David Watson has put together many of the Edward Lear compositions to form a Suite. We shall post a version of this shortly. In the meantime, in celebration, here are some Edward Lear illustrations.
Here is the Dong with a luminous nose-
Category: humour
Matilda and saucy postcards
A sequence I am working on at the moment (Matilda by Harry Champion*) to complete the two music halls films draws inspiration form the work of Donald McGill.
Just after the war, about 1300 subversive picture postcards, redolent in double-entendres, were seized by the police and a court case was held to judge whether these cards were undermining public morality. Oddly, it is exactly the same sort of humour that turns up on screen a few years’ later in the “carry on films”. They got away with it. The postcard industry was not so fortunate. The line taken by the postcard artists in court, however, was that the pictures were only offensive to those people corrupt enough to appreciate the risqué jokes. Quite a brilliant bit of legal subterfuge in itself.
The king of the seaside postcard was Donald McGill. I have spent many months copying his images and my moleskin is stuffed with them! It is only when you look at what an artist does very carefully that you appreciate the cleverness of composition and the recurring features. Donald McGill is really a very good draughtsman! What I love perhaps more than the expressions which are excellent and well-observed are the ways he breaks the frame- constantly!
His images are just the flip-side of the Dandy and the Beano. The adult-version. His men are whimpy, his women rubenesque. Here are my copies of some pictures by other postcard illustrators – the first one is clearly Edwardian so there is some history to this…
*Really interesting lyric which I have avoided:
“Matilda she went to a fancy dress ball and she played an original part.
She rubbed herself over with raspberry jam and she went as a raspberry tart.
I went up to hug her and give her a kiss. Well, the jam was all over my kite.
I know she’s a sticker, but lor’ what a licker! I shouted, “You’ve done it tonight.”
The kite in this case would be his belly as in the expression “stuff my kite”. The expression is also in the other song “Boiled beef and carrots”- ‘From morn till night, Blow out your kite on Boiled Beef and Carrots’
“Played an original part”, which I have retained, is a great line with the suggestion that Matilda was not only dressed as something unusual but that she was being a bit rude too.
In rhyming slang “a raspberry tart” is flatulence.
“discovered that I was a jay” – in 1880, this generally meant a fool and is retained in the US in the word “jaywalker”
“the dicky”- slang for shirt.
Some history work
Just been working on a project for the BBC. The title is being revised so meanwhile here is a bit of work which is not being used in the project but I think is rather fun. This is the story of the crowning of Queen Victoria as Empress of India, as imagined in the style of a comic strip…
Andrew Marr
I was horrified by the story that Andrew Marr had been abused in the Daily Mail. Quentin Letts should have known better and it should not have been down to Roy Greenslade to get him to apologise, but that is the world we are living in. We are back to the same discussion we have had before (Jonathan Ross, for instance)- when is a joke no longer funny?
There have been many times when I have drawn something I later decided was too direct or simply did not work. Trying to be topical and humorous can often get us all into trouble, but there are some lines we should never cross. Racism is of course an absolute, but I think also we have to salute those people who are brave enough to stand up in public – Marr is particularly brave, to come back to prime time TV after suffering a stroke. He shows that this is possible. But that wider thought about public life is what makes me pause to admire even those public figures with whom I disagree- I am delighted Sadiq Khan, for example is now the first Muslim Mayor of London: it sends out a tremendous message, though I disapprove of many things Khan and his supporters have said and done (as I hope is clear from previous blogs). Nigel Farage might espouse views I dislike and behave in an appalling way (he still owes me a letter incidentally) but he must be saluted as one of the three great orators in the UK today (the other two are Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson).
Here is the best Farage speech: brilliant, cruel, and probably not something I would say (I balk at the reference to Belgium, for instance) but certainly not poking fun at someone with a disability:
Jeremy Corbyn may not be a man who leads from the front, but I recall on the Andrew Marr show, what a convincing and positive performance he gave. I salute that too, while at the same time bemoaning his inability to control his own cabinet and form a decisive and genuinely loyal opposition. In the absence of real political leadership, we in the conservative party have begun to form our own loyal opposition on our own backbenches! Not good for the Conservatives, not good for Labour and certainly not good for our wider parliamentary democracy.
