The English Blog

Cartoon: China's Flaming Christmas Pudding

Great seasonal cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times. Chinese President Hu Jintao has just set light to a Christmas pudding, which he has liberally doused with brandy (the flaming Christmas pudding is a tradition in the UK). The icing on the pudding is in the shape of the continents, so it is clearly meant to represent the Earth. On top of the pudding is a sprig of holly. UK Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband (note the Union Jack paper hat) looks on in horror. Global warming? More like global incineration!

The cartoon is a metaphor for what is being seen by many commentators as China's irresponsible attitude during the climate change summit in Copenhagen. Ed Miliband himself blamed China yesterday for the poor progress made during the talks and accused it of hijacking the summit, claiming that Beijing "vetoed" moves to give legal force to the accord and blocked an agreement on global reductions in greenhouse emissions. Read more >>

Cartoon: Caught In The Process ...

This cartoon by Morten Morland from The Times is a comment on what many see as the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks.

The planet is portrayed as a drowning man. The leaders of the world's major powers (Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Lula, et al.) are trying to throw it a lifeline, but they've got tangled up in the rope—an apt metaphor for the chaotic way in which they eventually cobbled together an accord late on Friday night.

The caption is a play on words. If you are caught in the process, you are found doing something you shouldn't be doing, but it could also mean caught up in the legislative process, or even literally caught in the rope.

MORE CARTOONS
Dave Brown (The Independent)
Martin Rowson (The Guardian)

READ MORE
• After the catastrophe in Copenhagen, it's up to us (The Independent)
• So, what does this accord add up to? Key issues explained (The Independent)
• Copenhagen Climate Summit (The Guardian)
• The Copenhagen farce is glad tidings for all (Sunday Times)

Cartoon: What Did You Do In The War Against Climate Change?

Great cartoon by Chris Riddel from The Observer, which would probably have been one of my Top Cartoons of 2009 if I hadn't chosen them already.

COMMENTARY
According to the newspaper, the year is 2050. We see an old man with a beard sitting in a battered armchair on his porch. He is wearing a white vest. The landscape resembles a desert, and the wreck of a car is half-buried in the sand. The gaunt-looking girl sitting on the old man's knee asks, "Grandpa, what did you do in the war against climate change?' Her equally gaunt brother is playing with some toys which include a polar bear and an oil tanker (nice touch!) The message is clear: if we don't act now to curb global warming, this is the future which awaits us (and our children).

The cartoon is based on this First World War recruitment poster. The phrase "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" (along with its variants) has become a cliché and was the title of a 1966 Blake Edwards movie.

FOOTNOTE
Actually, someone beat Chris Riddel to it. I found this parody of the original poster on Google Images, but I couldn't discover where or when it first appeared.

Cartoon: Merry Christmas, Earth!

This cartoon by Gerald Scarfe from The Sunday Times is a scathing comment on the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change talks, which ended in acrimony early Saturday morning with a grudging agreement by the participants to "take note" of a pact shaped by five major nations. Read more >>

We see a glum-looking US President Barack Obama dressed as Superman and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sitting back-to-back on what's left of a fast-melting planet.  The word GREED is painted in green across the top of the globe, and the ironic caption at the bottom is "Merry Christmas".

VOCABULARY
Greed is the desire to have more of something, such as food or money, than is necessary or fair.

Cartoon: We Want Global Warming And We Want It Now!

This cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times links the snowy weather in Britain with the climate change talks in Copenhagen. 

We see a number of cars stuck in the snow on a country road. The drivers are using a call and response chant popular with demonstrators: "What do we want? — [Change/Freedom/Jobs, etc.] — When do we want it? — Now!" The irony is that while all the talk in Copenhagen is of global warming, much of northern Europe is blanketed in snow.

