But come on. Is this "error" -- and I'm inclined to believe Shafer when he says he went with that wording just because it scanned better -- really that big a deal?

Not to me, anyway, and I speak as a citizen of (though not, please to note, a subject of) another constitutional monarchy. And I'd thought my fellow citizens were some of the touchiest in the English-speaking world. Perhaps they have some cause to be, most of them living within easy driving distance of New York and thus subject to endless... but I digress.

In truth I'd have liked the headline better had it involved the word "legless." Do Aussies use that to mean pissed-as-a-newt, or is its use restricted to Poms?