That dreadful picture...

...the lips that touch liquor one, that is. Hank commented that it is a movie still. Further researches reveal that he is right but not a great deal else. This much I have found out: it is a still from an unknown film - maybe dating from 1909 but that is not certain, it seems. The still derives from Edison's Black Maria - Thomas Edison's movie production studio - sometimes referred to as America's first - in West Orange, New Jersey and has been described as the West Orange Temperance Movement.

There are a number of other stills from the same source online - above is Charlie's Reform - again of unknown date. It looks rather fun and has me wondering what the storyline was.

Above is of unknown date and is entitled Grand Opera in Roubeville. And very strange it looks too. Again, I have to wonder what demented narrative this still represents. The bloke in the fez looks particularly unhinged.

Again of unknown date, the above still is named Martin Chuzzlewit. Okay that was a novel by Dickens but beyond that I haven't a clue what this is about. There is one man lying on some sort of sofa or bed, another sitting on a stool looking something between thoughtful and downright pissed off and a woman peering through the window of the open window of the log cabin. All very odd...

Above is Lucia Di Lammermoor from 1913. I like the crazed exuberance of these old stills.

And finally, I rather like this one. It has a date - 1903 - and a title The Great Train Robbery. No, not that one British readers. well obviously. And as an extra treat - here it is!

Totally changing the subject, what you lot in the USA are up to has come to the rabbit's attention - via the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour (I added a 'u' on principle) you are very naughty and I will be straight over. But not before putting up a song that Unique Stephen (link to left) posted amid claims that it deserves to be Australia's national anthem. It's a very good song - Land Down Under by Men at Work and is a huge improvement on the turgid official Australian National Anthem (Yes before anybody says - the UK one sucks worst of all). I remember being on a Quantas jet years ago and getting bounced about quite scarily by tropical storms over Darwin. When the storms passed the tension in the plane was instantly dissolved when they put this song on the plane's PA. It got a cheer and quite rightly.