Scrabbling for an interesting position

Creativity

What is it about Wiltshire? Asked for unusual uses for a Scrabble set, Sian Cole, of Swindon, Wilts, plays "to reveal my innermost thoughts to my opponent", with words such as "love" and "bed". She claims to have had six versions of "sex" in one game.

However, Lisa Lind of Chiseldon, Wilts, says: "Games of the Scrabble type can be thought of as combinatorial play in which 26 elements (letters) are arranged into sets (words). In other words, bloody boring! To liven it up I'd take it into the bathroom where I'd rip my clothes off. I'd lie naked in the steamy water with the board as a non-slip bathmat. I'd use the racks to scratch my back and as for the tiles ...". Enough!

Is it the Wiltshire air, we wonder? If so, the breeze seems to carry to Bristol where the callipygous Suzanne Sophia Smith advocates strip Scrabble in the bath, sauna or mud.

Len Clarke has a revelation: "Spell out 'forty-two' across your Scrabble board. Now comes the bit that the smart-ass astrologers have missed. If you start on the fourth line from the top, second space in from the left, (i.e. at coordinate 4-2) you'll find the word scores 42."

This suggestion is disqualified since "fortytwo" is not in Chambers Official Scrabble Words. There seems little wrong, however, with Mr Clarke's alternative idea, of filling a toothless crocodile's mouth with Scrabble tiles reading 'I have just eaten Crocodile Dundee'."

Mollie Caird uses the letters as confetti at lexicographers' weddings and the board as protective head covers at lexicographers' weddings.

Des Waller has a helpful hint: "Take the letters spelling your name, glue them to the board and then sellotape a safety pin to the back of the board. This makes an excellent lapel identification badge, unless your name is Zazz Zozzbuzzer, when you'd have to buy eight sets to have enough zeds."

More ideas: Delete "wee" from the Official Scrabble Words lest it psychologically induce in players a desire to relieve themselves (John Donnelly).

If Scrabble tiles were edible, nutritious and mint-flavoured, they could be used by mountaineers as a substitute for Kendal mint cake (Martin Brown).

Newspaper for the Flintstones (FG Robinson).

Send the letters to lonely people who never receive any, or place sets in public conveniences so people can play while they queue (RJ Pickles).

Press-gang remedial English Language students into the construction industry with Scrabble tiles as building blocks. Solves the housing problem while increasing literacy (Damien McIver).

Create new Welsh place names (Peter Stickland).

Prizes to Len Clarke, Damien McIver and Lisa Lind, if she'll tell us her address. Next week, we'll be telling you what to do with filing cabinets. Meanwhile, we seek novel uses for Wiltshire. Suggestions by 7 July to: Creativity, the Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL. Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations prizes for the three we like best.