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1974: Pavlov’s dog has been domesticated

I suppose we’ve all heard of Pavlov’s dog. We know that he conditioned his dogs to salivate when he made a sound with a metronome. He did this by giving them food each time he made the sound. Eventually the dogs would salivate even if no food was offered. The artist here is taking the conditioning a great deal further and shows the dog undertaking domestic tasks and also speaking.

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1962: The Space Race

The Russians seemed to be winning in the early stage of the pace race. Poking fun at the Americans was quite common at the time.

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That reminds me of a story, perhaps apocryphal, about NASA spending hundreds of thousand of dollars developing a pen that could work in zero gravity to take with them into space.

The Russkies took a pencil.

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1970: The Space Race 2

Here is a neat example of irony – deliberately saying something which is the direct opposite of the truth.

I have a memory of its use during World War Two – 1943 in fact. A story was told of a psychiatrist who had just died. St Peter is interviewing him and asks what he did while alive. On hearing the answer Peter says ‘You are very welcome. We need someone like you. You see, God thinks he’s Montgomery.’

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That reminds me of a very self-opinionated orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Carr, at a hospital where I once worked.

A young doctor dies and goes to Heaven. St Peter is showing him round and he marvels at a golden figure bathed in light, sitting on a throne at the end of a great hall and being worshipped by angels.

"Isn't that Mr Carr?" asked the young doctor.

St Peter replied, "No, that only God. He just thinks he's Mr Carr."

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1974: Seizing an opportunity

The drawing is blurred at the right of the picture. It should show the garage manager speaking to the car’s owner on the telephone. The Rolls Royce is certainly going to be tested!

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Probably not far fetched at all.

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1973: Joking about the ‘Troubles’?

Are we now too squeamish to make the Northern Ireland violence a basis for humour? I think we are.

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As do I. Everything's too `PC` these days.

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