In fact, though, the memorial's heads and faces may not be gargoyles and are more probably chimeras or grotesques. If so they're still important, because Canberra is as well grotesque-impoverished.

But to be a true gargoyle the creature decorating a building (this columnist grew up in gargoyle-rich East Anglia in England where churches were festooned with them, and with grotesques as well) must be used, often with a pipe projecting from its mouth, to drain rainwater from the building's roof. It must be that the word gargoyle is saying something about gargling.

It is a wonderful thing to see, in a downpour, a fine gargoyle chundering torrents of water from its often grotesque gob.

All Saints Anglican Church in Ainslie and St Andrew's cathedral-sized Presbyterian Church at Forrest both certainly boast some grotesques (not sure if they have any true gargoyles). Some of St Andrew's grotesques are really rather fine but alas are seldom noticed because they are too high up on the building's grand flanks for pedestrians to know they're there. But more importantly they're where evil spirits will see them and be scared away by them. And we know they work well because St Andrew's worshippers seldom see more than three or four evil spirits a year on the premises, unless of course one counts the annual service given for God-bothering federal politicians.

And discussion of gargoyles and grotesques reminded us of ceramicist Franz Schroedl and his grotesque "Lester". Lester provoked an imbroglio at the ANU's School of Art when, on popular display in the school's foyer (we went to interview him there, marvelling at his explicitly male extremities) a school potentate demanded he be taken away.

What happened was that standing in the busy foyer Lester suffered some minor damage to the tips of his fabulous wings. People may have brushed against him or it may be that at night Lester flew along the school's corridors, underestimating his wing span and damaging his leathery wing tips on walls. Schroedl took the view that these chips didn't matter too much and added character, since you expect gargoyles to sustain a few scars and bruises while street fighting with the evil spirits.

However the school's potentate took the view that the damage to Lester meant he was now a "broken artwork" and so not suitable for display.

Now, with gargoyles/grotesques in the news, we wondered what had become of controversial Lester and his at-the-time crestfallen creator. We found Schroedl is still at the school and now shares his office with his (literally) ballsy creation. Schroedl enthuses to us that he is still turning out lots of gargoyles.

"For example I'm making a cluster of gargoyles, 10 or 20 of them, that will hang, from a branch in a tree in a garden, hanging down like a bunch of grapes. Some of them will be playing, some of them will be asleep."

He's also working on, and promises us the first photo-opportunity when it's ready, a big and complex Nativity. It too, improving on the rather basic and disappointing Nativity scene reported in the Bible, will involve lots of "gargoyles and goblins".

Gargoyles and grotesques lift a structure and it seems a shame that there are none, yet, decorating the rather shy and understated Village Centre building at the National Arboretum. The Margaret Whitlam Pavilion too, severe and stark (and so not a bit like Margaret), is desperately in need of some ornamentations.

But the arboretum itself, as reported here last week, is set to be decorated with Freefall, a sculptural walkway. It should be in place by 2019. Rod Bligh's Freefall was the winning entry in the Engineers Australia Freefall Experience Design Ideas Competition. Also as reported, there were some wondrous, engineeringly-excitingly runners-up among the 33 entries in the competition.

We were especially grabbed, visiting the display of designs, by the ingenious Kinetic Canopy Lookout (pictured, by moonlight) imagined by Stephen Branch and a team of structural and civil engineers. If only it, too, could get an arboretum guernsey.

You step on to the platform (room for about 20 souls) at ground level, and then you gently are lifted up. And after that lifting the contraption looks, from down on the ground, like the mushroom-looking spectre in the picture. Eerily, like witchcraft, the platform is raised and lowered without resort to electricity or fuels.

"The real magic behind the canopy lookout," the designers chirrup, "is how the platform is raised and lowered using the power of water."

There is a central ballast tank and the platform is lifted and lowered by adjusting the volume of water in the tank. "Submarines use this principle" when diving or surfacing, the designers advise, imagining that she sheer engineering ingenuity of the lookout "will delight both adults and children".

The exhibition of the designs continues at the indescribably trendy Gallery of Australian Design, at 47 Jardine Street, Kingston, until March 20.