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Q: Dear Myrtle, I keep having stupid ideas. I can't help it. And then I just blurt them out. What should I do ?

-Flustered, New York

A: Dear Flustered, remember they called gravity 'stupid', yet every child knows and uses this wonderful force to prevent themselves being hurled off the planet into the inky void of space. They called the first burly ant to tease a submissive, nictating young aphid into surrendering its cargo of honeydew 'stupid,' now all ants bully aphids routinely. So be you genius or ant, the world is richer for your contributions, inventions or observations, no matter how stupid they may at first seem.

-Aunt Myrtle, London

So here we are - on top of our page containing recent outbursts of local stupidity for your pleasure. Perhaps you also lack the self respect required to keep your dumb ideas secret. Or maybe you find our selection piquant. In either case, why not mail us ? We'd be pleased to hear from you... Here goes :

CANNIBAL SNACKS : Eat More Meta-Meat

If it's 'okay' for vegetarians to eat, say, bacon flavour snacks because it'sjust 'pretend' or 'bacon-effect' and contains no actual animal products,then we suggest a new snack-product range, in human flavours.

It's only fair that carnivores get a share of the new fiction-food market too.

So while you're thinking, hmm- is that tasty ? Or: who do I want to eat the most, understand we don't mean just any non-specific-human-flavour. One of the many advantages we have over geese and cattle is the notion of fame.We wish to consume celebrities, novelists, philosophers, stars of stage and screen, athletes, musicians and ( where available ) leading figures from history. In snack form. Let's be clear- there's no actual human in them, so it isn't cannibalism, just hugely and delightfully reminiscent of the whole idea, and about as close as we'll ever get in today's world. Flavourists, abandon sentiment : You'll be rich, and we'll say...yum.

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MICRONICHE TV : Our one-track mind

Mass media just look too massive these days. By trying to appeal to large numbers of people they lose the joy of specificity, a target no wider than yourself, whoever you may be.What's worse, old-school TV is still hung up on continuity, personality and narrative. We suggest a cheap way to create ultranarrow ultramodern microchannels is simply to cull the best bits from existing media by theme. Tiny ones. Then loop your edit, and broadcast. Let people flick between connected themes and build their own stories, if they must. We know, it's a somehow more mean, lizardly attitude to our treasured media archives, but then, nothing's sacred. Here's what we want, and fully expect, to see in future:

1. The swearing channel (celebrated swearing scenes edited together from classic-cussin' movies, eg "River's Edge", "Scarface" and "Get Carter" )

2. The Vehicle Pursuit channel ( ditto, only an endless car chase, as if the only good part bit in "Bullitt" lasted 72 hours and then started again )

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THE BANSHEE : Acoustic novelty

Its a simple idea, but we lack a wind-tunnel. We do however have a patent pending on this one. Simply affix two lightweight whistles ( or any tube and reed array ) parallel to one another on the underside of a domestic frisbee. Each whistle should point in the opposite direction to the other so that air flows continuously through both except at the moment when both whistles are at exactly ninety degress to the direction of travel. Both air exits should be angled downwards. Throw hard.

Your whistling 'banshee' will produce an oscillating tone guaranteed amaze and irritate passersby. ( Three-whistle models are in development, but we like the eerie quavering of the double version. ) We apologise in advance for having changed the sonic landscape of parks and beaches forever. Come back to this page or mail us to find out how you can acquire one of these little miracles.

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DOUBLE-SIDED TOWELS : For softer parts

Nobody can deny the pleasure of a vigorous towelling down with an old, rough towel after a hot shower. One glows so sweedishly. But there are certain parts of the body which benefit from a softer buffing action. So why not make a double sided towel which can perform both functions?

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ENGLISH BREAKFAST PIZZA : Transnational delight

Vile yet delicious, the ventricle-furring full English breakfast must not be allowed to rest forever in its old form. We note the ingredients of an English breakfast: sausage, strips of bacon, tomatoes, egg, mushrooms and bread. We further note the toppings available on pizza: sausage, strips of ham, tomatoes, egg, mushrooms. So put the two together - English toppings on Italian pizza base. A meal you can eat at any time of the day that must be at least twice as good as mere pizza or English breakfast. This is logic as we know and use it. Mere putty.

