May 2008

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

« Johann Hari on the "pro-war left" | Main | Only the lowest »

July 24, 2007

Higher illiteracy

I know that the floods in and around Gloucestershire have caused much damage and hardship, but I get worked up mainly by this BBC round-up of the newspapers:

Extraordinary scenes of the floods command many of the front pages of Monday's newspapers.

"Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink," is the headline in the Daily Mail.

There is a journalists' version of Coleridge, and there is what the poet wrote. Can you, without looking it up, render accurately the couplet that The Daily Mail imagines it's quoting (it comes from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner")? Few can - which makes it all the more unprofessional that the newspaper's editor let the headline through without checking it.