And now for some light relief, inspired by a funeral.

Bear with me on this. Today is of course a sad day for fans of The Archers, the long-running story about everyday country folk that airs on Radio 4. It's the end of an era as Phil Archer is finally laid to rest, four months after the actor who had played the part for almost 60 years died.

A plot contrivance involving as many excuses as possible for a fraught run-up to the funeral involves three words guaranteed to induce a stabbing pain in the temple: "a printing error". Air head daughter Elizabeth didn't check the order of service until the last minute, and it turns out some silly printer has miss-spelled "shepherd".

And there's no time for a reprint! Well of course there could have been if Elizabeth had contacted PrintWeek, no doubt we would have found someone able to turn the job around for her among our army of readers who pull rabbits from hats every day of the week. But it's all too late now.

I was alerted to this piece of print-based plotting by an industry contact who's obviously a more avid Archers listener than I - many thanks Simon. He also reminded me that back in the mists of time, when PrintWeek was LithoWeek, there was a similar Archers incident involving a misprint on a postcard designed to raise money for a new church tower (or something along those lines).

Evidently, such errors can be a useful plot device. So... as a trivial escape from far too much miserable news and miserable weather, can anyone name any other incidents in film, literature and drama where a printing error has contributed to the narrative?