OK. I have arrived at a point in my new sci-fi story when I need to write some genuine comedy – a joke actually. I often mix humour into stories but I have never tried proper comedy before or a joke. So I am going to try it out here and see what people think. The humour (that might, I hope, make the joke funny) has this context in the story. At this time (whenever it is) aliens are known to exist but nobody has seen one yet. There is a stand up comedian who is busking on a street corner and the main character sees him and hears the joke and laughs. Later on he sees the same guy on a talent show on the equivalent of tv and perhaps later again, each time developing his jokes further.

When he is seen on the street corner he is dressed in suit, standing on a soap box (futuristic equivalent) and wearing a satirical rubber mask in the likeness of the presedent of US and Canada. He is interspersing his jokes with humorous comments about passers-by. Here is the joke:

What does the bouncer say to the aliens on a bender to save his life?
Answer: You put your left leg in, your left leg out,
do the hokey-cokey and you turn about…

I think its quite funny but then I would. What do other people think?

Now for the second in my series of Sci-Fi Top Trumps

VisGogs

VisGogs are the future equivalent of Pilot sunglasses. Kind of naff but in a cool way. They are cheap and usually have a reflective coating. As with most sunglasses in the future they come with a chip and can display the contents of your hard drive in a heads up or ‘eyes up’ display on the inside of the lenses. In the case of VisGogs though this can include personal and scandalous information about the people you are passing in the street. There are smaller versions and you can get them without the reflector coating but hey, they wouldn’t be VisGogs then, would they?

Coolness: 7
Cost: 1
Usefulness: 3
Futurosity: 2
Weakness: 1 (no real weaknesses apart from the scorn of women)

• Lazlo Ferran - Author