Creativity: gift for the man with but a toast-rack

THE TOAST-RACK, says Michael Oppenheim, is unique among all objects. Held vertically, and pressed downwards into a suitable plastic medium, a toast- rack produces an excellent mould for the casting of toast-racks. And here's what you can do with some of the toast-racks we made earlier:

Held vertically and pressed downwards into a suitable lump of semi-molten chocolate, says David Guest, you can produce home- made Toblerone. K D Ronaldson, who rarely eats toast, uses his unwanted wedding present as a neat holder for his most frequently used floppy disks.

Since it was Steph and Paul's forthcoming wedding which inspired the choice of toast-racks, Fiona and John Earle have proposed a range of toast-rack-based home furnishings: a bonnet mascot for the wedding car; linked in Meccano fashion as a triumphal arch at the ceremony; a spare triangle for the percussionist in the band; an adventure playground for their pet mice; a bath toy slalom course for pet minnows; on the breakfast table to hold the Independent vertical, leaving hands free for food and fondling; and finally as a post-honeymoon 'your dinner's in the dog, darling' message holder.

Mark Walmsley adds that a toast-rack may be useful as a filing system for their Miscellany page clippings. Michael Rubinstein

produces the complementary: 'Ideal for filing copies of unused contributions to Creativity and Silly Questions.'

Claire Paul, who last week proposed 'a new symbol of peace and love' made from computer paper perforations, now suggests that a toast-rack 'worn in a man's underwear will act as a penile protector while also serving to enhance the vulnerable male ego'. So much for peace and love. Mollie Caird says 'starting gates for a mouse race'.

Cover the toast-rack with polythene to make a miniature cloche, says Nicholas Gough. Cover the toast-rack with cling-film to make a fair imitation of the old Crystal Palace, says Paul (some day my Steph will come) McHugh: 'simply apply a lighted match to complete the historical effect'. He also suggests a pair as punk earrings, or four or five ingeniously harnessed together as a knitting machine.

Jennifer Gill has a set of miniaturist proposals: bedded in as cattle grids for model farms, or scaffolding for repairs to dolls' houses, or pergolas for bonsai gardens, or roof supports for mole tunnels.

Stuart Cockerill suggests a multi-reference bookmark, or a toe-splitter to allow the accurate application of nail varnish, or an IUD for an elephant, or a gift for the man who has everything except a toast-rack.

A few weeks ago, we gave readers' ideas of punch-lines for which there are no known jokes. Geoffrey Langley has now supplied us with a complete set of jokes to fit the punch-lines, including the following theological riddle: If the Trinity is headed by God, the Supreme Ruler, what's the Holy Spirit? 'I dunno,' said the bishop, 'about four inches, I suppose.'

Mr Langley is available for children's parties and bar mitzvahs.

On last week's dispute concerning the correct term for a spider's self-propelled egress from a bath, Paul McHugh questions our correction of 'arachnoid autobathectomy' to 'bathetic autoarachnectomy', which, he says, 'seems to imply the aspirant arachnid's falling off the ladder to general ridicule'. He suggests 'cisternarachnipoff statusquovadis' which he says 'would more clearly indicate a getaway without loss of dignity and the spider's being free to further its career in any direction it chooses'.

We don't necessarily agree with him, but we approve of his correctly using two gerunds.

Next week, we'll be reporting on your ideas for using items of tennis equipment. Meanwhile, you might like to think about uses for spiders. All ideas to: Creativity, The Independent, 40 City Road, London EC1Y 2DB.