Creativity

THINGS which have not yet been invented but ought to be. Today we are proud to offer a comprehensive index of readers' suggestions for the above, or at least things which might come in useful if they were invented, beginning with a definitive offering from Reg Kilby: 'A comprehensive index of things which have not yet been invented but ought to be. Or at least might come in useful if they were.' He also suggests genetically engineered boneless kippers. We feel we may be entering a Russell Paradox with the index idea ('Consider the index of all indices which do not index themselves . . .') but the kippers seem relatively paradox proof.

Len Clarke proposes a gob- stopper that really stops gobs (for noisy teenagers), a machine that discovers all the sub-atomic particles, but only costs 5p, and 'a truth-detector for politicians', thus saving, by comparison with the conventional lie-detector, enough electricity to run the country.

Mr Clarke's gob-stopper, however, would be unnecessary if we had Pat Gould's suggestion of 'ear-lids: we have eye-lids to shut out the glare, but nothing to shut out the blare'. Mollie Caird longs for 'an electronic device fitted on every theatre seat that automatically refunds the price of the programme if the house lights are too dim for the theatre-goer to read it'.

Bernard Jaffa proposes 'edible yo-yos for bulimics'. Nicholas James wants something to wipe obsolete phone numbers from one's memory. John Earle asks for a light- weight X-ray scanner to help his wife, or anyone else, find car keys at the bottom of their hand-bags without panic.

We move on to the important question of what happens to the hole after you have eaten the doughnut. Pat Gould says it's no problem: the doughnut is holistic so goes down whole. Or, she suggests, it might become the bubble for your thoughts in a strip cartoon. Paul McHugh warns us: 'There is a grave danger when you're eating doughnuts, and to a lesser extent, Polo mints, that the hole will escape and fly up to exacerbate the damage already done to the ozone layer. Only by your consuming the aforementioned items beneath an open umbrella will the future of the earth be assured.'

'All health-conscious doughnut eaters', says Mark Walmsley, 'know the hole is the most fattening part of the doughnut, and generally leave it on the side of their plate.'

Book prizes (Clive Anderson's Patent Nonsense) go to: Reg Kilby, Len Clarke and Mollie Caird (for much- needed inventions), Mark Walmsley (doughnut holes), and Paul McHugh (meritorious use of the gerund). We're saving one book for next week, when we'll report on amnesia, if we don't forget.

The new issue of Fortean Times quotes a headline from Horror News Magazine in the US: 'Stephen King Impersonator Steals 5,000 Lobsters'. Prizes of the The ITN Book of Firsts, by Melvin Harris, will be awarded for the most inventive accounts of the story behind the headline, or the most imaginative use suggested for 5,000 lobsters.

Entries, to arrive by 27 October, to: Creativity, the Independent, 40 City Road, London EC1Y 2DB.