But praise where praise is due, and frankly, I cannot find a word to say against Andrew Marr. It is fairly shameful that the Daily Mail peddles this sort of filth.
like a virgin
I am writing this on the way back from a month’s lecturing in Moscow. During this time, I relied on my Virgin phone to keep me in contact with things in the UK. I had a russian phone too, so, managing the two handsets, I felt a bit like a rather dodgy trader. But needs must.
Just before I returned, I got a message from Virgin mobile to say that I had exceeded my credit limit. Strange, as I had renegotiated this just before I left the UK when access to my online account had failed for the umpteenth time. I was told then, in October, that I had fallen foul of some sort of systems’ overhaul that routinely upgraded the credit limits of more recent customers but, as a long-standing and loyal Virgin devotee, I had been overlooked, as had many of my vintage. A temporary correction was applied to my account. That appears to have failed in practice.
I rang up the international number on the text they sent and tried to pay off the outstanding debt. My phone, it seems, had been suspended for the last three days. Worrying. And then the real drama began.
I was speaking to a lad called Jack who was based in Manila. He was quite affable though he spent slightly too much time telling me how honest he was – when someone tells me he is honest, I generally suspect something is amiss: “The lady doth protest too much”. Rather like starting a sentence “with respect” something that prefaces complete verbal abuse. Jack was unable to process my payment because my phone was apparently flagged as fraudulent and blacklisted. That was monday.
Now once again, there is history, because this had happened before- no fault of mine, and I was told it had been corrected. I assumed, therefore, that the so-called correction on 13th October had not, in fact, been effective and I had been living in a fool’s paradise for 5 weeks. But that turned out to be untrue. Instead, an entirely new fraud error had been generated by Virgin. It was explained to me later by a man called “Much” who inhabits what is called the CEO office for escalated complaints, but no doubt it is just another call-centre. “Much” was very reluctant to give his real name so I am respecting his wishes in this account.
I cautioned Jack on Monday that I worried our call might be expensive. He insisted that, despite the fact that I was calling from Moscow, the call was free. He had me on hold at various times and the call went on in fact for an hour. There was a second and third attempt to resolve the problem: another two hours or so.
On Wednesday, I spoke to the CEO office who had finally lifted the bar on my phone and offered to pay the £250 there and then to gain access to my phone, but instead, they said the sum had increased to about £400. We may well ask how that happened, because, other than calling Virgin on a free line, I had not used the phone at all. And therein lies the rub: the line to Jack was not free after all. (the number, if you are interested is +447953967967)
When my case-handler finally got round to talking to me on Wednesday evening, he explained that the call to “Jack” in Manila was no longer accessible as a recording and so he was unable to verify whether Jack had, indeed, assured me that calls to that number were free. (In any case, “Much” could provide documents to explain that such calls are not free but charged on a standard overseas tarrif). “Much” told me that he was “only being honest”, like Jack before him. Somehow, Jack seemed more credible. As a “goodwill gesture”, and because “he did not dispute my story of what Jack was alleged to have said,” “Much” was, however, prepared to offer me £70. He also assured me, note, that he believed my story about Jack’s claim – so the offer seems a bit odd, and I feel a bit short-changed. No apology, incidentally, also for the fraud error, which he admitted was Virgin’s- an error produced he explained because of the considerable advances being made by the implementation of new software, but the second such erroneous fraud flag on my account this year! And no offer of compensation. It is a case of “Much” wants more!
I asked for a PUK code so that I could leave Virgin and take my phone number with me, but should I do this – Mr “Much” was very clear- then I would no longer receive the “goodwill gesture” he had been offering me. Astonishing and slightly threatening.
This £70 is not compensation, it is not a refund. It is, in short, a bribe by a company that is quite happy to lie through its teeth to extract as much as they can for a service that falls far short even of the term”shoddy”. I wonder if, indeed, what I have experienced is a form of “misrepresentation”? It comes fairly close to what American gangsters in Chicago would have called “protection”. I am paying for services they themselves have forced me to accept!