Cartoon: Travel Chaos

This cartoon by Christian Adams from The Daily Telegraph links the traffic chaos caused by snowy weather in Europe with the chaotic events at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

The main countries (China, UK, Africa, India and the US) are represented by cars. Each one has skidded to a halt in the thick snow and they have ended up pointing in different directions—an appropriate metaphor for the big countries' failure to negotiate a binding agreement on global warming. Read more >>

Cartoon: Virgin Delivers!

This cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times combines the Nativity with the threatened Christmas strike by British Airways cabin crew. We see a donkey, a cow, and a sheep standing in the stable where the baby Jesus is lying in a manger. The donkey says: "Virgin delivers!", and the cow replies: "Well, you can't rely on BA, can you?"

COMMENTARY
"Virgin delivers!" is a play on words. Of course, the mother of Jesus was the Virgin Mary. (Strictly speaking, she didn't actually deliver him—that's usually the job of the doctor or midwife. Normally, you'd say that she gave birth to Jesus. However, let's allow Peter Brookes some cartoonist's licence.) But Virgin can also be taken as meaning Virgin Airlines , BA's arch rival. If you say that someone delivers, you mean that they do a good job, or they do what they say they will do. This explains the cow's reply. There could also be a play on the word BA, which is also the noise made by a sheep. But that might be just a coincidence.

FOOTNOTE
Good news for BA passengers. The planned strike has been declared illegal in a High Court ruling and will no longer go ahead. Read more >>.

The English Blog's Top Cartoons of 2009

I've featured a lot of great cartoons on The English Blog over the past 12 months, so it was always going to be difficult to come up with a Top Ten. In the end, I've managed to whittle it down to 13.

The best editorial cartoons tend to be based on a simple idea and have a striking visual impact—the fewer words, the better. They also make you think. According to Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell: "Ambiguity is one of the essential elements of a cartoon. There's not always a clear message and there's always more giong on than meets the eye." When using cartoons in the classroom, teachers can use ambiguity as a basis for discussion.

My Cartoon of the Year by the aforementioned Steve Bell has all of these qualities. The starting point was a tragic incident during the G20 demonstrations in London. Newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, who was not part of the protests, collapsed and died from a heart attack, shortly after being assaulted from behind by a policeman (see original post). The cartoon brilliantly combines this story with the official G20 summit poster.

THE BEST OF THE REST (IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

Copenhagen Tsunami (Chris Riddel, The Observer) — see post

Crazy Golf (Morten Morland, The Times) — see post

Dubai Debt Crisis (Peter Brookes, The Times) — see post

Poppy Day (Gerald Scarfe, The Sunday Times) — see post

Happy 60th Birthday China (Peter Brookes, The Times) — see post

Ted Kennedy's Destiny (Peter Brookes, The Times) — see post

Michael Jackson in the Spotlight (Morten Morland, The Times) — see post

Cowboy Kim (Andy Davey, The Sun) — see post

Relax, I'm Not Obese (Nick Newman, The Times) — see post

Labour Isn't Working (Schrank, Independent on Sunday) — see post

Final Crisis Of Capitalism (Martin Rowson, The Guardian) — see post

America Quits The Habit (Dave Brown, The Independent) — see post

Cartoon: Hasta La Vista, Smoky

This cartoon by Andy Davey from The Sun relates to the speech given by Arnold Schwarzenneger yesterday to delegates at the Copenhagen climate change conference. In an upbeat address, Schwarzenegger urged everyone to do their bit towards change, and not to rely on governments to make a difference.

COMMENTARY
The cartoon shows Schwarzenneger as the Terminator, the movie role he is most famous for. Standing on the surface of a red hot Earth, he is a spraying water from fire hose over factories and power plants. His famous catch phrase 'Hasta la vista, baby' has been changed to 'Hasta la vista, smoky' (a reference to the smoking chimneys, one of which is helpfully labelled 'global warming'). The symbolism should be obvious!

Cartoon: Driving Tiger into the Rough

This cartoon by Andy Davey from The Sun shows the head of Tiger Woods on a golf tee. A golfer is preparing to drive Woods into the rough. (The rough is the area outside the fairway on a golf course—not a place a golfer wants to be.) The golf club bears the words "USA Inc."

