Alien Salesmen

Trading standards have launched a new campaign to counter the increasingly aggressive high-pressure techniques used by door-to-door alien salesmen. "The problem is that many of these extra-terrestrials seem to think that local consumer legislation doesn't apply to them," says Francis Trolley of the Trading Standards Institute. "They rock up here after travelling halfway across the galaxy and give you some sob story about their family being sucked into an interspatial warp matrix interface, and then when you refuse to buy their timeshare, or whatever, they transmogrify into giant purple lizard men, disintegrate your dog and boil your ornamental fishpond dry before tearing off in their flying saucers."

Mr Trolley is keen that householders should report all such incidents to their local Trading Standards Department. And consumers who want to deter visits by alien mind-buggerers from the planet Zog can display this notice in their windows.