Whatever happened to old-fashioned editors (like moi) who EDIT? This bit is worse than you know if you did not see it originally on what we call “the send,” the original issue from W&G which includes the almost invariably glorious Parting Shot, an editorial (and/or readers’ letters) Gary Gibson writes. Unless I am sadly mistaken, this hunk was lifted from the book Mr. Sheehan wrote, meaning that the mistakes were passed by his publisher originally. We do not edit (other than mentally!) published works, although it is fair to put (sic) after a mistake in recognition that we saw it.

For technical reasons which baffle me, text cannot be altered on W&G after it leaves Gary’s desk and goes to the mysterious realms where it is put in a different medium to put it on line. Errors creep in magically there, from time to time. Short of comparing what we have to the original (and I don’t want to read Panderer to Power badly enough to do so), there is no easy way to ascertain to whom the errors should be attributed. From time to time, just to tease Gary, I make corrections in blue to mimic the classic blue pencil.

Regards, Linda

Awful.