For Ed Miliband, alien emperor, a guide to family life

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/04/alien-guide-family-life-earth-ed-miliband

Version 0 of 1.

I went to see the sci-fi blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow last week and it had me worrying about alien invasion. You may mock, but surely there's a reason why Ed Miliband seems so disconnected from human life? I think you know what I'm saying. Therefore I have prepared the following: An Alien's Guide to Family Life on Earth.

Dear Ed Alien Emperor,

Having just arrived to rule our worthless species with your greatly superior intelligence and technology, here's a little primer on how things operate on Earth. Family life on different planets is bound to vary widely – this should help with providing a sensible family policy when you impose your cruel discipline on us unworthy earthlings.

1. The family

Families on Earth are connected by bloodline (we still use biological procreation). A female (the ones with mammary glands and shoes at an irrational 45 degree angle to the horizontal) and a male (hair on chest, unpleasant odour) bring their reproductive organs together and after nine moon cycles an earthlet emerges from the female. The earthlet will cry. We cry a lot on this planet to express our dissatisfaction with our primitive and worthless lives. The male and female may produce several earthlets. This is what we call a family.

2. Marriage

Before reproduction takes place, some humans take part in a primitive ritual called marriage. This is a semi-mystical system in which something humans call love is the prime motivator. I don't know if you have love on your planet, but it causes a lot of trouble here. Roughly speaking, it is a warm fuzzy feeling around the thorax. It spreads to the reproductive organs and marriage is a way of regulating the results from a societal point of view. Marriage is meant to be for the full duration of our pitifully short lifespan, however ...

3. Divorce

… is what happens when the warm fuzzy feeling around the thorax is replaced by a violent jagged feeling in the same place and a desire to put your former love-object into an atom crusher, which usually happens after five to seven earth cycles. Then the marriage can be dissolved and earthlets divided between the female and the male, usually the female taking the primary role because their mammary glands and more pleasant smell indicate that they will be better carers of younglings.

4. The home

Families on Earth live in pods knowns as homes. They contain "furniture" – . do not be afraid of these "sofas" – despite thier frightening appearance, they are generally harmless. The family comes together at certain times to take nutrition and liquids in the "kitchen" or eat irradiated ready-cooked food in front of the "television", a primitive device for disseminating entertainment media. You will find it useful for controlling the population and keeping their minds distracted from the fact they are now serfs for an infinitely superior species. It certainly worked for Rupert Murdoch. Sorry, Earth joke.

5. Holidays

On Earth, the adult females and males go to "work", in which they sell their lives in return for accumulations of a digital concept called wealth. Four weeks a year (more for the younglings), the "family" is allowed "time off" to indulge in "recreation", which can usually be identified by the increase in conflict between the various elements of the family and a large depletion of wealth resource.

Sadly, Ed Great Leader, this is all I have time for at the moment. However, I should advise you that when, as ruler of the planet, you are trying to regulate the family, you will have your work "cut out" as we say. Families come in "all shapes and sizes". Families may be small or large, involve marriage or not-marriage,or even several marriages, and some families may not even involve female-male relationships at all.

In short, it is all a godawful mess that no one understands. Make good use of your superior intelligence. You're going to need it.

Your loyal subject, etc.

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