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I don't mean to be pedantic. Ok, maybe I do.
Twice today, I have read factual errors in works by authors who should frankly know better. The problem is, if they get THAT wrong, what else that I don't know about isn't right, either?
The first was a piece by Paul Theroux in Granta. I have read a lot by Theroux over the years - I used to like his travel books, and that lead to his fiction.
In this piece, he was describing being an alien in London in the 1970s. Sitting on top if the 29 bus in Lavender Hill, smoking, moving slowly through Clapham.
When I last lived in London, I was on the route of the 29 bus. It ran then (and still does) between Wood Green in north London and Victoria. It is a great bus route - not as iconic as the 24 perhaps, but pretty close. And I was surprised to learn that in the 1970s it had extended its route south of the Thames to Clapham.
So obviously there was only one thing to do.
I looked it up on Wikipedia , which details lots of route changes. But all at the north end of the route. And so whilst it is possible for Wikipedia to be wrong, I seem to trust it more than Mr Theroux.
The second episode was easier. Reading the introduction - the introduction, mind - to Stuart Maconie's "Hope and Glory", he attributes as famous quotation about the success of the French revolution - "it's too early to tell" - to Mao Zedong. This is so famous that I have heard it before, many times, ascribed rather to Zhou Enlai. And whilst he may been misquoted (and actually referring to the 1968 Paris students' uprising), he was certainly NEVER Chairman Mao.
So here I am on page 1 of a book I was expecting to enjoy, and all credibility has been blown out of the water.
Which reminds me, I really must write about Skyfall sometime soon.
Twice today, I have read factual errors in works by authors who should frankly know better. The problem is, if they get THAT wrong, what else that I don't know about isn't right, either?
The first was a piece by Paul Theroux in Granta. I have read a lot by Theroux over the years - I used to like his travel books, and that lead to his fiction.
In this piece, he was describing being an alien in London in the 1970s. Sitting on top if the 29 bus in Lavender Hill, smoking, moving slowly through Clapham.
When I last lived in London, I was on the route of the 29 bus. It ran then (and still does) between Wood Green in north London and Victoria. It is a great bus route - not as iconic as the 24 perhaps, but pretty close. And I was surprised to learn that in the 1970s it had extended its route south of the Thames to Clapham.
So obviously there was only one thing to do.
I looked it up on Wikipedia , which details lots of route changes. But all at the north end of the route. And so whilst it is possible for Wikipedia to be wrong, I seem to trust it more than Mr Theroux.
The second episode was easier. Reading the introduction - the introduction, mind - to Stuart Maconie's "Hope and Glory", he attributes as famous quotation about the success of the French revolution - "it's too early to tell" - to Mao Zedong. This is so famous that I have heard it before, many times, ascribed rather to Zhou Enlai. And whilst he may been misquoted (and actually referring to the 1968 Paris students' uprising), he was certainly NEVER Chairman Mao.
So here I am on page 1 of a book I was expecting to enjoy, and all credibility has been blown out of the water.
Which reminds me, I really must write about Skyfall sometime soon.
