By Peter Jenkinson It is played around the world, and even beyond, but the invention ofScrabble did not spell immediate success. The board game has sold 165 million copies worldwide and is the favourite pastime of astronauts on the International Space Station. It celebrates its 70th UK anniversary this year – and today is World Scrabble Day, to mark the 125th birthday of its creator, Alfred Butts. An amateur artist and architect, New Yorker Alfred was unemployed in 1938 when he invented the second most successful board game of all time, after Monopoly. Alfred received rejection after rejection…