Tag Archives: observer

Killer misquote

December 3, 2007 – 8:00 am

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 described Smith ‘getting to grips with a Gatling gun’; it was a Vickers gun. Link

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Fuzzy numbers etc.

November 19, 2007 – 8:00 am

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

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No clue

November 19, 2007 – 8:00 am

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

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Sorry, never happened

November 5, 2007 – 8:00 am

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, will be published next year. Apologies.

‘English Patience’ (Observer Magazine, 21 Oct) quoted a model who said she had been asked ‘to do a striptease’ at a casting for an Orangina shoot. We are happy to make clear that no such casting was held by Orangina or their agencies. Link

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But was he hammered?

October 29, 2007 – 7:00 am

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. We apologise to Professor Stone. Link

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Apology

October 22, 2007 – 8:00 am

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 have caused confusion and apologise if any contrary impression was given. Link

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