“My trip to Canada is all fond kisses” (Comment, Scottish edition, last week) described the Fraser River as being in Halifax but it actually flows through British Columbia and reaches the Pacific near Vancouver. Halifax is on the Atlantic coast. Link Report an error
Homophone call: (Cash, last week) “… a pair of trousers marked as having a 34-inch waste”. Drainpipe trousers, perhaps. Link Report an error
Apologies to Ireland, part three: For the third time in a month, we have included the Republic of Ireland in Britain, this time in Review. “The places where the story of Britain is told” (last week) included Dublin and Cork and the Irish writers Roddy Doyle and Colm TóibÃn in a survey of British literature. [...]
Take cover: “Heavenly Heston” (Observer Food Monthly, last week), said: “Heston Blumenthal is known as the mad kitchen scientist who cooks with nitroglycerin and puts snails in his porridge” and went on to speculate that his Christmas might include “a turkey jelly, perhaps frosted with nitroglycerin”. Glycerine and liquid nitrogen feature in Mr Blumenthal’s spectacular [...]
An editing change to Philip Hensher’s copy last week (‘My Other Life’, Books) resulted in: ‘I can see myself now in an alternative life as the fat lady who comes into the rehearsal room…’ whereas he wrote: ‘I can see myself now in an alternative life, as the fat lady comes into the rehearsal room [...]
My weekly Columbia Journalism Review online column is live on the site. The topic: obiticide. Death by media. An excerpt: Death by Obiticide I have some bad news to pass along this week: two people were killed as a result of sloppy journalism. It happens more often than you might expect. It’s frequent enough, in [...]
Ted Sorensen, the author of Counselor, was unfortunately described as ‘the late’ in our Books pages last week; we are happy to report that John F Kennedy’s adviser and speechwriter is still very much with us. And Julia Blackburn, not Blackwell, wrote The Three of Us, published by Cape (Books, last week). Apologies. Link Report [...]
Fruitcake corner: ‘Use a shallow tin … and stir the cake mix overnight’ (OM, last week). We meant ‘store’. Link Report an error
A photograph of boarded-up shops in the Stratton area of Swindon, Wilts, (‘Credit crunch’, Business, 6 July) was actually taken eight years ago and gave a misleading impression of the district. The empty shops have since been torn down and the area redeveloped. Apologies. Link Report an error
The suggestion that Jenni Murray’s mother (Books, last week) employed a ‘posset’ when doing her laundry creates an interesting picture. A posset is a cold remedy made with milk, ale and spices. We meant ‘posser’, a short stick. Link Report an error
Last week, we ran an article – ‘It’s the next billion online who will change the way we think’ – under the byline of Jimmy Wales, explaining at the end that it was an edited version of a conversation with the Wikipedia founder. Mr Wales agreed to the piece on the condition that he have [...]
In ‘Grant “snubbed” by players’ (Sport, 2 March), we said Avram Grant was snubbed when Chelsea players failed to turn up to a team meeting on time, in the wake of their Carling Cup Final defeat. We now accept that while the team meeting was delayed by a few minutes due to an earlier players’ [...]
‘Love, Italian style, prevails over racism’ (World, last week) said Sali Saleem was ‘cleared of murder by the highest court in Italy’ after being accused of the honour killing of his daughter, Hina. In fact, he and two others were each jailed for 30 years for her murder last year. We apologise for the error. [...]
Miscellany: ‘Whatever happened to the BMW booty?’ (News, last week) described those who salvaged cargo from the grounded MSC Napoli as ‘wreckers’. Wreckers lured vessels ashore before murdering their crews and plundering the cargo; clearly not the case here. ‘Although the government remains reticent to discuss …’ Reluctant, not reticent; ‘The truth is out: X-files [...]
An article last week by Peter Godwin was headlined ‘I once thought of killing Ian Smith. Now I think he was misunderstood’. We wrongly used quotation marks suggesting these were the author’s words. They were not. Godwin believes Smith’s policies were a major contributing factor to Zimbabwe’s present crisis. A caption to the same piece [...]
The Observer Book of Space misdated the extinction of the dinosaurs by approximately 186 million years. Although a catastrophic extinction occurred 251 million years ago, dinosaurs did not appear for another 20 million years and became extinct a mere 65 million years ago. Link Report an error
Speedy Crossword 634 last week had ‘centipede’ as the answer to the clue ‘many legged insect’. While undoubtedly many-legged, a centipede is strictly speaking a myriapod and not an insect – so we don’t have a leg to stand on. Link Report an error
The Browser (Books, 21 Oct) was wrong to state that ‘until very recently, HarperCollins had been refusing to publish [Doris] Lessing’s latest book’. HarperCollins say there was never any dispute over a contract for two books from the Nobel prizewinner. The first of these, The Cleft, was published in January. A second, currently nearing completion, [...]
In ‘The mayhem behind the microphone’ (Review, last week), we said historian Norman Stone was ‘too hammered’ to appear on an edition of Radio 4′s Today programme. While this was reported in good faith, we now accept that it was untrue: the BBC was unable to get him to a studio in time to broadcast. [...]
In ‘Turncoat Terry’ (Sport, 23 Sept), we did not intend to adopt any allegation that John Terry was a ‘turncoat’ or ‘disloyal’ or that he had played any intentional part in the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea Football Club. We accept his assurance that he did not. We also accept that our headline might [...]