COMMENTARY
Inc. is an abbreviation of Incorporated, which is used after a company's name to show that it is a legally established company in the United States. Here, USA Inc. is used as shorthand for the American business establishment. The cartoon is a visual metaphor for Woods' current predicament; in particular, the fact that a number of his sponsors are either dropping him or scaling back their involvement with him. Read more >>

Cartoon: For the Sake of the Sponsors

This cartoon by Paul Thomas from The Daily Express shows Tiger Woods and his wife engaged in a counselling session. (Relate is a relationship support organization.) Woods says: "I want us to stay together for the sake of the product sponsorships ..." A newspaper headline in the bottom right-hand corner reads: "Gillette to stop Tiger adverts".

COMMENTARY
People with marriage difficulties often decide to stay together 'for the sake of the sake of the children'. Here, the cartoonist takes a cynical view of Tiger's announcement that he wants to focus on "being a better husband, father, and person". Could it be that he just wants to protect his lucrative sponsorship deals?

FOOTNOTE
Nike and Gatorade are standing by Tiger, but Gillette has said it will 'limit' Tiger's role, and Accenture has dropped Woods altogether. So the world's richest sportsman has every reason to be worried.

Cartoon: I Was Right Says God

This cartoon by Gerald Scarfe from The Sunday Times shows former British prime minister Tony Blair standing on top of a pile of bodies. He's wagging a finger and holding a piece of paper which says: "It's war. Invade anyway". The caption at the bottom reads: "I was right says God".

COMMENTARY
The cartoon relates to an interview with Blair to be broadcast by the BBC today. In it he says it was "right to remove" Saddam Hussein from power, and that he would still have backed an invasion of Iraq even without proof of weapons of mass destruction [read more].

Critics of the war in Iraq will see Blair's comments as evidence that the invasion, which was led by the US and backed by British forces, was about regime change and not WMD, as was claimed at the time. The cartoonist suggests that Blair has a God complex, and refuses to admit that going to war against Iraq was a mistake, however many people died as a result.

ANOTHER CARTOON
Christian Adams (Daily Telegraph)

Cartoon: Just Do It

Here's another Tiger Woods cartoon. This one's by Mike Smith from the Las Vegas Sun.

COMMENTARY
The board of Nike are meeting to discuss the Tiger Woods affair (or Tiger Woods's affairs, if you prefer). The chairman comments ironically, "Unfortunately, our spokesperson, Tiger Woods, seems to have taken our slogan a little too seriously". The Nike slogan 'Just Do It', can be interpreted as an incitement to behave in an irresponsible manner, which is what Tiger appears to have done.

TRIVIA NOTE
The Nike logo is called the 'swoosh'.

BREAKING NEWS
• Tiger Woods admits infidelity, announces break from golf (Los Angeles Times)
• Woods faces new set back as top watch ads dropped (The Herald)
• Nike says it will stand by Tiger Woods as he embarks on his break (Guardian)

ALSO SEE
• Brand Tiger: Just doing it? (Marketingweb)

FOOTNOTE
Visit www.freakingnews.com for some "interesting" Photoshop takes (example) on the Tiger-Nike relationship.

Cartoon: Bankers' Bonuses Taxed

This cartoon by Kipper Williams from The Guardian relates to the news that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has decided to follow the UK in imposing one-off penalties on City bonuses over €27,000.

COMMENTARY
We see a man-in-the-street passing two newspaper hoardings. The first one, which reads "Bankers' bonuses taxed", causes the man to smile. He is obviously pleased that bankers are paying the penalty for their role in the global economic crisis. However, the second hoarding, which reads "French bankers' bonuses taxed", makes him smile even more. If there's one thing that delights the English more than anything else, it's a misfortune suffered by the French. The Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude.

Conversations in Climate Change (Part One)

Starting in Copenhagen, Journalist Jesse Hardman and illustrator Arthur Jones take a trip around the globe to explore climate change.