In the social media age, customer service should be efficient and effective. A quick survey of the internet shows very clearly that I am not alone in being frustrated by Virgin’s duplicity and aggression. One of the problems that I would identify here is that customer care and marketing or sales are divided into two completely different (and arguably conflicting) offices and neither has much care about its effect on the other. Beyond that is the infuriating habit of agents refusing to provide surnames and assuming they can use my first name too. This is not just an Oldie whinge about due respect- it is about basic honesty because, when pressed to identify the various people called Val, or Cherie or Jack, the evidence of their existence seems to flush away as quickly as the recordings that betray whatever errors they have inadvertently or deliberately made. Virgin is the harpic of mobile communication. I should add that I also spoke to a lovely switchboard person called Chantelle who was charming enough on 3 occasions to remember who I was and what the issue was. But, as a rule, what is agreed with one person is then denied by another and an appeal to the evidence of the “recording” meets with the response that it never took place or is lost. The fact, therefore, remains- shoddy customer care will eventually have an impact on sales. It is just a matter of waiting for the whole house of cards to collapse.
And who has a Virgin phone after all, these days? Come on! Virgin is simply a larger scale version of Easy Jet- it’s mobile phone service is an offshoot. The Virgin company began in the Late 70s and was properly registered in the late 80s: a 40-something year history, and it is time for some pruning.
Because I look after a number of students in the UK , and have phones on account for them to use, I have oddly now used almost every phone company in the UK. None are really honest or a pleasure to deal with, but Virgin’s deceit in this instance really takes the biscuit.
I will certainly make an effort to produce some cartoons about this at a later stage. (**22.11.15: now completed, see above for images of current board of directors) But now, I must board my flight! (I am NOT booked on a Virgin flight)
Some recent political cartoons
Syriza wins again
Corbyn at the conference
Lord Lawson takes the helm for Conservative EU Referendum campaign
Boris and the taxi-sting
Last week, I took a black cab from Baker street to Cornwall Terrace. We went round Regents park, wasting time and money while the actual place I needed was barely 3 minutes walk away. I did not know. I had left my A-Z at home and I had been hoodwinked.
So I have some sympathy for Boris Johnson’s outburst yesterday.
Boris claims that his irritation with a London cabbie was “a gentle attempt at a return service” or rather ”getting the ball back over the net.” Wimbledon metaphors at the start of the season.
If you check the footage that has leaked on to the internet, it is clear that the Mayor of London was having the last word as the cabbie drove away and quite frankly, was unlikely to have been heard. We also do not have the beginning of the exchange. The cabbie himself, so far unnamed, had leant out of the window to castigate Johnson for not standing up to the competing taxi firm UBER – He was making a hand-gesture, but it is too dark to be sure exactly what that gesture was. “You’re one of them, mate,” says the cabbie and then drives off as Johnson vents, “why don’t you fuck off and die (twice) and not in that order”. Johnson then appears to chuckle.
It is the final moments that are both disquieting and disarming in equal measure.
Quite apart from anything else, I wonder why someone was able to film the incident in the first place- or was this a set -up?
While a Boris rant is not an edifying spectacle, it is of a very different order to the angry exchange outside the gates of Number 10 by chief whip Andrew Mitchell, and far, far different to the David Mellor thing a year ago, which was just rank pomposity from a man well-past his prime! However, the inference of “Go and die” remains distasteful, whether meant as a humorous rebuke or not. The final words, “and in that order” make absolutely no sense and suggest that the mayor was fumbling to seize some superior wit, which, for once, escaped. It was after midnight and he was probably tired. This is not Oscar Wilde and not one of Johnson’s better days.
UBER taxi app, a car service accessible to the smart-phone generation, is criticized for not being properly regulated, whose drivers are often uninsured while it is competing directly with both the minicab and black cabbie trade. Boris is, therefore, coming under attack for his perceived support of UBER. Steve MacNamara of the Licenced Taxi Rankers Association said, “TfL recommended last week that UBER’s licence be revoked and it wasn’t and people are starting to ask questions why.”
