An exchange we mistakenly attributed to the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is actually between Alice and the Queen in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. It always bears repeating:
“One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (“The EU is not the enemy of the state. Time to think again”, Business, last week, page 42.)
A caption to the picture of architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano at the Pompidou Centre in 1974 omitted to mention the man with them, acclaimed engineer Peter Rice. All three were pictured astride one of the distinctive cast-steel gerberettes developed by Rice for the project. (“Architecture is also about social responsibility”, New Review last week, pages 12-13.) And a reader with an eye for homophones spotted: “… boarding house with a coin metre for the heating and a bath in a cupboard…”
Another homophone: “The authorities were quick to back-peddle…” (“Can the ban on Bangkok street food hold?”, Magazine last week, page 36.
Write to Stephen Pritchard, Readers’ Editor, the Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, email observer.readers@observer.co.uk tel 020 3353 4656
