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QUESTION Which movie or TV present was the primary to function custard pie-chucking?
Pie-chucking was a function of vaudeville reveals, so it is no shock that it could flip up in early cinema.
The earliest surviving movie that includes the stunt was Mr Flip (1909), starring the favored Ben Turpin.
Two earlier movies most likely featured the stunt however now not exist.
The 1903 brief Never Interfere In Family Troubles depicts a brawl between relations after a husband arrives dwelling late.
Pie assaults acquired larger and sillier, culminating in Laurel and Hardy’s 3,000-strong pie combat in The Battle Of The Century (1927) (Pictured)
The plot synopsis featured the path: ‘The lady on the opposite facet of the desk will get up, picks up what apparently is a pie, and shoves it within the face of the person’.
The 1905 movie The Coal Strike featured a younger boy getting into the parlour and trying to purloin a bit of pie: ‘The charwoman catches him by the scruff of the neck and rubs pie in his face.’
Ben Turpin, a precursor to Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, was a slapstick favorite for greater than three a long time.
He was well-known as ‘the cross-eyed comic’, a trick he had discovered from his vaudeville days, when he was often called the Happy Hooligan.
Mr Flip is a harasser of ladies. The synopsis notes: ‘A younger man considers himself irresistible, and thru his egotism runs the gamut of misadventures.
After dressing himself in terribly unhealthy style, he sallies forth to overcome the honest intercourse.’
He begins in a haberdashery, the place he tries to fondle the clerk’s face. She has him wheeled out on a trolley.
When he manhandles a manicurist, her colleague stabs him within the backside with nail scissors.
A phone operator electrocutes him, and a hairstylist and her assistant fill his mouth with shaving cream.
A barmaid and her patrons squirt him with soda water, and at last the clerk at a bakery smashes a pie into his face and pelts him with rolls.
Mr Flip was successful and did a fantastic deal to popularise pie-throwing.
Pie assaults acquired larger and sillier, culminating in Laurel and Hardy’s 3,000-strong pie combat in The Battle Of The Century (1927).
Robert Taylor, Wolverhampton, W. Mids.
QUESTION Did the myxoma virus exist naturally in rabbit populations earlier than it was artificially launched?
The European rabbit was a major pest to European and Australian farmers (inventory photograph)
The myxoma virus happens naturally in South America and impacts native rabbits of the Sylvilagus minensis species, inflicting a light localised fibroma, usually on the base of the ear.
However, in 1896 it was discovered to trigger a extreme sickness in European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) stored in a laboratory.
The European rabbit was a major pest to European and Australian farmers, and experiments happened to see if the virus, not naturally current on this species, may very well be used to regulate numbers.
The first British experiments happened in 1936 on Skokholm Island however have been unsuccessful, as rabbits there didn’t have the fleas vital for the virus to unfold.
Dr Paul-Felix Armand-Delille launched two myxoma-infected rabbits into his walled property in France in 1952 after acquiring the virus from a laboratory in Lausanne.
The virus quickly unfold and killed wild and home rabbits alike. By 1954, round 90 per cent of the wild rabbits in France had died.
The an infection reached Kent in 1953, killing 99 per cent of the 100 million British wild rabbits.
Early introductions of myxoma virus in Australia in 1950 had restricted success, however importing rabbit fleas in 1968 elevated the dying fee.
Vaccination continues to be vital to guard home rabbits that haven’t acquired resistance.
Dr Lesley Hordon, writer of The History Of The Domestic Rabbit: From Food And Fur To Friend, Leeds.
QUESTION What is essentially the most uncommon friendship from throughout the political divide?
Further to the sooner reply, some years in the past, on a day journey to see Salisbury Cathedral, I noticed Tony Benn and he was form sufficient to speak to us.
He was on his approach to go to Sir Ted Heath, a good friend who was unwell on the time. Sir Ted lived very near the cathedral.
It did appear an unlikely friendship however they each clearly have been capable of see the person, not simply the politician.
Jane Pullen, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.
Sir Ted Heath (pictured) struck up an unlikely friendship with Labour MP Tony Benn