UBER began 3 years ago, and according to the company, now runs 15000 cars with over 1000 new drivers starting in London every month. At the same time, there has been a 20% drop in applications for the black cabbie licence. That means that less taxis in London are today equipped with or tested in “the knowledge”, the city-wide recognition of streets and sites (which should ensure any cabbie would have known immediately where Cornwall Terrace was). At the same time, the dramatic increase in taxis threatens to add to London’s congestion problems.
The cabbies have mounted a legal challenge to UBER, claiming the use of smartphones to log journeys was dodgy, but they are more concerned, I think, that Boris has not followed the example of Madrid and Paris and banned the company from operating in London altogether. Maybe what is needed now, though, is a challenge to UBER on its own terms- maybe the London cabbie service needs to set up its own smart app, and while it’s at it, maybe it needs to lower its prices and become more competitive.
And as for the swearing? Well, not really the stuff of a Prime Minister in waiting, is it? But Nixon did it (and regularly on tape) and made it to President- But Boris will bounce back. I know him from of old and have every confidence in him.
Atena Farghadini
Here are the earlier versions of the cartoon
This is in response to news that Atena Farghadini faces 12 years in prison for drawing a cartoon that depicts members of the Iranian parliament as various animals- birds, goats, cows, monkeys- it is fairly mild and goes against the spirit of moderation put out by the new Iranian President.
Rumour has it that he is unable to control his own judiciary.
Update: 14 06
More from “spiderman”
It was so nice to see you for our light lunch today of potted crab, capers and quail egg with a selection of home-grown organic produce garnished with slices of fresh venison, shot on our estate in Scotland and followed by toasted goats’ cheese, milked, churned and set under supervision by my wife, and I thought that, before you go, I should write a few words to clarify what we have discussed. I mentioned to you the anxieties that have developed around the increasing incidence of red hair, both in my own family and more generally around our United Kingdom. There seems no doubt that this is a matter that will undoubtedly require governmental action at some time in the fairly immediate future: my own instinct is that it is acceptable in Scotland, but should really be kept there.
I also agree that while this was once something we could probably cover up, with today’s wayward youth the carpet is as clear as the curtains. God preserve us from the Tinder you described so eloquently! But what (or who) is Snapchat? or Grindr? I remain at a loss.
It is probably too late, as you pointed out, to institute compulsory blood tests to trace the ginger gene to its inevitable source, but, in the meantime, I like your suggestion that, in the meantime, we should show greater support for red-heads of all description. To this end, might I suggest that my former sister in law should represent our country abroad as Ambassador of the Scilly Isles. It would be important to ensure that she receives the proper equerries and staff – do make sure you check out their feet. (Fergie seems to have a thing about people’s feet.) And do make sure she receives proper guidance, almost on a minute by minute basis because she is inclined to go rapidly off-message.
I do not wish to press the point about our family, but it seems that Chancellor Merkel is warming to the idea of restoring the hereditary monarchy in Germany and I would be keen that Britain is fully represented in such an effort. Might I put myself forward as a possible candidate in the absence of any foreseeable employment? It would be like a homecoming of sorts for my family and a tremendous aid to your undoubted efforts to keep Britain in the EU if we could also, at the same time force our own dynastic links across the continent. You might be aware that my father also has strong ties to Greece and might be prevailed upon to solve the current economic crisis with a few well-chosen words.
Regarding your suggestion that Jeremy Clarkson should take over as our man in Argentina, I am afraid, on reflection, that I have never heard of Jeremy Clarkson, or of his erstwhile programme, “Top Geer” which you mentioned with affection – might this be one of those travelogues about journeys through the EU? Was Michael Palin not available perhaps when the series began? But I am afraid I am a loss as to what even the mighty Mr Clarkson might have had to say about Greer. It is a dull place in Liege somewhere up the river Jeker. I am certainly impressed he has managed to talk about this for 10 years. It gives fuel for thought and suggests he is a man of astounding talent to have made so much of so little. As for Argentina! Of course, I know of Argentina! I went there in the late 90’s and my younger brother regales us often with his deeds of aeronautical daring-do as does my son, and if the said Clarkson might help to quieten down any further attacks on our diminished territories in the Southern Hemisphere, so much the better. Did you enjoy the cranberries? They are from our own garden, and I knew each personally – each almost as a thought in the mind of God. They are plumper because they grew with affection.
