Today's Smile

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Alain Arseneault

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1880 on: 19 Nov 2023, 09:21 pm »
I did my best, but I just can't find the joke here.

I don't get it?

Honestly, me neither, but I was hoping maybe others could help explaining.

newzooreview

Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1881 on: 19 Nov 2023, 10:32 pm »
Well, it looks like a British cartoon. The name of the shop is "Rookyu," i.e., "rook you," and to rook someone is to swindle or cheat them.

"Wigan" is a town between Manchester and Liverpool. I'm not sure, but I think that naming the loudspeaker enclosure the "Wigan" is meant to mock the way Tannoy names loudspeakers things like "Westminster." I expect that Wigan is a lot less "posh" than Westminster.

Then the question asked starts out with basic forms of payment, cash or credit, and moves on to H.P., which is "Hire Purchase." In the US this would be something like a layaway purchase where you make a down payment and installment payments with interest.

Then the real punchline: "Let Unfurnished." The joke being that this pretentiously named enclosure is so large and expensive that instead of buying it you might just rent it out as an unfurnished dwelling.

So, the whole thing is making fun of audiophiles, and I assume that it's from 1958, so the 225 pounds would be ~US$4,400 for a loudspeaker enclosure. That's a couple of month's rent for a nice apartment in a moderately large US city nowadays.

That would be my guess.

Edit: And the customer getting fleeced has a Beatles-esque mop top haircut, so it is additionally making fun of the young, fashion conscious "hipster" of the day. The speaker chained to the floor in the front is probably a Quad ESL, which first went on sale in 1957 and might have been seen as expensive, so it had to be chained to the floor to prevent an intrepid mop top from making off with it.

oskar

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1882 on: 20 Nov 2023, 02:02 am »
Thank you Professor NewZoo for the explanation.

Alain Arseneault

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1883 on: 20 Nov 2023, 11:12 am »
Well, it looks like a British cartoon. The name of the shop is "Rookyu," i.e., "rook you," and to rook someone is to swindle or cheat them.

"Wigan" is a town between Manchester and Liverpool. I'm not sure, but I think that naming the loudspeaker enclosure the "Wigan" is meant to mock the way Tannoy names loudspeakers things like "Westminster." I expect that Wigan is a lot less "posh" than Westminster.

Then the question asked starts out with basic forms of payment, cash or credit, and moves on to H.P., which is "Hire Purchase." In the US this would be something like a layaway purchase where you make a down payment and installment payments with interest.

Then the real punchline: "Let Unfurnished." The joke being that this pretentiously named enclosure is so large and expensive that instead of buying it you might just rent it out as an unfurnished dwelling.

So, the whole thing is making fun of audiophiles, and I assume that it's from 1958, so the 225 pounds would be ~US$4,400 for a loudspeaker enclosure. That's a couple of month's rent for a nice apartment in a moderately large US city nowadays.

That would be my guess.

Edit: And the customer getting fleeced has a Beatles-esque mop top haircut, so it is additionally making fun of the young, fashion conscious "hipster" of the day. The speaker chained to the floor in the front is probably a Quad ESL, which first went on sale in 1957 and might have been seen as expensive, so it had to be chained to the floor to prevent an intrepid mop top from making off with it.

Thanks newzooreview for the extensive explanation.

Double A.

Alain Arseneault

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1884 on: 20 Nov 2023, 11:15 am »



brucek

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1885 on: 20 Nov 2023, 12:20 pm »
and moves on to H.P., which is "Hire Purchase." In the US this would be something like a layaway purchase where you make a down payment and installment payments with interest.

Then the real punchline: "Let Unfurnished." The joke being............

Wow, thanks "newzoo" for the detailed answer.

And I thought HP was Hewlett Packard.

Crazy me thinking jokes were meant to be funny.

rodge827

Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1886 on: 20 Nov 2023, 12:26 pm »



Laundrew

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1887 on: 20 Nov 2023, 01:17 pm »



oskar

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1888 on: 20 Nov 2023, 03:15 pm »





Scroof Neachy

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1889 on: 20 Nov 2023, 09:21 pm »



SteveFord

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1890 on: 20 Nov 2023, 11:34 pm »



Laundrew

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1891 on: 21 Nov 2023, 11:26 am »



Alain Arseneault

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1892 on: 22 Nov 2023, 11:54 am »



Laundrew

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1893 on: 22 Nov 2023, 12:08 pm »



Mariusz Uszynski

Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1894 on: 22 Nov 2023, 07:07 pm »


Mr.Laundrew, no word of a lie, I have witnessed that first hand, when about 10 years ago my good friend came over with his 18 month son, to see 6 month old English Bulldog pup.So, we sitting, talking, when Mea goes to her water bowl for a drink, then lil' Alex gets up, aproaches the bowl and goes straight for the drink, the puppy way, on his knees and hands.I managed to stop him at the very last moment and I remembered lil' kid, was not too happy, that I stopped him, lol.

mikeeastman

Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1895 on: 22 Nov 2023, 09:47 pm »
My wives cooking is so bad, the flies are pitching in on the screen door repair!

veloceleste

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1896 on: 23 Nov 2023, 12:29 am »
Rodney Dangerfield: “My wife told me to take out the garbage. I told her, “you cooked it, you take it out!”

Alain Arseneault

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1897 on: 23 Nov 2023, 10:41 am »



Laundrew

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1898 on: 23 Nov 2023, 12:46 pm »
"The Pale Blue Dot," A photograph of Earth taken on 14 Feb 1990 by Voyager 1 at a distance of 6 billion kilometres.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."


~Carl Sagan~

Be well...




oskar

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Re: Today's Smile
« Reply #1899 on: 23 Nov 2023, 04:13 pm »