Cassowary Crossing

Chevrolet Motors, so the story goes, tried to sell a new model into Spain called the Nova. A dumb move – the word NOVA in Spanish can break down into ‘no va’ – or doesn’t go.

In Paris, don’t expect to find 43 beans in every demitasse, as Nescafe means ‘not coffee’.  While I still believe Reebok, the global cross-trainer, is an ill-advised brand as the word comprises BO inside REEK – hardly the right kind of message for any aspiring athlete. But what would I know? I make crosswords, while the Reebok people just do it.

Stilnox is a controversial brand of sleeping tablet, reportedly linked to several alarming side-effects. In some countries, a product recall has been proposed, which seems to obey the tablet’s spoonerism: Nil Stocks.

But my prize for the stoopidest marketing name is only a recent discovery. With even a basic knack for anagrams, imagine the English makers of a purple fizzy drink opting for a name like Vimto. They say its a blend of Vim Tonic, but I’m saying ‘Are carrots included?’

You seen any no-no names on the shelf?

OOMPH sounds like a fist hitting a boxing bag.

TZATZIKI – the cucumber dip of Greece – echoes the failed attempt to start a Victa, while RATATOUILLE  just has to be the timid rumble of a car’s engine trying to kick over on an icy morning.

DICTION is a trigger pull with no round in the chamber. And CORROBOREE? Obviously a ute driving over a cattle grid.

This is your challenge, Stormers. Choose a word in English – one that doesn’t already have a sound effect or piece of onomatopoeia already attached – and give it an effective sound effect.

To help you warm to the challenge, think of an action and ‘listen’ for what word it suggests. Or look at a likely word – like LUSH or FALAFEL – and imagine what those noises such words may be whispering. 

After last week’s quality, I can imagine we’ll make another Top Ten – or let’s make it twelve: The Renowned Roll of Sound. KNICKKNACK! (What was that?!) The starting gun. Go.

We’ve disguised notable Aussie sportsmen – past and present – by mixing their initial with their surname. GLOBE, say equals Brett Ogle. Can you tackle all ten? 

1/ chaps

2/ loser

3/ answer

4/ shale

5/ whittle

6/ earrings

7/ manhood

8/ morsel

9/ opiners

10/ cornets

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK

BB269 SOLUTION: Ann Sanders, Sandra Sully, Deborah Knight, Chris Bath, Ellen Fanning, Natarsha Belling, Tracy Spicer, Tracy Grimshaw

Wild Gosh, this latest Brainstorm was hard to umpire. Together we pooled 60-plus titles, from yacht rock to Tchaikovsky, with our essential Naomi in between. Can’t remember getting so many cackles from the one challenge, a great way to get through the week.

We had tributes to Meatloaf and Cream, the Kings of Leon and the Stones, kd lang and retro TV, each title tweaked by a single letter to create a brand-new proposition. Wish I could name 18 winners, as that was the quality of this field, from Wrathful Pagers to Nameless Setters, but I manfully bashed it down to ten.

By weight of numbers, dg and Mr X share the laurels, though Mauve and SK have every claim to breathe the same rarefied oxygen. Meanwhile, JD still created my favourite of the Storm. Aside from that, choose your own fave among this sublime lot, listed here alphabetically:

A Little Less Conservation – Elvis approves of the ETS scheme being dropped. [Mr X]

Anne of Green Bagels: Deciding to add lime icing to her bagels was the best decision Anne ever made [Mauve]

APEC Fear: World leaders in dodgy clothes are stalked by a psychotic killer [SK]

A Study in Cartels: Sherlock Holmes takes on Richard Pratt [Mr X]

Bridget Jones Dairy – Wed 4 August 8st12 milk units 7 (excellent) yoghurt 2 cheese 3,100 calories (poor) [Mr X]

Close Encounters of The Third Dink: A story about young love and bicycles [dg]

Dude, Where’s My Arc?: Buddy Franklin pleas with the umpire what happened to his run-up [dg]

S.H.A.M.: Stories from an army hospital at a war that never was [dg]

Swan Leak: Labor’s truth is revealed at the ballet. [JD]

Takin’ it to the Testers: Behind the scenes at the Tour de France [SK]

Mega – set – match. A great Storm. Siya in next week’s Tempest.

