Popular Errors Explained by Stewart McCartney (Preface, £14.99) (From The Northern Echo)

Popular Errors Explained by Stewart McCartney (Preface, £14.99)

2:36pm Wednesday 6th July 2011 in Non-Fiction By Harry Mead, Columnist

UNASHAMEDLY borrowing Schott’s typeface but with the addition of illustrations, this handsome larger format book, whose York-born author has worked on the Brain of Britain, Mastermind and Round Britain Quiz, tills much the same ground as the Book of Ignorance – but with a perhaps unintended Northern bias.

Scarborough’s George Cayley is recognised as a father of flight, Croft parish church is credited as a possible source of Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, Robin Hood becomes a Yorkshireman, Betty’s cafes (sorry, “Betty’s Posh Cafes”) squeeze in somehow, and we learn that historic Yorkshire was divided into five parts, not three.

You want something less parochial? What about White Christmas – the song? It is not set in winter. It’s seldom sung verse begins: “The sun is shining, the grass is green...”