Steptoe+Son errors

[spikespark]

couldn't find it when i site-searched so hows about this for Pedants corner no. 3:

another mistake is the "filth"-completed Scrabble board in the classic "Men Of Letters" episode.

the game of Scrabble has been made available in 36 languages.
namely: English, Afrikaans, Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malaysian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Welsh.
of course, some of these languages use a completely different alphabet.

its possible that Harold totted a foreign issue box from an expatriate householder on the rounds, but even then, assuming a standard Scrabble set from any of these countries was used - and no cheating by Harold or Albert hiding extra letters up their sleeves - the board as we see it (in 1972), is impossible.

the Portuguese and Romanian editions of the game have the most letter "P"s (4) (English only 2) and yet, there are 5 shown on the board.
to wit;
Pet, raPe, niPPle, and Pox.

further, the letter "S" is seen deployed on 5 occasions in 4 words: briStolS, Spunk, So and vibratorS - despite the fact that said letter is represented by only 4 tiles in the English Language edition of Scrabble - although the Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Latvian, Latin, Italian, Irish, Icelandic, French, Finnish, German, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish versions all number 5 or more letter "S tiles.

I was obsessing a little about the Scrabble game earlier, myself -- yes, I think about Steptoe and Son too much! I was trying to work out which words were Harold's-- obviously all the rude ones would be Albert's. So, I will assume that nipple, spunk, vibrators, pox, cock, rape, bristols, and tit are Albert's. We know that bum, sod and knickers are his as well.

This leaves Harold with one, par, so, pet, enter (assuming it was used in a non-rude way) and privit (assuming it wasn't a misspelling of privates), as well as bumps. I will assume Harold has so many fewer words than Albert because he just passed on several of his rounds.

As to the proliferation of odd letters, it is always possible that their Scrabble game is cobbled together from bits of various Scrabble games-- that would certainly add to the challenge.

I also love how Albert 'helpfully' tries to set Harold up by suggesting he make 'bum' into 'bums' -- he wants him to place that 's' to lay the ground for him to make his next word, 'sod'. Harold refuses to cooperate, but by playing 'bumps' he still inadvertently paves the way for Albert to get what he wants. Albert's glee when he responds, 'Well, i'n't that lovely, 'bumps'! That 's' has let me in nice!' brings a grin to my face, even before he follows it up with the '...s...o...d-- SOD!'

[gerardas]

Hi all,

One thing i've always wondered and hope someone can clarify.

In upstairs, downstairs and a few others we see that Alberts room is first on the left after you go up the stairs yet in divided we stand Albert takes the right hand side stairway. If the partition extended upstairs surely he would take the left hand side to get to his room (with the partition ending there) and the right would lead past Alberts room to Harolds!?

Have i missed something? Any one any thoughts?

[Ivor Biggun]

I've always thought that people who scrutinize films and TV shows for continuity errors have way too much free time on their hands.

[gerardas]

Another few i've wondered about were in men of letters Harold says he 'was always top of his class in composition' yet in Cuckoo in the nest he said he couldn't read or write and only learned to do so in the army.

Finally in the desperate hours Albert says to Harold that he wouldn't even have helped him off the barbed wire. Yet when the line was originally said by Jonny Albert is out in the kitchen.

[The Pixel Surgeon]

I've always thought that people who scrutinize films and TV shows for continuity errors have way too much free time on their hands.

Indeed, my sentiments, exactly...

Just enjoy it, for what it is...