Pixies and iron horses, golf courses and galpa [sic] – just a half this month’s Huh clues, pulled from a pile of UK papers over that time. Please explain, if you could, and try your hand – just for fun – at composing a superior clue for any of these enigmatic specimens. My thanks in advance.

1/ Snaps wings off idle fairy = PIXIE [Times 8693]

2/ Joke triumphed in the auditorium = ONE [Times 8700]  – why joke?

 3/ Alternative to surgery lacks time = OPTION [Armonie]

 4/ Cleaning lady player’s letter = CHARACTER [Cinephile]

 5/ Train for film once in America = IRON HORSE [Orense]

 6/ Dead good source of fibre = BROWN BREAD [Paul]

 7/ Crack cryptic clues for links, say = GOLF COURSE [Paul]

 8/ Party welcoming soft successor to Nero = GALPA [Loroso]

Credit to Column 8 for this Brainstorm idea, or more specifically the Column 8 reader, Hugh O’Keefe of Elizabeth Bay.

The challenge plays with titles again, like last week’s wrestle, but this week has one very particular twist. A twist of letters in fact, turning songs, books and movies into a new entity by a single anagram.

If you threw the focus onto Australian films, you may come up with these variations: 

Dam Max – finally a break in Water Restrictions Level 3

Dead Clam – it came, it tried to swallow us, we shot it

Beautiful Teak – a doco detailing hardwood preservation in Sulawesi

Breaker Matron – surf’s up, and this nurse is getting some action

While these are gallant efforts, none beats the best that Hugh O suggests:

I’ve Got You Under My Sink

Brilliant. So, without raining on Column 8’s parade, can we conjure up a top ten, including books, songs and movies, each blended incarnation accompanied by a succinct blurb?

Of course, you can choose one-word titles if you wish (Corky and Teardrop could work for Rocky and Predator), though let’s abstain from blending multiple words. Therefore no Ditherers for The Riders, or that Kevin Costner western: Ascend with Vowels.

(And same goes for turning one word into several, banishing the tangent of So Cluttered for Cloudstreet. Sorry to be fussy, but I’m eager to celebrate the pure and artful jumble.)

There you have it. Just single-word cocktails within your chosen title, with glory to the freshest and funniest ten across the week. So get conniving before Another One Bites The Stud.

Answer to each clue below is the surname of a female newsreader, or anchorwoman, on Australian TV.

1/ Smoothing tools

2/ Defile

3/ Chess piece

4/ It may have four claws

5/ Cooling

6/ Bird-proofing Felix?

7/ Curry-cooking chef?

8/ Stern playwright?!

SOLUTION NEXT WEEK

BB268 SOLUTION: Black/White, Serious/Twitty, Sweet/Fowl, Hill/Valli, Rush/Cruise, Lette/Barr, Penn/Cobb, Cross/Gaye, Rieu/Crowe, Bloom/Dye, Speed/Downer, Sharp/Blunt

Algorithms may be smart, but not as smart as many of our recent Storm suggestions. Last week we all tried to earn some extra commission, on-selling books and movies that owned some kinky link to the primary sale. And the evidence is clear: most of you have quite the career in creative retail.

A special mention to Simon L for fathoming the cyber-logic behind the four books ‘linked’ to the Puzzle title – a soaring effort. And a royal wave to JD and Mauve for coming up with two inspiring books of purchase, namely Jaws and the Bible, that sparked the storms of others, myself included.

