(Photo via)Between firing billions of dollars worth of computers and jet fuel into the vast blackness of space, those clever dicks down at Cape Canaveral found some time to come up with a few new theories. The good news is that a couple of them are at least moderately exciting: that we're going to be rubbing shoulders with aliens within our lifetime, and we might be able to locate a new Earth.A new Earth, you say? Well, count me in, NASA; I’m sick of this one – there are far too many tsunamis and cat cafes. We need a fresh start, a brand new planet to call our own. But we also need to lay out some ground rules first. We need to make sure Earth 2.0 isn’t shit, and that it doesn't die five minutes after we get there. So here’s a list of things we should bring with us, and also some things we need to leave the fuck behind.
Annons
Do we really need any more of this shit? (Photo via)FOOD AND DRINKTake with: There are only two types of food on the UNESCO World Heritage List and they are French food and washoku, or Japanese food. If we’re going to be living the high life while hurtling through space we’re going to need to eat good. It’s going to be sushi, bouillabaisse, non-instant ramen, ratatouille and niçoise. Udon and bœuf bourguignon. Japan and France basically have all the bases covered, and bar a couple of West Asian dishes and pizza – and maybe pie and mash – are you really going to ask for much more? You're not Mariah Carey; you'll get what you're given.Leave behind: Some foods we can just bring with us and eat until they go off, like pasta and roast dinners and that kind of shit. But there is some stuff we need to actively destroy. Any national dishes of any Eastern Bloc nation should be put in a big hole and burnt. The last thing our new planet needs is weird pickled vegetables and boiled pork in additive-riddled bread. Mongolian dish Khorkhog, which is unspiced meat cooked inside a giant milk can filled with stones and water, can definitely fuck right off.
(Photo via)TECHNOLOGYTake with: Here’s maybe the most vital question contained within this most vital of articles: should we just fob technology off altogether and live like a bunch of nomadic Amish luddites on our beautiful new home? Do away with clicktivism, Olly Riley and the people who make up stories about things their kids did to get attention? No, of course not. Detach humanity from the teat of technology and we’ll shrivel up like raisins in the desert. We need our MacBooks and our iPhones (or your Samsung Galaxy, if you're a fucking loser) because let's face it, that's what we're about now. A man without the internet is like an iron without a socket.
Annons
Leave behind: Technology is a broad spectrum. Steam trains were once technology. The Sinclair C5 was once technology. Even a rope and pully was once the height of technological innovation. These things can all get lost. Who needs a house phone? Who needs a motorised pepper grinder? Who needs half the shit you see on Wired.com? Just because Larry Page tells you to wear projector glasses, doesn’t mean you should. Never let a billionaire tell you how to live your life; it's the first step on the sad road towards missing your kids' birthdays because you were queuing for a new slab of plastic and glass.MISCELLANEOUSTake with: We should probably have some pets – the normal ones, like cats and dogs. But maybe forego creatures that come with a hazard warning, like snakes and basically anything else that is so dangerous you have to keep it in a sealed tank (fish don't count; they're decorations, not pets). We'll definitely need saxophones. Obviously we'll need stuff like sewer systems and tube trains, but let's build some new ones when we get there 'cos all the ones we have are literally covered in the two things we don't want to take: shit and street art. Pants and socks and that kind of thing cover themselves – that's all in the small print. The bigger deal, I reckon, is what we should leave behind.Leave behind: And what a list it is. We have an opportunity here to liberate ourselves from everything that is worthless and unneccesary on this planet. No more coins. No more mini pittas. No more shoe horns, rugby balls, mankinis, potpourri, old birthday cards, old phone chargers, hats, invoices, pizza slicers, passive-aggressive email threads, dying pets, stupid decorative bowls of glass pebbles, postcards, digital photo frames, football stream site chat boxes or pieces of plastic dog poo. All of the micro-aggravators we have to put up with on a daily basis can once and for all be left on planet Earth, as we nuke it from our utopian dream world.
Annons
(Photo via)ENTERTAINMENTTake with: Let’s take some books, but only fiction published before 1960, or something, and only non-fiction that’s about murders. Bring some Pixar for the young-uns, and when you boil it down all us grown-ups really need is a love film (True Romance) and a break-up film (Festen). That's it for weird shit, though – this wonderland doesn’t need Charlotte Gainsbourg smashing Willem Dafoe’s cock and balls with a block of wood.Leave behind: This is the perfect chance for us pretend that The Simpsons finished on a low at season 10. Yeah, there have been some good episodes since, but imagine – leaving the newer seasons behind means no one has to listen to Homer talk about iPads, or watch Bart do the "Gangnam Style" dance eight months after it was released. It’s also a great opportunity to get rid of Ryan Reynolds, Kris Jenner and whoever came up with The Big Bang Theory.PEOPLETake with: A bit from both ends, really. We need people to aspire to – the beautiful, the gifted, the wealthy scumbags – but we need a fair amount of squares to do the boring jobs. It’s cyclical, this stuff. We obviously need sportsmen, but only footballers, because what do we need more than one sport for? All the equipment would just take up space we could be filling with French food and dogs.Leave behind: Cyber punks. Why? Just for a laugh. And once we're done watching the neon tears drip down their LED T-shirts, we should probably consider banishing most of the racists, murderers and extremists as well. But let's keep a few, because what's life without someone to hate?
