ERRATA

My general philosophy of life is that, if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing fast. Which gets a lot done, but it is peppered with mistakes. Compound those mistakes with printers who miss proof reader's mark-ups, and the randomizing element of corrupted data transmission, and the only thing that saves me from despair is middle-aged loss of vision. If I do not wear reading glasses, the peppering of mistakes disappears in a sort of fuzzy blur. Before the blur got really bad, here are some mistakes I found.

FIRST AND WORST

The error that causes me most grief is a misrepresentation of Young's modulus containing an extra and unwanted

kdL/A

which can be found on page 92 of "On-line Evaluation of Meat" (OLEM) as well as page 559 of "Structure and Development of Meat Animals and Poultry" (SADMAP) was a classic error caused by dashing at high speed without checking. The extra kay diddley A crept in from a line that was not properly deleted, and it crept into two books! It was not until failing memory caused me to read one of my own books that I spotted it, although I am sure it must jump off the page and attack anyone who knows their rheology.

MOST RECENT

2001. In the summary of "Relationships between electrical impedance and fluid losses from turkey breast meat" published in Archives of Animal Breeding I missed spotting a superfluous k. It should be 120 Hz not 120 kHz.
The TIBULA, which appears in SADMAP p. 79 is either an uncaught typographical error or the result of pathological fusion of the tibia and fibula in a really ugly sheep made to wear rubber boots that were too small.
The HAZZARD to human health in SADMAP p. 56 should not cause alarm. Either I missed a typo or I was really trying to emphasise the point by going ZZZ quite strongly in the word hazard. The only real hazard to human health I know is not getting enough meat to eat.
Type VI collagen is a tetramer of Type V collagen in SADMAP p. 88, not a tetramer of itself. Although I don't see why not. Four pints of beer is a tetramer of one pint of beer and neither could be called a real pissup.
Collagen fibrills in SADMAP p. 84. A fibrill is similar to a fibril but has extra frilly bits. True or false?
Single bond between oxygen and carbon in SADMAP p. 114. Honest, this was not one of my mistakes (the printer reset it and didn't let me see it). However, when I was a student, I did MUCH WORSE things than this in biochemistry. Which is why I try to forgive the dumbest kids I teach, because I know where they are coming from (usually the nearest bar to the exam room).
Ten to the minus 8 not to the minus 6 in Figure 1 of Reprint 98. This was caused by my mind wandering while my hands were rubbing on the Letraset in the days before computer graphics. I did the same thing on my lab book in my first scientific job. I spelt my name SWATLALAND. At my goodbye party in the pub on the day I left, they brought it in to show me. What a surprise. Although it did look quite aristocratic, like Swat La Land. Then years later, I did the same to my e-mail address in Reprint 184. Still, it stops me talking to myself on e-mail.
In the first edition of SADMAP, the graphics for Figure 2-33 and 2-34 are interchanged. It nearly happened in the second edition as well.
As soon as I opened the book when I got the first copy, there it was - a silly mistake, and all my fault. Near the bottom of page 30, it should have said the HBO lamp is not a hot ozone producer. The XBO lamp certainly is!

So this is the latest book - an international glossary of mistakes and omissions. I came home from the Albion Hotel on Thursday night the first day I saw the final copy and, of course, found the first typo:-

p. 41, Figure 41, The red crab is Cancer productus - although the typo "productucs" has a certain sonority to it. If I ever discover a new species of red crab I will call it C. productucs just to be confusing. If you think I'm joking, you should look at all the real sound-alikes in the crayfish family.

Feel free to e-mail other screw-ups for this list. The origin of the universe was probably the consequence of a divine mistake, so the mistakes in my work should be viewed in their proper light, as small echoes of the primaeval big bang.