This will hurt me...

I could go some of these Indian Root Pills right now! Argyle Street, Hobart. December 2011. Before I get into the Q and A today, I just had to look up the tale of this old ad [above]. It turns out that Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills were one of the great success stories of the good old patent medicine industry. The (possibly shady) ‘Dr.’ Morse asserted that the pills contained a secret blend of herbal ingredients that would help "cleanse the blood." Indeed, ‘dirty blood’ appeared to be the cause of all diseases to ‘Dr.’ Morse. I will confess to being slightly disappointed to not being able to access the miracle drug these days. They sound just the ticket! Alas, onwards to another Tuesday Q and A courtesy of Sunday Stealing. It’s a challenge this week – The TV Show Meme – especially difficult because I’ve watched a sum total of about eight television shows in the past six years… But first, a note from the Q and A designer! Before reading the questions, nominate ...

Who (or what) is being protected? Ford Parade, Lindisfarne. January 2012. Two books this week, with one departure of the norm and another collection of short stories from an unknown German. The first is Tasmanian Tiger Ed Cowan’s In The Firing Line . Essentially the diary of the Australian domestic cricket season as seen through a player [then] on the periphery of the international game, Cowan struck lucky to decide on this endeavour the year that Tasmania won its second Shield title. While these books are often dry affairs, Cowan is both brutally honest in his assessment of himself, his cricket and the impact of his chosen career path on his loved ones. Moreover, he offers great insight with some considered and oft-unspoken views on the state of State cricket in Australia and the future of the game. I was particularly drawn to his observation on the effect of Twenty20 on both the domestic and international game. His frank and portrait of life as one of the invisible ‘not quite top-run...

Aren't you cold. Elizabeth Street in Winter. August 2010. Dolly birds draped about in bikinis. A standard response when you think "Winter in Tasmania". I am looking for ideas. I’m happy to trawl the ‘net for more, but I thought that I’d throw open the comments section for suggestions. What should I write about? Any questions that I should answer? Anything that you’d like me to photograph? The creative well is running dry, and my capacity to draw comics [you know who you are] is limited!

Finally! Irrevocable proof! Jesus was a traitor! Imagine that, anointing the Fritz on the way to butchering the good guy. What a bugger. I’d love to see the logic behind the central tenets of Christ that would generate an assumption that he’d be anointing his approval of trench warfare…

No words. Time for a history lesson! On May 16, 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev announced a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR titled On Greater Efforts to Combat Drunkenness and Alcoholism and to Eradicate Moonshine . During 1985–87 Gorbachev carried out an anti-alcohol campaign with partial prohibition, colloquially known as the "dry law". Prices of vodka, wine and beer were radically increased, and liquor sales were heavily restricted in both amount and time of day. People who were caught drunk at work or in public were prosecuted. Drinking on long-distance trains and in public places was banned. Scenes depicting alcohol consumption were removed from films. Advertisements like these abounded. Hilariously (in the context of Soviet humour), people started calling Gorbachev " Mineral Water Secretary " instead of General Secretary. Statistically speaking, the reform had effect on alcohol abuse in the country. There was a significant decrease in criminal...

The market is a shifty bugger. There is obviously a limit to one’s ability to sell people stuff. Ultimately, people are going to get to a point where they don’t need anything more. The solution? Create a need! Now you, me and everybody else may well have gone on for thousands of years never having noticed the subtleties of life. Creases in our brow, different skin textures on our elbows, imprecise smells in our intimate parts... To a marketer, these aren’t the intangibles that make life, love and the whole shebang. These are opportunities to be exploited ! Have a crease in the corner of your eye? EVERYBODY IS LOOKING AT YOU! BUY THIS CREAM AND MAKE THEM STOP! Rough skin to protect the point of your elbow? YOU HAG! HOW CAN A MAN EVERY LOVE YOU? GET SOME OINTMENT ON THAT! Smell like a woman? HOW DARE YOU! YOU MAKE US ALL SICK! Modern life, it really is wonderful.

I'VE GOT IT! I'm sensing that Henry and Ezra have been drifting away from me. They're always wanting to go to the park, the beach or the pool; seemingly anything to get out of the house and away from us. I never realised that it is the poor quality of the ciggies and drink that I lay out for them. Nothing but high end Rothmans and Johnny Walker Blue Label from here on in!

He is Ezra looking like something out of a Calvin Klein advertisement, only this time with his shirt on. Here's a challenge, what would you call the toilet water eau de cologne that this bloke is trying to shift here? I'm only after one word...

Crikey, check out that... [ahem] microwave . A fabulous... [ahem] idea here, microwave and conventional oven together. [Adjusts seating position.] [Ahem] The thing that I admire most about this advertisement is its use of an enormous pair of breasts subtlety .

