Which Schmeichel?

Saturday, June 25 - back page. - City News by Rob Tanner.

Latest transfer news included the following interesting gem:

 "Meanwhile, City should find out whether they will complete the signing of goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel next week."

Lets hope it's not the retired Peter but his son, Kaspar. (or perhaps Schmeichel the dog from Coronation Street!)

Tall, Taller but not the Tallest

In a full page article (Wednesday 22 June, p10), Lee Marlow reports on the proposal to build a Wind Turbine on the Severn Trent site at Wanlip.

Apparently it will be 436 feet tall which is taller than St.George's Tower in the city c.400 feet. He goes on to compare it with other structures well known to Mercury readers...  seven times higher than the Angel of the North, nearly as big as Blackpool Tower (518 feet) and only 150 feet shy of London's BT Tower (580 feet).

He states "It will be the tallest structure in Leicestershire"

Clearly Mr Marlow either (a) doesn't get out much, (b) knows very little about the county or (c) is wondering at night what the red lights above the north eastern horizon are.

Obviously, the tallest man-made object in Leicestershire is not St George's Tower or the Cardinal Telephone Exchange on Humberstone Gate ( 2 metres taller), nor will it be this proposed wind turbine. Since it was built in 1968 the TV mast at Waltham-on-the-Wolds has been far and away the tallest at 1033 feet , 2.37 times taller than the turbine!

It can be found at:    52° 48′ 5.92″ N, 0° 48′ 2.62″ W

And now for something completely different.

As if making day to day errors on grammar and the location of places in the newspaper's catchment area wasn't enough to keep the scribes at the Mercury busy, their colleagues printing the paper decided to give us some variety on Saturday 18 June with the following articles:

Page 3: The main article was on Prince Edward's visit to Kirton in Lindsey's renovated Town Hall. However, you might be interested Brigg Farmers' Market on 25 June.

Page 34: Forget news of Sven, "Scunthorpe United Welcome Back To League One" a whole page considering the future of "The Iron"

Clearly the pages from "The Telegraph" had managed to get mixed into the Mercury's print run but is no one looking at something as basic as that?

Apply for a refund c/o the Editor! 

Baited or Bated?

In the 11th May Mailbox, Rosemary Danson of Wigston wrote about seeing Russell Watson at De Montfort Hall. She concluded with "Come back soon Russell we'll be waiting with baited breath!"

The Mercury headline for the letter repeated the "baited breath".

This was noted by Christopher Deavin of Shackerstone in a letter to Mailbox on 17 May when he wrote: Breath is not "baited" - it is "bated". I can excuse the letter writer but not your headline.

Good spot Christopher but don't hold your breath for any improvements...

Get a map!

You can tell when the people writing articles have no idea of the location of places when articles containing errors such as the following gems appear:


28 April 2011, p2 : 
Robert Hall Street, Stocking Farm  -  it's off Abbey Lane next to the old Hoskins Brewery

20 June 2011, p20:
Dominion Road, Beaumont Leys  -  moved from Glenfield 

Back Again

A short blogging break but the "Mercury" hasn't slowed up in its efforts to keep the more observant amongst us amused...