Hollowood finally abandoned the old cover, when William Davis engineered such coups as a full-scale parody of Playboy - critics have grumbled that this isn't how a national institution should behave.

What they forget is that Punch only survived and flourished by changing its reality as well as its image. The magazine was bought from Bradbury and Agnew in 1969 by United Newspapers (only the second time it had changed hands).

A promotional booklet produced in 1974 was full of confidence for the future: "It has found new security within a large organisation and an added confidence to combat the gloom of the 1970s with cheerfulness, humour and even optimism." By the late Eighties, however, circulation had dropped to an alarmingly low level and three editors in three years failed to arrest the decline. Punch was eventually closed by United in 1992 and it looked like the end for a title which had become loved around the world.

Salvation came in the form of Harrods proprietor, Mohamed Al Fayed, who relaunched the magazine with a glittering party at Harrods in September 1996. The magazine soon positioned itself as a thorn in the side of the Establishment, with a series of irreverent exposes. These included Murdoch by his butler, the most intimate look yet at the world's leading media mogul, and The Mandelson Files, a mouldbreaking investigation into Peter Mandelson, then the most feared member of the New Labour government.

Sadly, the magazine failed to regain its place in the hearts of the British public and closed again in 2002, leaving a legacy of over 160 years of humour and wit unsurpassed in publishing history.