Among the gate-stormers of 2007 were:

arse antlers, plural noun Colloquial a tattoo just above the buttocks, having a central section and curving extensions on each side.

volontourism noun tourism which combines volunteer work with sightseeing. [volun(teer) + tourism]

glass cliff noun the phenomenon whereby individuals who belong to groups which are not well represented in leadership positions, such as women, are more likely to be found in positions which entail a greater than usual risk of failure. [glass (ceiling) + cliff]

floordrobe noun Colloquial (humorous) a floor littered with discarded clothes, viewed ironically as a clothing storage system. [floor + (war)drobe]

Makes you wonder what batch will besiege the castle walls this year. I’ve already heard churnalism (as coined by investigative reporter Nick Davies on the 7.30 Report last week):

Davies: …They just churn this stuff over without having the time to check it, without having the time to decide whether or not this is what they should even be covering today. And it flows into the news and a lot of it is garbage.

And I do have a micro-crush on chuggers – being charity muggers, those people who accost you in the street with rattling cans and occasional koala suits.

Of course the whole blogosphere needs new definition if we’re to advance the digital conversation. What candidates can you proffer for keepable newspeak? Is keepable, say, a keeper? Micro-crush?

With a smoky sax below the words, so begins an inspired mockumentary about the dying art of puzzle-inking. Created by Michael A Charles, the seven-minute animation is so finely infused with humour you can’t help but wish that inkers existed. As imaginary dinosaurs go, Garson seems a likeable fellow, a proud craftsman stranded with the likes of candlesmiths and chimney sweeps.

My favourite section, around the 3:30 mark, appraises the work of Richard Hubler and Manuel Oscadero – two preeminent inkers in the industry. The former’s black squares ‘are subtle, you might even say intellectual. His corners are subdued, ironic, self-aware.’

By contrast, Manuel exhibits a fiery Latin temperament. Apart from his squares being deep moody blacks, his corners are ‘aggressive, there’s a barely repressed savagery to them, they grab you by the cojones.’

This YouTube gem won’t seize you there, but deeper, where only the delicate chord of bittersweet comedy can reverberate. I for one won’t look at a crossword grid the same way.

Bond baddie
Thug’s weapon
Cicero’s gift
Musical handicap
US folk music legend
Canadian rockers
Coolness under pressure
Snake
Respirator

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB168 SOLUTION: It’s a Heartache, Taking Care of Business, Smoke on the Water, La Isla Bonita, Driver’s Seat, Guantanamera, Werewolves of London, Beast of Burden

Stage hounds. Hucksters. Acrobats. A presence in the limelight to help move so many units per festival. When Clive James wows his throng with fluent Auden quotes and a tango twirl beside the lectern, he’s bound to enter the retail black.

And you can add to the list of writerly tasks, a diplomat. How else to cope with the offbeat questions that any festival Q&A session may throw the author’s way? As New York wiseacre, David Rakoff, described, some of the Qs aren’t even Qs.

Speaking to Farah Farouque of The Age this week, Rakoff observed that “there’s always going to be someone who gets up and says, ‘I have a three-part comment: I am an anthropologist, a locksmith, and a pastry chef…’ There’s always going to be that person.”

Going one better in a recent session in Melbourne, a Karl Marx doppelganger on Friday afternoon didn’t have a question, but an observation.

“I liken authors to strains of bacteria,” I’m paraphrasing, “and publishers to a certain degree are the carriers of such germs…”

Another audience member quizzed literary agent Jenny Darling about her readiness to accept non-book clients. “Say I’m wanting to write a film treatment,” asked the punter, “or a rock opera – ”

But my favourite question of the Whole Shebang, an all-day symposium for new writers to plug into the literary grid, went to a young mum of Port Melbourne. When learning that a freelance journalist is generally paid per word, she took on a pensive expression. “So is ‘a’ a word?” she asked.

