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1950: A modern view of Egyptology

The cartoonist pretends that wine glasses were in common use three thousand years ago. The other hieroglyphics aren’t correct either.

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1946: Emmett addresses the housing problem

Emmett applies his fuddy-duddy style to the post war housing shortage.

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1946: Emmett tackles the London Underground

This cartoon suggests to me that Baker Street station is the inspiration for this conceit by Emmett.

The line in the top left-hand corner surely represents the first underground in London (and in the rest of the world) in the 1863. The first Metropolitan line went from Baker Street to Farringdon. That stretch of track is still in use today.

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1946: National stereotypes as seen by Emmett

While the actual railway companies were really being nationalised Emmett has drawn some fantasised companies conforming to common national stereotypes.

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1955: Roadhog

As I get older I find myself more inclined to agree with the duffer who is holding up the others. It’s quite wrong, I admit.

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1950: The hunting, shooting and fishing set

This is a cartoon aimed at the super rich. Anton seems to have had a fetish about footwear. Not only does the matronly lady wear unbelievable stiletto shoes but the architect has equally unlikely small feet.

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1949: Psychoanalysis again

Psychonalysis figured quite strongly in the period immediately after World War Two. This cartoon is quite typical in misunderstanding what it was all about.

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1947: A cure for being bad at Maths

Vitamins were all the rage at the time. The schoolboy’s hopes in vain that a pill is the answer. The chemist ought to advise more effort but won’t.

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1946: Androcles didn’t have a gun

They have been trying to shoot the animal. A rifle has been dropped as soon as the elephant began to charge.

The paw story has been related in antiquity. In this story Androcles was a runaway slave who befriended a sick lion in a cave and did indeed pull a thorn from his paw. Later by chance the two met up in the Coliseum in Rome where the lion was expected to kill the slave. Instead the animal recognised his benefactor and the Emperor spared the lives of man and beast. Bernard Shaw wrote a play about this.

The comparison is not apt since the two men had been trying to shoot the elephant.

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1957: Artificial Intelligence?

Gerard Hoffnung was fast becoming a national treasure when he met his untimely death aged only 45. He was a musician, an artist and very much a humourist. An often repeated example of his humour can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZUJLO6lMhI