Re: The Pages of Punch

New word for me Mr Magoo thank you for the clarification on the violin by the way

Re: The Pages of Punch

1947: No online database here

This is a solicitor who hasn’t got a decent filing system. Searching could indeed take a long time. Google is still a long way off.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1947: Post-war austerity

This cartoon is aimed at the official attempts to reduce consumption of various public services. The man depicted here is using ’less light’ but consumption has not been reduced and he now can’t read the paper.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1957: Cheering the team

What is the point here? We can be sure that the central point is the ubiquity of television by this date. Who is this fan who has rigged up a telly set powered by an underground cable? He might be a night-watchman whose job is to guard the site. Clearly, he has decided not to miss out entirely on the buzz of being present at an important football march.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1951: The romantic view of transport

Why are they all enamoured of steam as a method of propulsion? They would have known about the soot but the pollution would be diagnosed later. For older people it was a reminder of their earlier lives but for young this would not be the case. Even today there are various local steam trains, staffed by volunteers.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1951: Beware of the (postman’s) dog

Postmen delivering mail attacked by dogs are the staple of many cartoons. This one diverges from this classic situation by showing a postman with his own dog who masters the resident dog.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1951: Narrowing it down?

This customer clearly is not used to drinking alcohol. This conversation isn’t going to go anywhere.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1949: Lady Golfers

This is a town versus countryside sort of joke. A town dweller shows her complete ignorance although even she feels that this is not a normal situation.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1951: Joking about modern art

Punch habitually ridiculed ‘modern art’. The whole movement was repeatedly treated as a joke. The hanging committee surely referred to the practice at the Royal Academy. Artists are free to submit their work for display at the annual summer exhibition. The point of that exhibition is that visitors are able to purchase work that they have seen. Before an artist can get his work accepted it has to be submitted. The hanging committee of the Academy will tend to have old fashioned ideas about art. The artist here shown looks exactly how ‘modern’ artists are expected to look. What we see of his work also conforms to the widely believed stereotype.

Re: The Pages of Punch

I thought the cartoon would show the artist being hung