PUZZLE ZONE
ACROSS 1. Escapees 5. Comedians, the ... Brothers 7. Uterus 8. Cotton head scarf 9. Churchman 12. Stuck (to) 15. Piled up
19. US prairie state 21. Rewrote 22. Burial vault 23. Proportional, pro ... 24. Peak traffic time (4,4) DOWN 1. Benefit received 2. Monastery superior
3. Yellow shade 4. Detected 5. Measly 6. Took images of bones (1-5) 10. Castro’s land 11. Pig noise 12. All-wheel drive (1,1,1) 13. Exercise ring, ... hoop
14. Shark relatives, manta ... 15. More tart 16. Cocktail, pina ... 17. Any of two 18. Weather map line 19. Prestige 20. Belt hole
Puzzles supplied by Lovatts Publications Pty Ltd www.lovattspuzzles.com See page 53 for solutions.
THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE... AND OTHER SHORT STORIES
A Simple Guide to Solving Everything By Stuart McCullough APPARENTLY, there’s no silver bullet to fix housing affordability. This is clearly some kind of sick joke. Previously, we’ve been told there’s no silver bullet for the Global Financial Crisis, cyber security, the fight against childhood obesity, increasing diversity, the war on terror (where, presumably, a silver bullet would come in handy), work/life balance, better freeway commuting times, longer life spans, global warming, sustainable retirement incomes, poverty, energy and making sure the 7.08 from Frankton to Flinders Street gets away on time. Despite this, no one’s willing to call out what is clearly a national crisis – we are running out of silver bullets. Who’d have thought that the key to our prosperity and future happiness should be so inextricably tied to the supply of novelty munitions? Silver bullets, it must be said, are hard to come by. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a silver bullet, much less deployed one to solve some kind of intractable problem. All I can say is, given our dog’s recent efforts in digging up our lawn, I don’t think they’re buried in our backyard. Chances are, somebody somewhere has a stockpile. It is now our sacred duty to find these blessed problem-solving vessels. So where to begin? My mind immediately turns to some kind of national treasure hunt – much like the Pokémon Go thing but without the awkwardness of having people hypnotically glued to their phones before blithely stepping out in front of fast-
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moving public transport. This would be a far more focused affair. Hoards of eager volunteers would scour local parks, drains and check behind the couch cushions. Any silver bullets would then be sent to a central collection point where they would be stored before being used for the greater good. Think ‘Cash A Can’ on steroids. Sadly, silver bullets, much like twenty-dollar notes, do not grow on trees. Which is a pity. It’d be superconvenient if all we had to do is hand people a bucket and ask them to wander through the orchard, picking ripe silver bullets to their heart’s content. Perhaps science could help. In fact, I know it can. All we have to do is get the Vacanti Mouse back on the job and – before you can ‘mutant’ –
we’ll have the problem licked. Forget breeding a rodent with a human ear growing on its back; let’s make one that pops out little silver bullets whenever it’s had too much fibre. That way, we could sweep those suckers up and shovel them into a hessian sack. I feel we’re on to something. I have to admit, though, armaments are not my area of expertise. I don’t know whether silver bullets are multipurpose and can be used for a wide range of reasons or whether they’re issue specific. Personally, I think they ought to be flexible. I understand that, sometimes, it can be useful to specialize. I mean, you can eat a steak with a butter knife if you want to, but it’s definitely not the best tool for the job. Chances are we’ll need a variety of
silver bullets if we’re to solve all our problems. But I still feel as though I don’t know enough about this most elusive of objects. So I decide to plug myself in to the gargantuan human databank of knowledge that is the Internet. As I search the term ‘silver bullet’, I’m beyond surprised by the results. By Googling the term ‘silver bullet’ I discover that they’re readily available for the somewhat reasonable price of $69.95. We’ve been misled. Turns out the whole ‘silver bullet’ shortage is nothing but a complete furphy. All those folks claiming that there’s no silver bullet were simply not looking hard enough. Granted, I was a little shocked to find that a ‘silver bullet’ was not, as
I had previously assumed, a form of fancy-pants ammunition. Rather, it turns out the ‘silver bullet’ is a brand of hair accessories. Whilst it’s not immediately clear to me what use a ceramic conical curling iron would be in solving the issue of housing affordability, by locating silver bullets in such plentiful supply, I feel that we’re over the first very, very large hurdle. But wait, there’s more. More than a high quality curling iron, the term ‘silver bullet’ also refers to a ‘magical solution to an intractable problem’. Fair enough. But what’s disturbing is that the expression originates from the belief that werewolves could only be slain with a silver bullet. That’s right. Every time you hear one our great policy makers use the term ‘silver bullet’, they’re referring to a magical weapon used to slay werewolves. And if the connection between housing affordability, global warming and a host of other tricky social issues and some lycanthrope-slaying armament eludes you, then I suspect you’d be forgiven. If, at this very moment, you’re turning your house upside down in search of hard-to-get munitions, call off the search. As it turns out, there are no silver bullets because, well, there really are no silver bullets. Much like unicorns, they simply don’t exist (apologies to unicorn fans – but you were bound to find out eventually). But at least werewolves are real. Or at least I think they are. stuart@stuartmccullough.com