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Wednesday 21 August 2013

Spot the mistake

I watched DREAMING THE IMPOSSIBLE: UNBUILT BRITAIN (a BBC TV programme about major British civil engineering projects that were never built) last night. One of the two unbuilt projects covered in the programme was the Mid-Scotland Ship Canal, which was intended to connect the Firth of Forth (on the eastern coast of Scotland) to the Firth of Clyde (on the west coast). Had it been built it would have allowed Royal Navy warships to switch from one side of Britain to the other without having to sail around the north of Scotland.

The programme was very interesting ... but I did spot one mistake. A CGI-generated warship shown sailing through the completed canal was not a Royal Navy battleship ... it was an American one!

A still image from the BBC programme. It shows a battleship steaming through Loch Lomond,. The loch would have been incorporated into the Mid-Scotland Ship Canal.
An American Indiana-class battleship. Looks rather familiar, doesn't it?
(My wife commented that I was probably the only person who watched the programme and spotted this mistake. I probably was ... but who cares? I don't ... and it did not harm my enjoyment of the programme one jot.)

8 comments:

  1. Well spotted indeed. You can now write a letter to the Radio Times complaining about the BBC's continued drop in standards of research!

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  2. You can advise your wife that you would not have been alone in spotting the ship error.

    I would have spotted that too and I know at least one other wargaming chum who would have spotted it too!

    Well done all the same.

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  3. Legatus Hedlius,

    The BBC does research? I thought that they were like most media organisations these days and used the Internet and Wikipedia as prmiary sources.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  4. Jim Duncan,

    It is nice to know that I am not alone in spotting errors like this ... although I doubt if my wife will be impressed by the fact.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  5. Next time you watch TV re the Battle of Britain look and see if you can spot the Hellcat shooting down a Zero!

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  6. Jim Duncan,

    But in the Hollywood version the US did use Hellcats to shoot down Zeros during the Battle of Britain, and thus save our bacon ... and no doubt that will be a 'fact' in the revised National Curriculum for History!

    All the best,

    Bob

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  7. I think I'd have spotted it too. I'm not sure if that's a good thing....

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  8. Tim Gow,

    If you had not spotted it, it would have been a very BAD thing!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete

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