Re-open *scratch* buffer in Emacs?

Question

If I accidentally closed the scratch buffer in Emacs, how do I create a new scratch buffer?

Answer 1

I have scratch as an interactive command for opening a new scratch buffer (I like to have several):

(defun scratch ()
  "create a new scratch buffer to work in. (could be *scratch* - *scratchX*)"
  (interactive)
  (let ((n 0)
        bufname)
    (while (progn
             (setq bufname (concat "*scratch"
                                   (if (= n 0) "" (int-to-string n))
                                   "*"))
             (setq n (1+ n))
             (get-buffer bufname)))
  (switch-to-buffer (get-buffer-create bufname))
  (if (= n 1) initial-major-mode))) ; 1, because n was incremented

adopted from: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1038451