The plot thickens… Last month no sooner had I triumphantly announced that the Village Voice was 21 this year, then a message was left on my answer machine from Ray Walker, who had in his possession a copy of the very first VV from March 1995. Which makes us only 20 not 21.
Somewhere down the line the issue numbers have gone wrong. So what to do? Do I change the numbers back to the correct one, or not?
Then an article online caught my eye. The New York Times has been misnumbered since February 1898. The person responsible added one to issue 14,499, and got 15,000. The mistake was ‘corrected’ when the Times published the January 1, 2000, issue with a number that skipped ahead by 501 instead of just one.
So although we’re in good company, the mystery remains – when was the error made?
Pete Hawkins