But first...
Dulltown, UK: Today's lost plectrum is the one eventually found slotted into the frame of the Mona Lisa - it's edge just visible, below her left hand.
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You'll see, dear reader, from today's title, that this is the ninetieth of my pages from that ancient, and well thumbed (not by me, I don't like football at all), from the book Football Parade, from Xmas 1950. Yes, it's another of my cheap junk shop books. And, I know it's Christmas because there is a nce little message, in what looks like fountain pen, on the back of the title page.

DSCN5956 This will be the last, but one, of these posts - I think I have squeezed just about all I can get out of this book. There will be just one more of these, rounding it off to a nice twenty. I think we'd better have another look at front and covers again, don't you? There are very nice!

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I called this series Football for Surrealists because of the rather strange 1950s graphics (as you see on the front cover) used in it - 'illustrations' as they were then, which used colour-tinted black and white photographs of the players, and imitation 'grass', and 'crowds', and 'sky', around the figures caught in frozen action.
But today, I thought that we'd have a change - a real photograph from page 48!
Actually, as I was just looking up which page number the photo was on, I found some other rather nice black and white shots! Maybe I should photograph some of those, and that this series might not be coming to an end, at all...
Maybe I'll do that this afternoon...
Anyway, here's today's picture.

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Isn't this, whether you like football or not, just a great photo?
Just imagine being a sports photographer back then!
Now we have tiny little cameras that focus themselves, and automatically adjust to the light conditions, and take amazingly sharp pictures. Back in 1950, the cameras were huge, about the size, and weight of a... well, let's say a Christmas turkey. Imagine standing there, behind the goal mouth, wearing your hat, scarf, and your heavy overcoat, on a wintery, drizzly day, with your camera gripped in both of your freezingly cold hands. The goalie dives, and makes a wonderful save, and...
Snap!