Atlantic Crossing and anachronisms.

[ananda]

OK, I've been watching the PBS show Atlantic Crossing,
dealing with the Norwegian royal family during WW II,
starting in 1940.

I like the show gernerally, but I found two anachronisms
that were kind of annoying.

First, when the Nodrwegians arrive at Buckingham
Palace, there's a reference to TV stations covering it.
I don't think there were TV stations in 1940.

Secondly, there's a scene where the King of England
is playing bridge with the Norwegians, and one of them
actually uses the word "alert." That word was not used
back then. In fact, they played rubber bridge using a
very simplistic bidding bystem.

Bridge didn't evolve as far as needing to alert bids until
the 1970's or so. It makes me think the writers sat in
on a modern bridge game to get the terminolgy without
realizing it didn't exist back then.

[Ms. Toad]

1. The first television station started in 1928. BBC began in 1936.

Don't know anything about bridge terminology.

[yardwork]

5. Google tells me that TV news broadcasts began in 1939.

[Ms. Toad]

7. BBC says its broadcasts started in 1936.

November 1936 - The BBC Television Service opens
The BBC was the first broadcaster in the world to provide a regular ‘high definition’ television service.

Programmes we would expect to see today such as drama, sport, outside broadcasts, and cartoons all featured, but not for long. The outbreak of war in 1939 brought programmes to a sudden halt.

https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/timelines/1930s

WRGB was earlier, starting its broadcasts in 1928.

WRGB is notable for being one of the first television stations in the world. It began broadcasting experimentally in early 1928, with the first daily programs being broadcast later that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRGB

[yardwork]

8. Google is often wrong.

In any case it sounds like there were TV news cameras at big events in Europe in the 1940s.

[Ms. Toad]

10. If it's the AI summary that appears at the top of Google -

I have yet to find a single summary that is correct.

[Brother Buzz]

6. Um, BBC suspended its television broadcasts in1939, for the duration of World War II

Fears the television signal could have acted as a navigational aid for enemy aircraft, so the transmitter was shut down.

[Ms. Toad]

9. I was responding to the assertion that there weren't television stations around in 1940

BBC was around. You are correct that it paused its television broadcasts for the duration of the war, but it continued and expanded its broadcasts via radio.

[Brother Buzz]

12. How many television sets do you suspect were around in 1939?

In the hundreds? A curiosity for the idol upper class, I suspect.

[Ms. Toad]

13. You're off by a factor of 10.

A few thousands. https://the-past.com/feature/the-bbc-at-war/

[MineralMan]

25. You're right, of course. However,

the public didn't not really become enlightened about TV until after the war. In the US, for example. consumer television receivers were quite a rare, expensive toy until about 1946-49. At that time, small screen TV receivers became pretty readily available, and major cities had TV stations broadcasting to those lucky enough to have a set. I used to collect early TV receivers. I've gotten over that expensive and worthless hobby now. Here's what my oldest TV reciever looked like:



It's a Pilot receiver. It had a 3" screen, so you had to get up close and personal with it. I did have a magnifier that fit in front of the screen which made it look twice as large. Distorted though.

6" screens soon followed, with 10" circular screens and larger following along as we went into the 1950s.

[Ms. Toad]

26. Cool! n/t

[ananda]

15. So it's still an anachronism.

As for bridge, I know I'm right.

People played rubber bridge with a simplistic
bidding style back then.

Later, once bidding changed and became more
sophisticated, all artificial bids had to be either
announced or alerted.

The UK now uses a bidding system called ACOL.

The USA developed its own systems..

World class winners like the ones at my club have
developed their own particular systems which are
pretty amazing.

The people from my club won two separate world
championships and second place in another.

[jcboon]

23. Don't forget Ely Culbertson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ely_Culbertson
My grandmother was a contemporary of the Crown Princess and she played Culbertson.

[ananda]

24. OMG. That is amazing!

Well, I have played against all our club's
world champions at one time or another.

A year or so ago, one of the recent ones told me
he was working on his own bidding system,
and he was getting another world champion
to play it at tournaments.

I asked him, "Are you going to write a book
about it?"

He said, "After it gets a couple of national
championships." His partner, who is also a pro,
said he'd play it in the tournaments."

A few months later, I asked him how he was doing
with it. He said he was having to simplify it to make
it easier to remember.

Well, obviously his team worked out their system because
they won world's a couple of months ago. I think Denmark
got second.

[ananda]

14. Thank you.

!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I likewise despise anachronisms

in TV or movies.

The one that makes me crazy is wedding rings on men decades before men started wearing them. Men's wedding rings didn't become remotely common before the mid-70s.

[NoRethugFriends]

3. Your comment about men's wedding rings is not even remotely true

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. In what way not true?

Just go back and find photos taken in earlier decades and look at men's ring finger. Go on, look. And look at men on TV, in movies, at family reunions. You will rarely find a man wearing a wedding ring before about 1970.

Plus, I'm old enough to remember and wondered why women wore rings and men didn't.

[yardwork]

4. I don't think that's true.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Just go back and look at old TV shows, movies, photos of celebrities.

You will almost never see a man with a wedding ring before about 1970. Don't just assume I'm wrong. Take a look.

[yardwork]

20. I'm basing my thought on personal memories.

TV and movies are an artificial world. My father, uncles, and neighbors all wore wedding bands in the 1960s. Maybe it varied geographically or culturally.

There used to be a lot of jokes about married men taking off their wedding bands in bars and getting caught by telltale lack of a tan on their ring fingers.

[NoRethugFriends]

22. Do a little research. Became common in early 1950s

[Silver Gaia]

16. I didn't like it, either, but only got a couple of episodes in before I decided it was not for me.

So I didn't notice any of what you're talking about. I just didn't like it in general, and I usually love historical dramas. Not sure why it hit me wrong... something about the tone maybe.

[ananda]

17. I don't dislike the show generally.

It puts some of the political machinations in place
in Scandinavia which helped Hitler stay in power
for longer than he should have.

Hitler would have lost the war a lot sooner if the
leaders across Europe had been more belligerent...

just like more aggressive and belligerent leaders
anywhere could stop the extreme rightwing from
getting as far as it does, imho.

Roosevelt was all right, but he was up for re-election,
and felt his hands were tied at first. IOW, Republicans
have always been a problem when the rightwing rears
its ugly head.

[JustAnotherGen]

21. I've tried

But I just couldn't get into it.

Also I'm sad we aren't getting anymore seasons of World on Fire. That was AMAZING.

[ananda]

27. I like it fine.

It's a really good way to see how integral Scandinavia
was to Hitler's war effort... and how the rest of the free world's
slow motion move to belligerence was a big mistake.

There was way too much war profiteering and nazi sympathy
that gummed up the politics.