On a hot summer evening somewhere in a small coppice on the outskirts of Purley a young couple were doing what comes naturally after two bottles of Vin Rose, a deplorable ignorance of the use of prophylactics and a wanton disregard for any passers by.

"Oh, Gerald! I think the earth really moved that time!
"Did it? It did! It really did! Oh Romola, my darling...I — I ohhh!"
"Oh Gerald!"
"Oh Romolaaa...."
A passing sparrow considered alighting on what looked like a very comfortable hemispherical perch, but then thought better of it as the perch began to rise and fall in the most alarming manner.

"Ohh, Gerald -the - the earth really IS shaking — I think I'm going to come!"
Unfortunately she didn't. But something else did. With a noise that woke the dead in Purley Cemetery and caused a gentleman who was relieving himself behind a tree to ruin a perfectly good pair of cavalry twills, it roared across the sky like a very big chainsaw in the hands of a clinically depressed Texan who really hates trees.

Romola uttered a piercing shriek as the object passed over her head wobbling like a leaf in a gale. It staggered on through the treetops, making the most dreadful grinding and snapping sounds before hitting the ground in a manner the drunken pilot of a hanglider would be thoroughly ashamed of. The earth heaved and shuddered in protest.
Romola also heaved and three primulas received an unexpected boost to their nitrogen levels. Gerald simply protested.

"Bugger!" snorted a hideously ugly green creature as it wrestled ineffectually with the array of shiny knobs and flashing lights before it. Well, what it actually said was 'Varz d'argh b'gulakh!' but as that won't mean much to those of you who don't speak Zilogh, 'bugger' must suffice. Though it does not begin to convey the anguish, rage and frustration that the author of the phrase was experiencing at the exact instant the satisfaction of Romola's desire was cruelly snatched away from her.

By one of those curious coincidences 'Bugger' was exactly what Gerald said when he discovered that he'd made a mess in his best moleskin chinos. "Why did you jump? Look what you've made me do!"
"You selfish sod!" shrieked Romola "You were the one who jumped! You could have had the decency to wait for me!"
"Wait for you?" snapped Gerald. "Didn't you see that bloody great UFO that just flew over us?"
"What UFO?"
"THAT UFO!"
Romola's pretty mouth opened and shut several times as she tried to focus on a very big silvery disk that was wobbling precariously on three spindly legs not 100 yards away. Her even prettier legs also opened and closed as she discovered that Gerald had soiled more than his chinos.
"Oh — shit!" she exclaimed.

"Shit", repeated the green creature as it surveyed the sickly green liquid oozing from the control panel. "The spatial inverter's imploded." It climbed over a tangled maze of twisted cables and started poking about in what looked like a very high tech electric egg-boiler. Actually it was a very low tech electric egg-boiler and there wasn't another one to be had within 6 light years. Yyerg - for that was the alien's name, flung the device against the wall. A well boiled egg was the nearest he'd ever got to perfect happiness and the loss of the means to attain it really annoyed him. He started inspecting the rest of the equipment. One shoddy component after another was either damaged or malfunctioning. "Bugger, bugger, BUGGER!" he snarled as he spotted two elongated stick-like beings gesticulating frantically on his vidscreen. As fast as his tentacles could carry him he rushed to the main door and opened it. He leaped to the ground and crouched down behind one of the twisted landing rods and focused his three eyes on the two entities.

The two entities were rooted to the spot in open-mouthed amazement.
"Now we're really fucked," said Gerald.
"No - I'm fucked," replied Romola, frantically pulling up her pants while trying to fasten her bra at the same time. "I didn't come — remember?"
"I don't care," said Gerald. "If we don't get out of this right now, neither of us is going to care very much who came first, are they? Get you bag and lets get out of here!"
Romola tucked her skirt into the back of her knickers (something which she was going to regret later) and swung her bag at Gerald's head. It missed and it's contents spilled out onto the grass. Unfortunately the alien had never seen a young woman's handbag and the sight of Romola's hand trying to grab the Acme relaxomatic deluxe massager before it hit the ground reminded him only too painfully of a Klaxasian disrupter in the tentacles of a very vicious Varzian with a particularly bad haircut.
"Now I'm really fucked," he said.