I had rather hoped that Iain was from the Culture - sending a Contact operative down to drink whisky and write about Drug-using Commies in Space would be just the kind of sneaky but nice thing they would do.

In the middle of the night, Iain turned over and whispered to the transceiver hidden in his wedding ring. "It's over, people. I just can't take any more of this terrible planet." After a brief argument, there was a soft pop as the Steaming Piles Of Freshly-Laid Gravitas Displaced the Culture agent, leaving a cooling meat puppet in his place.