The world's first online Creative Think-In!

The first on-line creative think-in took place on 18th December. This is a summary of the challenges posed at the session, and a selection of the wide variety of answers offered by the participants. The session was received very well by all concerned and may be re-run in the future.

Challenge 1 – A few years back, drinks companies invented a way of fixing the tabs of drinks cans onto the can. What purposes could those drinks tabs be put to?

• Tiny kick stand for the can
• A pair of them could make good gun sights
• Miniature catapult
• I have seen people bend them and make them into whistles
• What about using them to measure the amount of spaghetti needed when cooking for supermodels?
• You can use them as an ice scraper if you have lots of time to clean off your windscreen!
• Emergency false fingernails
• Replacement teeth for James Bond villain

Challenge 2 - What was the Mona Lisa really thinking?

• The grin was because she had done the old "exploding paint brush" trick and was just wating for it to go off
• How about "Ooo, my left wrist is really sore"
• "If he tells me to smile once more..."
• "That Homer Simpson cracks me up"
• Maybe the artist was doing the old paint brushes up the nose walrus trick?

Challenge 3 – Why are man hole covers round (give at least three answers, but not the usual ones!)

• Because water droplets are round?
• They make better pizza cutters for the invading super giants about to reach Earth!
• Someone at the factory lost their ruler and only had compasses left
• There was an argument whether they should have one million sides or two million sides... and people lost track who won
• I guess it may be the same reason why plugholes are round – after all, if the earth was flooded, manhole covers would act as big plugs.

Challenge 4 – A batty old English saying is that "There is more than one way to skin a cat". What is your favourite way to skin a cat, and why?

• From the outside, where there is more skin
• A hyperbaric chamber. Compress the cat, and then put it in a vacuum. It swells up and the skin just drops off
• Using the new Remington PussAway(TM)
• The mathematical answer is to invert the universe with regard to the cat's nose
• Or you could find out whether it is easier for a cat to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to reach heaven
• The cat could learn to play the harp the hard way
• Make the gap in your garden fences gradually smaller
• Mix razor blades in its KittySnax
• Teach it to juggle chain saws
• For the benefit of animal rights crusaders, no real cats were harmed during the answering of this question

Challenge 5 - What would the world be like today if we didn't have computers?

• People would know less about foreign cultures
• More people would be employed as subbookkeepers
• Shares in MicroAbacus would be worth $62
• Computer technicians would have been trained to have different skills... so there would be more skilled craftsmen and artisans
• Bananas would be the most popular fruit (because of the lack of Apple advertising)
• People would have to use real coasters instead of free CDs
• Lara Croft would have been replaced by Wilma Flintstone as top pin-up
• Bill Gates would be a janitor
• We wouldn't be doing this

Challenge 6 – What shall we do with the drunken sailor?

• Ask him to lend me £30
• We can parade him as an example to the rest of the crew
• We can test out intoxication remedies on him
• We can press-gang him into joining another ship
• Have him give blood, since it will keep longer
• Tell him to avoid the crow's nest for a while
• We can use him to test people who have lost their sense of smell
• See if the booze in his system makes him more buoyant
• Have him translate gibberish from young kids
• We can replenish our supplies of vomit
• He can stagger from side to side on the ship, thus acting as a human gyro
• He can shave all the sailors who mutinied last week

Challenge 7 – Prison. Locking people up costs a lot of money, causes inmates to learn more about crime. What alternatives can we come up with?

• Involuntary space exploration
• Running around in wheels to generate power
• Replacement congressmen (they would be more honest)
• Put them into cyberspace
• Circus entertainers for the whole family
• Get them to rebuild Hadrian's Wall
• Save money by letting them take turns being jailer for the day and enjoy the power rush of keeping others under lock and key
• Build the world's biggest Human Pyramid as a monument to the millennium
• Use them to test out new medicines and new versions of cola
• Speed bumps