Though after the flurry of receipts has settled, let’s turn to the tale of till tape. Who outsold whom? These four vendors, in order of strike power:

K-Mart Kup to be split in half and shared by two Stormers, namely DG for his pregnancy prank, and Mauve for his Caulfield Capers. In order, just to remind you:

Knocked Up:

The Postman Always Rings Twice
Dangerous Liaisons
Big
Inglourious Basterds

++

The Catcher In The Rye

100 Greatest VFL Marks (intro by Lou Richards)
Elliott Ness – Man and Myth
Beautiful Blairgowrie
Selling or Buying A Home? 10 Mistakes To Avoid, ferchrissake

++

Borders Bouquet to Mr X for playing with Bacon degrees, puns and the Bard in the shape of Hamlet:

Hamlet:

Green Eggs and Ham
The Village
6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Rashermon (sic)

(And a bonus to the person who can explain why James and The Giant Peach belongs in this last set too!)

++

Though this week’s winner of the Readings Rosette (and counter-lunch) was both emphatic and automatic. Let the cash registers ring JD’s name on high for lifting the bar with Great Expectations:

Great Expectations:

Pregnancy and Birth
Dreams of my Father
Mein Kampf
The Latham Diaries (also turn up in a search for ‘Psycho’)

Funny, eerie, erudite – all in one firm sale. Kapow, ker-ching, kongratz. (Come Again Soon.)

Fun & Games this week at Letters & Numbers, the new SBS quiz show due to air next week. We’re currently neck-deep in production, shooting some five episodes most days, with each session a merry blur of anagrams and number-crunching.

The show scores a big V for Vicarious, as it offers you the chance to match smarts against those intrepid souls in the hotseats. (I’m sure that element is the X-factor behind the formula’s success overseas.) Though yesterday, late in the afternoong, the same hotseats nearly grew too hot. Midway through one round, the studio siren started blaring, a klaxon quacked, lights flashed….

Clint the security guard dashed on set and ordered everyone to evacuate. The ABC canteen was leaking. Firetrucks arrived. Contestants and crew milled on Gordon Street, freezing in the twilight, until the firetrucks eventually left.

No catastrophe, thank God – just a delay in proceedings. But all along, the blare of sirens still fresh in my mind, I’d suspected the true cause for the fuss was a mystery element embedded in the show. Namely: Wordwang. Once you see this clip -  Wordwang -  you’ll understand the reflex.

Imagine my surprise. Puzzled – my new book due to hit the shelves in late August – is already being posted on many bookshop sites.

The book is built around a single crossword, where every clue is a chapter, and the whole meander aimed at giving you plenty of surprises and how-to insights, as well as detours into puzzle history and personal memoir of the black-and-white kind.

Which is why – I guess – the same bookshop recommends so-called related titles. If you want to buy Puzzled, suggested one shop, then you’d love these other four titles: 

God’s Callgirl – From Convent to Massage Parlour

Wide Awake – A History of Insomnia

My Booky Wooky by Russell Brand

Snake Charmer – Living Among Reptiles

What’s the connection? You tell me. But that’s the spirit of this week’s Storm. Nominate a book, or movie, and then cook up four other titles by way of associated selling. The link can be verbal, surreal, thematic, quirky, or a load of ballocks (as in the case of Puzzled.)

Here’s an example:

Perfect Storm (The Tempest, It’s Raining in Mango, How To make the Perfect Risotto, Oceana Fine by Tom Flood) 

Or:

Horton Hears a Who (Auditory Loss in Generation iPod, Babar Goes to Brussels, Owls of the United Kingdom, World Health: A Global Challenge) 

As you can see, the titles can be fabricated, or borrowed from real shelves. Just as the logic can be flaky or punny or bent sideways. Just have fun, and see which four Stormers make the top-shelf by week’s end. If nothing else, I’ll enjoy trying to figure out how this bookshop algorithm is thinking!

(As for spontaneous feedback, I am in the TV bunker all week, so feel free to cajole each other. Get vending.)