If you happen by the Melbourne Festival this week or next, tell us your bell-ringers from the floor. I’m sure each session has a candidate for the kookiest or quirkiest. Or maybe you heard a jaw-dropper from another such powwow of minds. Share it with the foyer.

It’s a Hard Egg (IAH)
Baking Carrot Biscuits (TCOB)
Slow Motion Swatter (SOTW)
Louise the Bra Eater (LIB)
Travesty (DS)
One-Ton Tomato (G)
Where was the Thunder? (WOL)
Pizza Burnin’ (BOB)

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB167 SOLUTION: Jig, band

1) Preparing for the Melbourne Writers Festival. I’m part of the Whole Shebang at Federation Square tomorrow. Check here for a few more clues. http://www.mwf.com.au/2008/content/mwf_2008_home.asp?

2) Preparing for the Melbourne Writers Festival Opening Party on the following evening. A liver can never be too prepared.

3) Last-minute subs to a biting piece of journalism for Sunday Life, regarding the growing skulduggery of anonymous note writing. You know the kind. Like: I’m not your mother wash you own dishes a/hole!!! For more embittered snipery of this stripe visit the maharani of note-collecting at http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

4) Updating a comic quiz confessional I wrote a few years back. The piece has been selected for a volume of humour writing, since it is painfully, shamefully, gonzo-droll, but could do with a spritz of new-millennium TV references.

5) Creating a themed crossword which may relate to a particular cultural phenomenon that began some 20 years ago, or may not. That’s all you’re getting, dear solver.

6) Teaching.

7) Researching a 30-minute play which Newtown Theatre in Sydney has commissioned, based on a true Australian crime. It’s icky, sticky, and not a little ooky.

8) Lodging an underwhelmed review of David Lodge’s Deaf Sentence with Radio National.

9) Ministering to a kid with camp-gastro, and flu. A toxic quinella.

10) Wondering why tae kwon do fighters spend eight of their allotted nine minutes hopping around the mat’s periphery.

Till next week, with more excuses.

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB166 SOLUTION: Tim must save vast summit

The brands are bizarre. Among the brewing labels are Flying Horse, Cobra, Gymkhana and Guru. I drooled with a puzzle-maker’s delight, scanning the list.

Not to drink, you understand, but to encode. Part of my puzzle portfolio is a weekly list called Radar Trap, a letter-substitution challenge, encrypting such things as Novelty Songs, Ex-Librarians and Pez Dispensers.

Ideally, each category has a high curiosity factor. And/or humour - the other puzzling carrot. For example, if I said we’re looking for eight Celebrity Ice-Creams (giving you Britney Spearmint as your starting point), solvers will slaver to lick the whole list, including Coffee Annan, Eric Banana and Cherry Blair.

So that’s why I went Wow when lucking on Indian beers. Who woulda thought the list would be so eccentric, full of kooky brands with a rich blend of alphabet – another consideration?

Owing to a prize attached to the real deal every Friday in the The Sydney Morning Herald’s Metro section, I won’t talk too much more about up-coming categories, nor the Gods of Serendipity who help me find the curlier examples. In fact, due to the sub-judice nature of Radar solutions, I’d be wise to put my Golden Eagles and Taj Mahals on ice for a while.

But I can say beware of Corny Coffee Shops, Underground Zines and Claustrophobes. Even the who’s who of Professional Dart-Throwers. Or possibly Edible Geography.

Stop me if you’ve heard the list before. Any ideas? Here’s a few more to tease the taste buds:

Black Knight
Gymkhana
Taj Mahal

That last one serves as your biggest clue. I’ll publish the list’s link in a day or two, along with the reason I make a point of jotting down such oddball trivia.

Of course a Google will lasso the six into one neat group, along with Godfather and Guru, but see if you can’t have a postgrad punt, free of your cheating mouse. Post your punts if you like, or malinger till deliverance arrives later this week.

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB165 SOLUTION: Mung, mango, genome, Managua, Magna, Gemini, mange, manga, Gaiman, gnome, Minogue