The black spider strikes again
A while ago, I did a book cover for a Greek friend who wrote about his experiences as a student here in the UK. It was an opportunity to do some political cartoons.
Recent letters have been published that make me think that it is time for a new incarnation of “Spiderman” to start penning letters to the Prime Minister. Maybe the Guardian will have another go at exposing them to the daylight – or maybe I will cash in on it first: I think there might be a book in it. Of course there would be the serious issues to write about like the preservation of the water rat, the extermination of american (signal) crayfish, the removal of the grey squirrel, the rose ringed parakeet, and the american mink or maybe just the establishment of a concentration camp for unwanted migrant lifeforms from our former colonies-
There are reports of the Signal Crayfish advancing towards our Nuclear deterrent, Prime Minister. On the way, they eat fish eggs and destroy river banks. I myself found an infestation someway up the River Kelvin. The Crayfish is a more serious threat to Scotland than any referendum, Prime Minister. They have already taken over Dumfries and Galloway, all the Borders, Fife and are advancing towards Grampian, Tayside and Lothian. By the time of the next election, they will have completely taken over Scottish waters.
It would be foolish, Prime Minister, to overlook all these predatory species- the crayfish carries a worrying plague, the grey squirrel has the pox and the Rose-ringed parakeet makes a devil of a noise in Regents’ park, a place I know well. I gather that some animals were purposely introduced here from the Americas, like the Coypus, and were almost eradicated in a purge on foreigners probably championed by some sort of Nascent UKIP army in the late 1980’s, but you can’t keep these migrants out. I have heard of Coypu as far north as Durham now. Like the badger, the Coypu must be culled. (The badger is native- so “culled, not wiped out”, please, Prime Minister)
We have had some successful immigrations of course. Our native islands have always welcomed industrious species. The domestic cat has adapted well, as have rabbits which provide much needed fast food for our native birds of prey and I do not forget the nourishing dormouse all of which animals, I believe, came here with Julius Caesar so it would also be churlish to call them foreign after so long. They are almost British. In the same way, I salute the golden Pheasant, essential for fly fishing, and the red-legged partridge both of which have graced our table. I draw the line at the Ruddy Duck, another American import, and the American bullfrog. While I wrestle with Giant hogweed and Canadian pond weed- a necessity of the former Empire, I have also come across American Willow herb and Japanese knotweed. There is even something seriously misnamed the “Oxford” ragwort. This little squalid seed came from Sicily and should have stayed there. It seethes with threats to the rest of my garden. Just when I think it has gone, it springs up again behind me like some diabolical manifestation.
I would not want to sound prejudiced, Prime Minister, because some foreign plants, like the red-squirrel nurturing conifer and the buddleia, beloved of our butterflies, have been particularly valuable in protecting and promoting our native wildlife. There’s the glorious rhododendron, whose ancestors, like mine, are a bit Greek. Its foliage and roots encourage the activities of rodents in our garden, despite what the naysayers in the Forestry Commission who have argued so unconvincingly (in my opinion) about its effect on ecodiversity. Apparently, its thick leaves snub out the chance for competing shrubs, but that’s why we have garden shears, eh, PM?
I think it is time that we championed our own British wildlife, and our own particular personal rodents. The corgi, for instance, is a breed of Welsh dog that I am surprised to find is almost unknown outside Royal circles. This should be challenged and we should institute a corgi-breeding programme across the islands. Maybe we can place a statutory limit on canine leg-length to encourage a healthy breeding programme?
It has struck me of late that I might also write about more vacuous things like whether I should pay proper taxes, how much popularity my doing so might engender. Is it legitimate for me to marry my long-term partner? Would the public accept such a move? And so on. Or maybe I have already done all that and more. Who will ever know now? Future correspondence will be more circumspect and more tightly controlled. Prime Minister, we need a proper privacy bill.
Finally, forgive me for being blunt, Prime Minister, but I was having dinner last night with (redacted name) who asked me to see what could be done about championing the David Brown tractor for export to Chinese landfill sites? It’s such a nice little machine and well-suited to serious work. There we are, I said I’d raise the issue and I have.
animate-tim.com 