I popped out earlier, and passed the corner shop at the end of my street. Among the various cards in the window was one from someone wanting spare HRT patches. And it made me think: we’re living in a science fiction world now. Which begs the question: what do you do if you want to write science fiction in today’s world?

Science fiction was my genre of choice when I was growing up. I devoured Asimov, Heinlein, Silverberg from the local library, quite often reading three books at the same time. Later, I encountered Philip K Dick, and thinking about it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see one of his stories kicking off with HRT patches being offered in a local shop window. Only, the ones in a Dick story would initially seem to transform people into aliens, before the realisation kicked in that they were actually keeping you human, and it was everyone else changing into something non-terrestrial.

An underground movement of people trying to stay human in a world populated by aliens posing as human: I’d read or watch that story, at least to discover how well executed it was. Coronation Street mixed with Alien Nation. Now there’s a pitch! Norris Cole putting up the cards in the window of the newsagent, a lizard’s tongue flicking out the corner of his mouth. Sally Webster, thinking it’s time of life that’s got her unsettled, when actually it’s aliens tampering with her DNA causing the upset. No wonder she gets stroppy with Kevin: and what will she do when she discovers he’s one of the saurians?

OK, forget the aliens: what else in our present world is evidence that we’re living in a science fiction world?

CCTV everywhere, fulfilling the promise of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta that we’re living in a police state.

Plastic surgery: men getting implants that feel like muscle to go where a sixpack would go if you had one.

The Dalai Lama: I was at a party last night where a good few of the guests had been to see him speak at an ice stadium where I saw Arcade Fire play last year. There were even merchandise stalls.

I was looking at a website earlier for an artist I got talking to in a cafe recently. She says her work in inspired by angels, and now she paints them and reproduces the pictures in different forms, all of which she’s making a decent living from. Bet your art teacher never mentioned that as an option when you were messing about with poster paints at school.

With all of this going on, it makes science fiction and satire two forms that become more difficult to write. We’re already living in a surrealist film: what can you write to draw peoples’ attention to that fact in useful ways?