Bureau of Visual Records

    Number 6 goes into the General Stores in the episode of ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ and the first thing he does is take a copy of the newspaper The Tally Ho from the rack. As you can see it’s folded into a rectangle.

   Then Number 6 asks the shopkeeper for all six recordings of the Davier recording of Bizet's l'arlesienne. He not only listens to the first few bars of three of the records but he also times them. Then he writes something down on a piece of paper. But that’s enough to make the shopkeeper-Number 112 curious about Number 6’s suspicious action, {and to make Number 2 listen to all six records}. He then hands back the six records to the shopkeeper and takes his leave of the General Stores, leaving behind his copy of The Tally Ho. The shopkeeper looks at the broadsheet and opens it. The word SECURITY has been circled, and a question mark put over it. But more than that, this is not Number 6’s copy of The Tally Ho! 

   Because you will observe the crease of the broadsheet runs down the paper, not across, suggesting the paper has been folded into a square and not into a rectangle. But then as the shopkeeper goes to make a telephone call to Number 2, we see that he has a rectangular folded paper in is hand, not a square. But when the shopkeeper leaves his shop to go to the Green Dome, the paper has turned into a square again.
   Then later, having spent the best part of the morning with Number 2 listening to six long playing records, the shopkeeper hands Number 2, Number 6’s copy of The Tally Ho.

  It’s folded into a square, not a rectangle. So that is not Number 6's copy of the newspaper, seeing as it’s folded the wrong way! So do we have a conspiracy on the part of the shopkeeper? Trying to worm his way into the good books of Number 2, by circling the word SECURITY, and writing the question mark above it on The Tally Ho, himself. Becasue if you watch the scene carefully we do not actually see Number 6 write anything on The Tally Ho. Whatever he does write, he writes in the small notebook he had just purchased!
   I always thought that shopkeeper was something of a weasel!

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