American soldiers, under the command of Capt. R. L. A. T. W. Tilbury, raided the island and took 217 revolutionary, native troublemakers prisoner and wrecked two large oil-dumps. The party remained ashore an hour-and-a-half and returned to their base camp without loss to themselves.

How to report this event? It depends on which newspaper you work for.

--- The Times ---

... It would be exceedingly perilous to overestimate the significance of the raid, but it can be fairly proclaimed that it would be even more dangerous to underestimate it. The success of the raid clearly proves that the native defences are not invulnerable; it would be fallacious and deceptive, however, to conclude that the defences are vulnerable. The number of revolutionaries captured cannot be safely stated, but it seems likely that the number is well over 216 but well under 218.

--- In the House ---

You may become an M.P. (Nothing is impossible — this would not be even unprecedented.) You may hear then the follow statement by a member of His Majesty's Government:

Concerning the two wrecked oil-dumps I can give this information to the House. In the first half of this year the amount of native oil destroyed by the Army, Navy and the R.A.F. — excluding however, the Fleet Air Arm — is one half as much as three times the amount destroyed during the corresponding months of the previous year, seven and a half times as much as the two-fifths destroyed two years ago and three quarters as much again as twelve times one-sixth destroyed three years ago. (Loud cheers from the Government benches.)

You jump to your feet and ask this question:

You: Is the Right Hon. Gentleman aware that people in this country are puzzled and worried by the fact that Charamak was raided and not Ragamak?

The Right Hon Member: I have nothing to add to my statement given on the 2nd August, 1892.

--- Evening Standard (Londoner's Diary) ---

The most interesting feature of the Charamak raid is the fact that Reggie Tilbury is the fifth son of the Earl of Bayswater. He was an Oxford Blue, a first-class cricketer and quite good at polo. When I talked to his wife (Lady Clarisse, the daughter of Lord Elasson) at Claridges to-day, she wore a black suit and a tiny block hat with a yellow feather in it. She said: “Reggie was always very much interested in warfare.” Later she remarked: “It was clever of him, wasn't it?”

You may write a letter to the editor of “The Times”:

“Sir, — In connection with the Charamak raid I should like to mention as a matter of considerable interest that it was in that little Pacific Island that the distinguished English poet, John Flat, wrote his famous poem ‘The Cod’ in 1693.

Yours, etc. ...”

You may read this answer on the following day:

“Sir, — I am very grateful to Mr. ... for calling attention to John Flat's poem ‘The Cod.’ May I be allowed to use this opportunity, however, to correct a widespread and in my view very unfortunate error which the great masses of the British people seem to share with your correspondent. ‘The Cod,’ although John Flat started writing it in 1693, was only finished in the early days of 1694.

Yours, etc. ...”

If you are the London correspondent of the American paper

--- The Oklahoma Sun ---

simply cable this:

“Yanks Conquer Pacific Ocean”

If Naturalised

The verb to naturalise clearly proves what the british think of you. Before you are admitted to British citizenship you are not even considered a natural human being. I looked up the word natural (na'tural) in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (p.521); it says: Of or according to or provided by nature, physically existing, innate, instinctive, normal, not miraculous or spiritual or artificial or conventional ... Note that before you obtain British citizenship, they simply doubt you are provided by nature.

According to the Pocket Oxford Dictionary the word “na'tural” has a second meaning, too: Half-witted person. This second meaning, however, is irrelevant from the point of view of our present argument.

If you are tired of not being provided by nature, not being physically existing and being miraculous and conventional at the same time, apply for British citizenship. Roughly speaking, there are two possibilities: it will be granted to you, or not.

In the first case you must reorganise and revise your attitude to life. You must pretend that you are everything you are not and you must look down upon everything you are.