Yes, aliens, come and shake us up a bit!

The world has gone a bit dull, with its bitter local wars and international versions of TV crap such as ‘Masterchef’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

I think we need extraterrestrials to land and shake things up.

Now, the question of whether there is intelligent non-human life ‘out there’ is often mocked. Sensible folk reckons it's merely the obsession of sci-fi nerds and demented conspiracy theorists.

But actually, this is the biggest question facing humanity – and actually the subject of serious debate and study by (among others) physicists, philosophers and theologians.

The visitors to Earth won’t – in all probability – be like those American B-movie monsters, or like the Cadbury’s Smash tinpot space aliens from the memorable British TV ads.

But I think their arrival might well result in our ‘small potato’ world becoming more interesting  …