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NOMINATIVE FLUX REMOVER : Sic transit

A new tense, or ' have you been ixperienced ? '

It's tough enough already without having to keep referring to things which are no more, but aren't quite not, and languish in nominative flux : The former yugoslavia. The artist formerly known as Prince. Cyberspace. Things are now changing so fast that the old sluggish words can't keep up, become despised or just linger about stinkily .We build elaborate and ungainly linguistic barricades around stuff which was something, but has yet to become anything else. So. we need some way to embody the new concept, the idea of transitionals, terms neither 'ex' nor 'is.' To denote a transitional, we logically suggest the prefix 'ix'-. As in ixprince. ixyugoslavia. Ahh... ixbliss, my friend.

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DOGMUSIC : "If the dogs don't dig it, the bats will buy it."

VHF (Very High Frequency) contemporary techno, completely inaudible to the human ear but insanely catchy for your pet. Why should we be the only species to really enjoy recorded music ? Our CD works on normal domestic hi-fi speakers, probably. Your dog can 'chill' or 'rock' or somesuch while you go about your business in total silence.

NEW! DualMastered twin-species albums you can listen along to with Your Pal, secure in the knowledge his or her tiny brain is getting exactly the same sounds as yours.Or perhaps you own a bat and a dog. Let them listen together by requesting dog-bat versions.

Note for purchasers: Some poi-poi and certain cherry-pugs may be susceptible to epilepsy, this product is not recommended for these breeds. Also, city-dwellers please be aware, Dogmusic Mono and DualMastered CD's are audible to all canines in a 72 metre radius, walls or no walls.

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THE IRONY MARK - Tell me again the lies I long for.

What separates human beings from animals ? The ability to reason? Not so. Octopi and rats can figure out mazes, open jam jars and compose crude yet haunting music. Communication? Ants have rudimentary email already.Build cities? Termites do. What really separates humans from other species is our capacity for irony.That is, our ability to say one thing but mean something else altogether. Ants don't build retro-mounds. Whales don't say "I feel horny" or "plankton here " when they don't actually mean it. Ever. Irony is etymologically merely a quantitively better-dressed, politer version of its clumping, oafish elder brother - sarcasm. Our word for irony comes from a Greek figure of speech meaning "to lie." Sarcasm meanwhile, comes from the term for a wild animal tearing flesh, and by extension, a verbal laceration. Sarcasm is logically equivalent to dishonesty. And dishonesty is the opposable thumb of language.

So we conclude, irony is our highest achievement. But there is a problem. As digital media cross cultural boundaries, we begin to lose the ability to pick up the subtle, often paraverbal signals that one is being addressed in an ironic fashion. We become less human. Hence the need for some new punctuation - an irony mark.

This isn't a new idea. In the 17th Century a gifted language reformer calledWilson proposed that the English adopt Chinese pictogram characters (a future myrtle project). But he also suggested that we use an inverted exclamation mark to signify irony. No, we're not making this up.

Sadly,the non-irony denoting inverted shriek is already commonplace in Spain. Accordingly, we are running a competition (with no prize but glory) to design a new irony-mark, which we will place on all future keyboards just to the right of the punctuationist's mightiest weapon, the semi-colon.

Professor Wilson later died jumping off a roof in an attempt to travel to the moon. We think he meant it.

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TRANSPARENT BONELESS LIONS : They're educational

An ideal pet, the transparent boneless lion ( pre-shaved ) is the perfect companion for today's idle child. What's more, having no solid internal structure makes the 'king of the jungle' entirely safe for tots. A quivering, purring ball of roughly lion-shaped jelly, they stretch a little and bend a lot. Children can force liquids down the lion's unresisting mouth and watch the digestive process as it happens, and massage the bolus through their pet's intestines. Disgusting, certainly, but an endless, safe souce of amusement.

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ENNUI

When you consider the vast range of mood-altering substances available to us, both on prescription and in the toilets of night clubs, it is surprising how few mood-destinations they offer: Euphoria, contentment, relaxation or general inanity are only a tiny slice of the pie chart of human experience. So we suggest - demand - that the pharmaceutical giants of Switzerland, France and Bolivia supply us with a whole spectrum of emotions.

Enough of ecstacy. Give us ennui. Daytime tv doesn't give us the unrush it used to.

Ennui! A sense of fin-de-siecle despair, Weltschmertz even, an unshakable indifference to even the most exciting events unfolding around you. So bored, the walls might as well be singing. In pill form, please. Or possibly smokable, in a 2 foot long cigarette holder.

Give us this sweet drug, and we will be your ho's. Always.

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