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Although never a major character per se, we see (or at least hear) quite a lot of the Marlinspike butcher in the later books. But here's something which has bugged me for some while...

Why do the residents of Marlinshire have such trouble getting their phone numbers right? Yes, by the look of it they use the old-fashioned 'scroll' phones, which are tricky, but surely years of this should mean (unless they're really clumsy) they should be adept at it. It's quite different from nuisance calls (which I'm no stranger to, being a university student with a fairly random number in an internal phone network).

Any theories?

Once I wrote a fan fic suggesting Snowy was behind the nuisance, as (in the early stories at least) he's not too fond of Archie. Submitted to my Creative Writing class, all my tutor could do was tick me off for having him talking- "Dogs can't talk!" Talk about pedantic.

I suddenly feel verrrrrrrrrrry old...

Two things spring to mind...

I take it by a "scroll" you are refering to the dial? As someone who had to make do with the primitive equipment which served mankind from the early days of telephony (i.e. from the time of Fred Flintsone to about fifteen years ago), I can confirm that we did indeed become adept at the use of the rotary mechanism; indeed it was possible to dial numbers very quickly and accurately, as many exchanges were three figure numbers only, which was a great saving, almost unknown in these eleven-, twelve-, and even thirteen-digit number days...

Likewise you also have to bear in mind that the systems which operated the (then analog) network were either mechanical devices (ah, the distant clack-clack-clack of the Strowger exchange, as banks of relays opened and closed while your call was "put through" (connected)...), or (*gasp!*) human beings...! Scarcely credible, but true! My guess is that Marlinspike has a manual exchange, with a less than perfect operator...

Smaller exchanges also meant that in many cases lines were shared between parties, sometimes you had to wait to get a trunk (i.e. long distance) line, and for international calls you might even have had to (gasps from all those who have only ever known international direct dialling!!) book a call in advance through the international operator; all highly exciting stuff!

In other words, the possibility of wrong numbers, crossed lines, and mis-directed calls was much much greater than it is now in these digital days! Hergé was making only a slightly exaggerated joke at the less than 100% accuracy...

Secondly, I've never had a number similar enough to a business, but I have a friend who's dad's home number was one digit away from a skip-hire company. He regularly had people calling to rent a dumpster, or to complain that their skip hadn't turned up... So it still goes on, even in the push-button era!

(It has long made me wonder that even after the demise of the rotary 'phone, people still "dial" a push-button or (more recently) touch-screen number...)

Old old old Jock123 creaks off to have his afternoon nap...
P.S. I forgot to say that I always really liked the running gag of Cutts and the Captain - much more so than the threat of another appearance by Wagg...

I remember dial phones!
Not quite sure what phones they used in Belgium, but it's just a joke I think.
We used to have a phone number similar to a travel agents; we'd get a few calls a week meant for them, until we got our number changed!
Rik

Hi Tintinologists
What is Cutts the butcher's phone number in the English version? And in the French?
I only have the Danish version (Cutts' number is 431, Marlinspike has 421), and was wondering how much the translators changed...

Hello ziwa - welcome to Tintinologist.org!

As far as I know, Cutts' number is 431 in both the English and the French versions. (Numbers for Marlinspike Hall and Marlinspike Police are 421 and 412 respectively.)

When my customers did get hold of me they were in shock! Only joking..good gags!

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I never quite understood what part of the phone number those three numbers are supposed to represent?
Actually wait - maybe back then phone numbers simply had far less digits?
So was 431 the whole number?
Can you imagine?
I'm used to typing in about 7 digits.

Yup, just like I said before! Amazing, eh?
My folks had a three-figure number, possibly up until I was born, although I can only recall us having a four-figure number. However, there were three-figure numbers on some of the village exchanges around our town into the late Seventies.
You also had local and national dialling codes: if you called the next village, you could either use a national code that would work anywhere in the country, or to save time you just stuck a single figure onto the front, and it still got through. This sort of holds true in London still, where the city has inner- and outer- codes, 0207 and 0208, which are needed for calls from elsewhere in the country, but you only need to use the 8 to prefix a call to an outer- number from inner-London, or the 7 to go from outer to inner...

Update: This site has a potted history of the telephone, exchanges and operators.

Thanks for all the info jock123! Rotary phones really do seem so archaic now. I can remember using them also but even still that was for quite a few numbers!