Ian McMillan: A close encounter while foaming at the mouth

Toothpaste was bubbling down my chin like spilled milk. In my confusion, I forgot to stop pressing the button that made the toothbrush whirr and so it carried on whirring, spraying toothpaste all over the bathroom.

I eventually switched it off and dabbed at my chops with some toilet roll, which disintegrated all over my face, making me look less like Mr Hyde and more like a bloke who'd gone to a fancy dress party as The Creature From The Black Lagoon's Mate. I looked at myself in the unforgiving mirror again and this time I just reflected on how daft I looked, how silly. They can put a man on the moon but a middle-aged Darfield denizen can't even sort out a simple toothpaste/chin interface.

I then imagined what a visitor from another galaxy might think if he, she or it was observing me from a spaceship hovering high above South Yorkshire in that thin layer of space called the Eyup-osphere. Perhaps this alien is searching for intelligent life in the Solar System and has already been disappointed by Jupiter's unpopulated gaseousness and Pluto's empty frozen wastes. The interstellar SatNav has sent him to Earth and has zoomed down on Darfield and the upstairs area of a semi-detached house towards the bottom end of a quiet street. The alien looks hopeful; well, at least seven of his eight eyes do. Now, at last, the quest may be over. Now, after all this searching in space's vast emptiness, here is intelligent life in the shape of Ian McMillan, The Bard of Barnsley.

Let's glance over the alien's shoulder and look at what he's writing on his computo-pad. I didn't know it, but he's been watching me for a while, from when I woke up to now, brushing my teeth after my early morning stroll. He refers to me as "Subject" throughout. Here's as extract from what he wrote:

"Subject is lying in what Earth-people call a bed. Subject's eating-tube is hanging open and subject's seeing apparatus is closed. A growling noise is emanating from Subject's eating-tube until the other earth-person in the bed clips Subject around the hearing apparatus. Growling noise stops, to be replaced by snuffling noises and then silence. Subject's seeing apparatus opens, and Subject examines a ticking timepiece on the piece of furniture by the bed. Subject clambers out of bed and we see that subject is wearing what earth people refer to as a Birthday Suit although my sensor can detect no cloth in the suit. Subject puts on a black cloak that he refers to as his dressing-gown and goes to a room which contains several porcelain articles. Events happen involving water in a variety of the porcelain objects.

"Subject walks down a carpeted serrated hill to the bottom floor of his dwelling. Subject puts a pair of soft blue objects on the extremities at the end of his legs. Subject presses a button on a wall and the room is flooded with light against which subject shields his seeing apparatus. Subject then does some movements which appear to have ritual or shamanistic significance and which are accompanied by rhythmic grunts. I have heard Subject refer to these as his "exercises". These appear to involve subject waving some of his limbs around then lying on the floor and attempting to get up, then getting up, then getting down again and attempting to push himself up, then getting up again and pushing the wall a number of times. This appears to make no difference to the wall, which doesn't shift or move.

"Subject then takes off the dressing gown and puts on several items of cloth which cover his entire body. He takes the soft blue objects off the extremities at the end of his legs and replaces them with harder black objects which he seems to tie on with string. He puts more cloth on, layer after layer, then opens a hatch in the building and exits into the cold air. Even though it is cold his breath appears to come out in clouds of steam.

"He walks to some kind of temple or sacred building which appears to be devoted to the worship of printed paper. He hands some pieces of metal to a woman and receives printed paper in return. He returns to his dwelling, re-entering through the same hatch he went out of. He takes off some of the layers of cloth and goes back to the room with the various porcelain objects in. He switches on a buzzing brush and puts it in his eating tube. White foam comes out…"

And that's where we came in. Intelligent life in Darfield: I should say so!