Sorry, My Mistake! (The World's Greatest Mistakes - Nigel Blundell)

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	The World's Greatest Mistakes - Nigel Blundell
Date:	29/07/09 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A funny and accessable light read

Disadvantages: Accuracy of accounts is debatable

Much like 'The Worlds Greatest Blunders', 'The World's Greatest Mistakes' is a collection of tales of folly and downright bad luck, and includes stories of misguided business moves (a team of experts who dismissed one of the world's richest gem fields in South Africa as containing nothing more that dried ostrich droppings), ill-fated voyages (the Titanic, Baron Von Richthoven's ill-fated last flight), Military errors (Custer's last stand, the famous charge of the light brigade, the decision of American military officials to ignore warnings that an attack on Peal Harbour was immanent) and beurocratic errors, such as the one that left the English/Scottish border town of Berwick upon tweed officially at war with Russia for over a hundred years)

There are also simple errors of judgement, such as the case of two shipwrecked sailors adrift in the Pacific on a raft, one of whom nobly swam off to certain death to allow his companion provisions enough to hopefully survive to be rescued, only for the rescue party to finally arrive the very next day. Also included are tales of conmen who have made and sold art forgeries for millions of pounds, as well as one man who managed who convince half a dozen gullible tourists that he owned the Eiffel tower and was selling it off for scrap, robbing them out of thousands of pounds. Then there are cock-ups in communication, such as the Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of a play version of HG Wells' apocalyptic sci-fi tale War of the Worlds, which left people up and down America panicking as they believed that a Martian invasion was immenent.

The book consists of fairly detailed accounts interspersed with black and white photographs and windows containing mini-accounts, erroneous press quotes and mistranslations and is an entertaining, light read, but as with its companion there are no references given so the accuracy of some of the accounts is open to debate. Worth picking up for a quid or two, especially if failblog.org style humour is your thing.

Summary: An enjoyable little collection of accounts of human folly