JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 655

I had started out to write this post about the Sham Paris,
the False Paris, that was being built outside Paris to deceive German bombers in WWI.  Now, that wasn’t a particularly bad
invention, per se—a bit like the
Maginot Line in is way—just too much, over-the-top, short-distanced and muddied
sight. 

But on the way to the images of non-Paris I came across
these few inventions as reported in The
Illustrated London News of Christmas Day, 1920.  These innovations look older than 1920, to
tell the truth, but here they are. 

 First is the hat gun—or, rather, the helmet gun.  It look as though the whole affair would be aimed
and fired hands-free.  By the look of the
barrel, the thing in the helmet looks like 50-calibre, which might have an ill
effect on the neck of the shooter.

The next few images illustrate an improbable, cartoon-like
device for swimming in the high seas.  It
is a ticklish-looking thing, with air outlets and propellers and such being in
the rather tender areas of the internalized man. 

Lastly we come to a pipe designed with too much duct work (a
la the movie Brazil)
to deliver a cool smoke from a hot bowl. 
The device below that tries to bypass the entire hot smoke issue by
distracting the smoker with a movable whirligig. I’m not so sure that Bogart
would’ve been taken very seriously as Phi Marlowe had he been (a) smoking a
ciggy with a holder, and (b) if that cig holder had a movable figure on it
that raided a sword every time he drew smoke.