User Reviews

Contrary to what the other reviewer has posted, Clegg & Howard & *Pearl* do NOT swap houses.

Both Clegg & the Sibshaws (Howard & Pearl's surname) are "re-housed" from a terrace with a very narrow walled walkway at the front to two much more "cottagey" style houses, still in a terrace, but with a wide front area which provides some very useful space in future episodes.

No explanation is really given apart from that throwaway line.

Typically in real life, people would only actually be "re-housed" if they were being moved by the local council from somewhere deemed to be unfit for human habitation which the local authorities intended to demolish (usually described as a slum) to some other residence - and they would all be rented accommodation, often rented from the council. This is how many people in the UK after WW2 ended up being moved, often very much against their will, from old houses in close-knit communities to high rise blocks of flats.

Clearly this hasn't happened with Clegg & the Sibshaws, but the phrase has been used to explain the relocation, which was presumably *actually* due to the previous location becoming unavailable for filming for some reason, or maybe the production team just found the new houses & preferred the location. I think it's an excellent way to deal with the change, without having to go into a detailed backstory that probably wouldn't be all that funny or relevant in what is after all a sitcom. The move is never really referred to again, IIRC. I think it's very cleverly done.

This is the episode where Clegg moved house. In fact he swaps houses with Howard and Marina although I have no idea why this was done.

Foggy is called to use his jungle skills to fix Ivy's toaster. Well he insists he looks at the toaster. In previous years he always vied with Sid to tinker with the broken down appliances in the cafe. To everyone's shock he manages to fix the toaster but it is not long before the toaster blows up.

The main hook of the episode is that the trio find an abandoned amphibious car and get Wesley to fix it up. Wesley needs to find an engine from somewhere and he does, leaving son in law Barry wondering what has happened to the engine in his car. However when it comes to test drive the car on water it is left to Compo to try it out but he not left dry for long.

I am actually surprised it has taken so long for the trio to come across an amphibious car concept. This episode reminded me of a time some years back of some protracted correspondence between my neighbour and the editor of the local newspaper about getting to Ireland in one of these cars. The editor did not believe his story, no issues here our trio do not get far.