I do miss the days when anti-psychotic drugs were mass marketed to the community. Who hasn't wished for a script of Thorazine/Largactil when faced with a cranky old bastard moaning about not having enough sugar in his tea, the paucity of bananas in his childhood or the lack of Vera Lynne on the radio these days. Yet why stop there, look at that list of symptoms: hostility; irritability; abusiveness; incessant talking; restlessness... I have an idea:

Man, if there is one thing that I CANNOT stand, it is war rudeness poverty theft man's inhumanity to man wanton environmental destruction wives who neglect their stockings . C'mon girls, as the ad says, husbands admire wives who keep their stockings perfect . Conversely, husbands detest and abhor slovenly oafs who crash about like drunken moose with ladders from here to eternity. Fair dinkum ladies, check out that look of disgust the dude above is giving his wife while she's there knitting away, completely unaware. She'll only have herself to blame if he starts fooling around with a more careful dame. This message was brought to you in the interests of marital bliss and harmony between the sexes.

I have said on a number of occasions - and apologies in advance to my Latvian readers - that I miss the Red Menace™. It was a simpler time when honest, God-fearing folk knew who the enemy was: the heathen, black-hearted Soviet hordes from those countries where people ate turnips and lived in soulless grey cities lacking in jazz clubs and technicolour films. Their women were hairy legged peasants (or untrustworthy vixens), men nicotine-stained meatheads, and children mindless zombies pre-programmed to know nothing of love, family or nylon stockings. We had our bombs trained on them, and were ready to destroy the world, lest their bland Bolshevik tendencies overwhelm our fun loving will to strip malls, strip clubs and ready access to hardcore pornography! Better DEAD than Red , remember!

A combination of shiny shoes and synthetic pants will always ensure that feisty woman that you have your eye on will soon have her will ground down until she obliges your every whim. Complete and utter subservience. It's what makes marriage great!

Wow-ee , would you just take a look at that shoe polish! Yes-siree , some mighty fine shoe polish there. Hey, let me have a look at that again [crosses legs uncomfortably]. Hmmmm, a free shine cloth . A free shine cloth you say? Hmmmm, I better have another look at that ad... There is one thing for sure, this advert certainly gets you thinking about shoe polish !

Television ads are a very sparse feature of the Ads That I Like feature on this blog, primarily because they are always disappearing from YouTube. That risk aside, like the glorious Estonian Soviet-era ad featuring MEAT MEAT MEAT , I can't resist including this pearler from that place of supreme oddity, Japan. What is the first thing that you think when you hear the word noodle? Why this, I'm sure! Man those Japanese must have some pretty cool drugs...

I am a firm believer that there is no greater gift that a father can bestow on a toddler than their very own handgun . In the interest of safety, I regularly allow Henry and Ezra to cavort about in bed with Iver Johnson Revolvers , because they are perfectly safe (aside from their ability to kill and maim, that is).

I honestly don't know what these vegans are on about sometimes, there's no shortage of animals delighted to volunteer to be eaten . They're just killjoys. Who are they to take away the one thing that these upbeat beasts love so much?

So here we have yet another mercilessly bleak wartime recruitment poster from that war that we had because that war that we had that was supposed to end all wars really didn’t and what it actually did was set up the preconditions for another, bigger war. Yeah, that war. Now, when it comes to war, I can see the attraction of a) going off to defend your country, c) being embarrassed by girls , c) impressing the ladies , d) being nagged by greedy women, e) plain old fashioned ignorance , f) getting fired up because the other guys are a bunch of rotters and scoundrels , or even g) have a bit of adventure, see the world, meeting interesting people and killing them in all sorts of interesting ways. However, when push comes to shove, it’s best not to let me know what I’m really getting myself into before you have my name on the dotted line. Seriously, I’d see this poster and feel sorry for the poor bloke, but c’mon, the dude doesn’t have any hands ! As the kids at the bus stop say, that sh...

Madame Curie and her radiation, Newton and his apples, Einstein and his zany hair, Hawking and that voice thing, Fermi and his particles, Maxwell and his electric fields, Salk and his vaccines, on and on it goes. What is the one thing that they had in common? A fondness for the gaspers , that’s what! Do people really believe that the confluence of the scientific revolution and the arrival of tobacco in Europe is a mere coincidence? Nothing says science than late nights, pizza, loud music and a smoke filled room. Look at this dude here in today’s ad, he’s like Bill Wyman strumming away on his bass with a ciggie in hand. Just like Bill wouldn't be able to strum out that funky and sleazy opening salvo of Miss You (let alone his sleazy come-ons to underage girls) without a handy Peter Stuyvesant , the Chesterfield that you see above is perfectly weighted to maximise the fiddling of the dial on the microscope you see. That’s where they went wrong in ye olden days (that and their at...

Now, I am certain that the brainiacs behind this little fundraising effort for the war didn’t mean any harm by their choice of words here, but that’s kind of the problem, isn't it? It reminds me of the time that the former Collingwood Football Club President (and budding-MENSA candidate) Allen McAllister clumsily attempted to refute accusations of institutionalised racism against Indigenous players. He decided that the best course of attack was to explain how he did not have a problem with coloureds , per se ... “As long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire them and respect them.” In the words of teh Internets, EPIC FAIL.