Creativity

THIS WEEK we look at the rich and varied joys of cutting short boring phone calls.

Dr Rahul Joshi: Well, actually Jehovah does have some interesting teachings about double-glazing . . . Mary Flavin: I'm sorry to interrupt, but could you lend me pounds 5,000? Bill Palmer: I can smell smoke. Your house must be on fire! Marcia Trodd: I am going into labour. You couldn't call me an ambulance, could you?

C. Martin: The phone wire won't stretch from here to eternity. Matthew White: I've never grown a beard before. T.M. O'Grady: I am sorry, but the person you have been talking to died two hours ago. Peter Thomas: I am a recorded message, and I am running out of tape. Ralph Leighton: I am afraid Ralph cannot talk to you as he has just become a Trappist monk. Andrew Duncan: Oh dear. Mother's just dropped dead from hunger!

James A. Kelly: ET has just arrived and he needs to call home. Sue Johnson: Ectoplasm is oozing from the ceiling. Carole Hawkins: A crinkly bald alien is demanding Smarties. Colin Archer: A poltergeist has just walked in through the wall. Andrea Galicia: I am rather late for my alien abduction: Joan Vinnicombe: Whoops! Unexpected visitor. I was just rubbing this old lamp . . .

Shaun Patrick: Got to go. Must butter the cat. Martin Brown: The Lego bricks need feeding. Ms Nat Hensby: The goldfish is scratching at the door to go out. R.J. Pickles: The toys have just broken out of their cupboard. TMO'G: Sorry, a neighbour's dog has just set off one of my landmines. AD: There's an octopus creeping up my aagghh . . . John and Fiona Earle: There is a torrent of volcanic lava at the front door.

Mike Gifford: The Home Office parole tag on my leg has started bleeping. Ian Hurdley: I think the police have just dug my wife up. Colin O'Hare: Better ring off. The one with the gun thinks you are the police. Michael Rubinstein: Six police officers wielding a battering ram are coming up the front path . . .

Bruce Birchall: My year as Atuhotec, king of the Aztecs, is up, and I have got to be ritualistically slaughtered now. Marjorie Watson: Got to see a woman about a bitch.

John and Fiona Earle, Carole Hawkins, Dr Joshi and Shaun Patrick are the lucky contestants who this week each win a Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (four on offer as we are recycling unclaimed prizes).

We are now inviting alternative Creation myths for a superstitious age.

Made in six days? Why not carried here on a giant turtle? Or sculpted by a craftsmen's collective, with the Norwegian fjords delicately carved by Slartibartfart? It all seems just as probable.

Send your ideas to Creativity, Features, 18th floor, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DL, by 21 July. Results and three more Chambers prizes on 27 July. Next week: colourful imprecations and oaths.