Creativity

"Is the kangaroo who plays Skippy a jump lead?" asks RJ Pickles. Jump starts and nightclub bouncers hopped in and out of readers' suggestions for the reallocation of marsupial resources. Queue-jumping was also popular, usually combined with the use of the pouch as a supermarket trolley.

Len Clarke says that the correct spelling of kangaroo is kangaroo. He thinks they should be bounced around the country to spread a little hoppiness during the forthcoming election campaign. "Being consummate bounders," Duncan Bull says, "these marsupials could become Tory MPs." He suspects that some already have.

Pouches came in for much attention. Susan Tomes advises filling them with water and sugar and letting them make beer from their hops. She also mentions pouched eggs. Sean Cunningham suggests standing six of them round your kitchen table for a game of snooker. "Pouches," says RA Shand, "could be made into wallets in which bankrupts on spending sprees could keep their bouncing cheques." David Phillips uses pouches for warming plates. He also sees kangaroos as stand-ins for stressed executives who need to jump up and down but worry about their blood pressure.

Mike Peart's kangaroos are put into service as tobacco pouches for heavy pipe smokers. "More moderate smokers could manage with a possum or wombat." He also sees marsupials acting as an Australian outback rescue service equivalent to alpine St Bernards. "Lost souls can be sustained with liquids carried in the pouch. The kangaroo could manage quite a few cans of XXXX, while soft drinks can be delivered by the Coca Koala."

"Use kangaroos to stamp out crime," Mary Greenall says. She advises filling their pouches with cold porridge (or something similarly unpleasant to the touch) to provide aversion therapy for pickpockets. Pauline Fleming has kangaroos trampling grapes in her bath. (Justin Scargill points out that kanga-treaders add an Australian flavour to otherwise insipid German wine.) Classifying all marsupials as pests, Therese Clist says: "Find a good taxidermist and stuff the kangaroos with the wallabies."

Sian Cole, as a tribute to the late Lady Godiva, offers to strip naked and bounce round the streets mounted on a kangaroo. (Highest charitable donation secures her services.)

Martin Brown informs us that the early use of European kangaroos as siege weapons explains why castle walls are all so high. John Burrows trains them as seismographic calibrators. John Donnelly says they'd improve the postal service by leaps and bounds. Florence and Robert Cox skin their kangaroos to make jump suits, and use wallabies as mobile phone pouches for wannabies. They have also heard the Spice Girls singing "If You Wallaby My Lover". Prizes to: F&R Cox, Mike Peart and David Phillips.

Next week, we'll tell you what to do with chewing-gum. Meanwhile, we seek things to do with broken clocks. Ideas to: Creativity, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL. Chambers 21st Dictionary prizes for the best ones.