A Bug's Life

Actually, grass clippings would be the worst thing to add - they make it go slimy and ick. Compost shouldn't smell bad at all if it is working properly.

The best way to compost compactly is a working worm bin. Unfortunately, I've found our worm bin to be tricky to work, so I won't recommend that.

Anything which recently used to be a plant and doesn't have toxic additions, can be composted. So, no animal products (except baked egg shells), and no heavy metal inks.

The secret to good composting is to get the right balance of water, air, nitrogen and carbon. Grass and vegetables supply water and nigrogen. Paper, card and wood supply carbon. The Centre for Alternative Technology have done fair bit of research on making it work at home (http://www.cat.org.uk/information/catinfo.tmpl?command=search&db=catinfo.db&eqSKUdatarq=19990606120000&eqCURRENTdatarq=0).

I reckon you could thinly spread good home-made compost on the parts of the lawn you weren't using in winter. Your back garden's a bit like the far end of ours - mostly brick rubble, and desparately in need of as much compost as it can get :-)