The Casablanca Effect and a Literary Paperchase by Griselda Heppel
A couple of months ago I promised you a particularly intriguing example of a false cultural memory , before being derailed by discovering that this phenomenon has been labelled the Mandela Effect. Well, it can just get relabelled, because I refuse to trivialise that great man by association with a group of dopey people with a shaky grasp of real life events. Instead, I give you the Casablanca Effect ( see here if you don’t immediately get why), followed by my contribution to this rich field of research. Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, beautifully restored. My husband and I visited Paris recently, and, after having admired the astonishing restoration of Notre Dame, retired to a cafĂ©. The great cathedral bells began to ring, prompting me to squawk, ‘The bells, THE BELLS!’, in a mock-heroic tone, a tired old joke that still appeals. (My children will tell you how much tired old jokes still appeal to me, and by the way, that wasn’t an intentional pun. A good one though.) No...