The problem I've always had (well, for at least twenty years) with the Joker is that, notwithstanding some glorious stories, I just can't believe that someone who works best when portrayed as a creature of genuine impulse could ever carry out a detailed plan. I have problems believing he - the current Joker - could ever sit still long enough to actually come UP with a decent plan.

He's the sort of man who, in my view, would start thinking of a plan, get bored after five minutes - or the first time he came across any kind of obstacle - and then go shoot the closest chair because he didn't like the way one of the knotholes in the wood was looking at him.

The only decent thing the writers have done in recent years is show that the other villains are genuinely scared shitless of him. Because he's the one character they can't predict. Which leads me to say that forget about the cops, the bad guys would have knocked him off as being bad for business.

In the summer of 2005, Lee Barnett gave readers of his blog and other writers a simple challenge: "reply with a title (no longer than four words) about which you'd like me to write a fast fiction of exactly 200 words, along with a word you want me to include in the tale." And the challenges arrived: Stories with titles like "She Killed Me Twice", "The Brain That Exploded", "The Pachyderm Wore Pink" and "Single White Fee Male" with words like ranunculus, vaginate and carronade. 300 stories later, here for the first time in print are 180 of the best.