Creativity

MARTINE MCCUTCHEON was quitting, so Tiffany needed writing out. With unerring predictability, EastEnders' scriptwriter Carol Noble had Grunt get violent. Surely Creativity readers would have been more imaginative?

Michael Gifford has her do a nude protest in Albert Square to close the Vic, while Len Clarke achieves maximum impact on the ratings by piping her aboard a frigate with all hands on deck to watch her strip. JW Gore has Grunt commit suicide out of remorse. Pat Gould whisks Tiff to Lourdes at death's door; she recovers miraculously, and, renouncing worldly pleasure, becomes a Carmelite nun.

Tiff likes to be taken out so Martin Brown has a cruise missile, aimed with pinpoint accuracy at Saddam Hussein, crash through Tiff's bedroom window and do just that. Or: at a seance Tiff gets through to Dirty Den's ectoplasmic ghost, who seduces her; she tops herself to join him in the hereafter, and they float ethereally off into the sunset of their careers. Paul Turner predicts a ratings war with a horde of raving Mancunian actors, brandishing Cadbury's Creme Eggs, bursting into the Vic and murdering the entire cast.

Joe Adams (Ms) has Tiff become Biff - she has a sex change and becomes a man (with ground-breaking scenes of breast reduction and penile reconstruction). She always was a man, Dusty Hoffman insists, and finally comes out as one and incestuously elopes to Gretna Green with Simon. Gerry Mac an Cheapaigh knows otherwise, unmasking her as an evil Middle Eastern Mata Hari bent on discovering Britain's stock of weapons of mass destruction, by sexually gratifying our gullible top brass.

Andrew Duncan has her half-eaten by a shark; or, impregnated by Bepe, explode at the birth of sextuplets; or: Grunt, his puerility affronted by finding her in a lesbian clinch with Dot Cotton, kills her and embalms her in a cask of best brandy. Peggy hands out tots of free brandy to all her customers. And he borrows from Tony Hancock by scripting an earthquake, causing a hole in the road into which the whole cast falls and perishes, whereupon the BBC announces the return of El Dorado in the spring schedules, starring Martine McCutcheon.

Noble Prizes for Literature to Martin Brown and Joe Adams, who win themselves copies of Chambers Dictionary of Quotations. Andrew gets an hon mention and wins his Chambers for suggesting our next theme: new year resolutions - for other people to keep.

Suggestions to Creativity, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL. Three copies of Chambers Dictionary of Quotations for the best ideas. Results on 5 January.

Next week, Creativity channel-hops from the predictable Queen's Christmas Message to alternative Christmas messages and speakers whom readers have specially commissioned.