It was refreshing, then, to see two organisations taking it on the chin regarding some bloopers that recently hit the headlines.

TFL admitted it had pulped getting on for 500,000 tube maps after an artworking error resulted in duff zonal info being given for Morden station. The mistake was spotted by eagle-eyed blogger Diamond Geezer, and the inaccurate maps were quickly pulled from circulation, but it took a freedom of information request from The Mirror for the full facts to emerge. 

On a somewhat smaller scale, there were red faces all round at Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council in Northern Ireland, after a ‘human error’ in the promo materials for a special outdoor theatre performance of Great Expectations by literary great Charles Dickens, who was misrepresented as Charles Dicken’s on the original artwork. 

A reprint ensued. The perils of the possessive can of course be avoided by using the much more straightforward ‘by Charles Dickens’, as pictured. 

Perhaps in an age when proofreaders are but a distant memory, spellcheck only helps up to a point, and autocorrect has the potential to wreak utter havoc, the requirement for reprints could even become a lucrative income stream.