It’s said that “to err is human“; and journalists are no exception to this.
Some while ago, a hapless hack at the Bristol Post, disclosed to an unbelieving city readership that bridges have a shelf life (posts passim).
Now it seems that bridges have been joined on the shelf by another perishable commodity – submarines carrying the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
Reporting today on the pro-Trident stance of Bristol MPs Kerry McCarthy and Karin Smyth, political correspondent Patrick Daly lets the cat out of the bag:
The four submarines, which carry nuclear warheads, are due to come to the end of their shelf-life by the late-2020s…
For those who need some explanation of the definition of shelf life, Wikipedia has a very useful article which starts as follows:
Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or just no longer on a supermarket shelf (unfit for sale, but not yet unfit for use).
As one of these four submarines is supposed to be at sea at all times, perhaps Mr Daly would care to explain to his readers, why the quartet is cluttering up the quartermaster’s stores instead. 😉
Alternatively, perhaps Patrick could learn the definition of the term “service life“. 🙂
Update 12/02/16: The piece has since been amended and the offending “shelf-life” replaced.