You Klutz

No! Not You, Gentle Reader
I would never impugn you like that.  I consider myself to be rather a klutz, as I am both large and ungainly, with giant sausage fingers, poor balance and absolutely no hand-eye co-ordination.  
     No, I am directing my Frothing Nitric Ire at the Codeword compilers from last week's MEN in the Saturday edition.  Art?

The item in question

     I'd done the first two of the three they have in this edition, no problem.  The third one turned out to be rather harder, because of SHARP PRACTICE on the part of the compilers.  One answer turned out to be "LUTZ", and believe me I checked it out three times to make sure that was the answer, and it was was was.  
     Gasp!  This word is not in my Collins Concise (my first port of call when checking words).  It took teh interwebz to discover that there is a move in ice-skating known as a "Lutz" or "Lutz Jump", and if we can steal a little definition -

The Lutz is a figure skating jump, named after Alois Lutz, an Austrian skater who performed it in 1913. It is a toepick-assisted jump with an entrance from a back outside edge and landing on the back outside edge of the opposite foot. It is the second-most difficult jump and the second-most famous jump after the axel.

     YOU WHAT!  How on earth are people supposed to know this?  I ask you <three hundred swears redacted by Mister Hand> and that's not all.  O noes.

Yeah, yeah, close enough

     There was another word that went "_A_A", which couldn't have been LAVA because otherwise another four-letter word would have ended in "V".

What it's not

     It also wasn't GALA because one of the two already given letters given was "L".  It couldn't be SAGA because that meant another word would have begun "FS".   I was very annoyed when I got it, because - 
     Anyway, that's probably the low point of my day.  It picked up after that, since I got to have a cheese toastie made in my new sandwich maker, though the cheese does tend to leak out of the sides when it melts.  A problem I shall ponder on, dear reader.

A gala!

     Okay, motley, I'm happy with how the nuclear warhead inventory went.  Now to itemise how much riot foam and stumm gas we have in stock.  You count and I'll tick the boxes.

Also known as the "Mega-City Boot"

You Must Be Barking!
A note on the argot of the Allotment of Eden here.   We have a phrase "To be barking mad", which implies someone is so completely round the bend that they get down on all fours and act like Fido, although the jury is out on whether they'd prefer dog food to a nice cheese toastie.
     Anyway, there is a character from CBBC, which is the BBC's childrens arm of broadcasting, known as "Hacker T. Dog".  Art?

HTD

     The relevance here is that HTD is a Border Terrier, and <looks around stagily> who do we know around here with a Border Terrier?
     Me.  Art?

Edna, working on her "O woe is me I am so neglected and abused and despondent and is there any chicken?" pose

     I have never seen HTD in action but suspect, like Edna and all her breed, he is as sharp as a tack and can smell that pack of chicken drumsticks being opened from the other side of the house.  Apparently he was narrowly beaten in an episode of "Mastermind" for the top spot, which seems about par for the course with a Border Terrier.
     So now you know why "Barking".

Barking
(and Dagenham)

Hello Norwich, Meet Djakarta
I know there's no obvious connection between a bucolic shire town in the Allotment of Eden, and the bustling metropolitan capital of an aspiring Asian power, but bear with me.
     Okay, Djakarta.  There is one salient fact about Djakarta that nobody can deny: it's sinking.  Yes, "Sinking" as in to descend slowly into the depths of the earth.  Art?

Djakarta in flood

     The city is sinking as it's groundwater is used up by the inhabitants, causing settlement at the rate of about a foot per year, and there's no substitute for the water taken from beneath the city.  By 2050 if not sooner, you'll need gills and fins to live in Djakarta. 
     And back to Norwich.  Art?

Behold, bus.

      It seems that Norwich is peculiarly susceptible to sink-holes, thanks to being built on chalk; water acts on any cracks in the chalk to enlarge them into positive caverns, which like to eat buses*.  |Not only that, there are ancient chalk and flint mines beneath the city, which once again get eaten away by erosion and turn into bus-eating road holes.  You can't predict where or when a sink-hole will occur, so living in Norwich is a dangerous occupation and you'd expect the government to pay them a hazard bonus.

Just another day in Norwich

     Give it enough time and - yes, probably by 2050 - Norwich will be at the level of Djakarta.
     This has been an educational article in furtherance of BOOJUM!'s didactic mandate.

Finally -
Oh, I forgot to fill you in on that Codeword solution, didn't I?  It turned out to be "HAKA", which Your Humble Scribe was quite grumpy about.  Is it really fair to import words from Maori into a codeword, which is pretty difficult in the first place?  Never mind obscure moves from sporting events - no, no, I can't go there, the memory is too bitter.
     I think not is the answer to the question.  Art?

You may argue with these chaps if you wish.  I - liking being alive and all that - shall not

     That's the New Zealand All Blacks doing their haka - a war-dance, essentially - and working up the blood.  New Zealanders - wonderfully inoffensive unless you're on the rugby pitch or battlefield against them.


*  First Bus, if you're reading this - DON'T YOU DARE!