VETERAN broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby made an astonishing live blunder when he announced that Ayr is on the Firth of Forth.
The 68-year-old presenter was trailing his Radio 4 programme Any Questions on the Today programme when he moved the town almost 90 miles north-east.
To make matters worse, nobody on the flagship current affairs programme appeared to notice the blunder.
But Twitter users were quick to take Dimbleby to task for his schoolboy error – forgetting that Ayr is actually on the Firth of Clyde.
Dimbleby, whose brother David presents BBC television’s Question Time, told listeners shortly after 7.30am yesterday: “Tonight’s edition of Any Questions comes from Ayr, the county town of the Firth of Forth.”
Iain Gilmour wrote on Twitter: “Did I really just hear Dimbleby say Ayr was on the Firth of Forth on Radio 4?!!”
Adam Cobb wrote: “Scotland has changed since I’ve been away…”
“@BBCr4today …Ayr ain’t on the Firth of Forth,” tweeted Paul McWilliams.
And Alison Atkinson asked: “@r4Today since when was Ayr on the Firth of Forth?”
Today is usually quick off the mark to correct any factual blunders but the mistake had still not been noticed almost half an hour later.
In November last year Dimbleby defended the BBC while the corporation was being investigated over the Savile sex scandal.
He said in a newspaper interview: “Paedophilia is a huge national problem that no-one thought about 50 years ago and is now something that concerns everyone, but this has become a witch-hunt against the BBC.
“But there is a disturbing relish in the way the critics have laid into the BBC, holding today’s office-holders to account for what happened 30 years ago.”
