Sorry if this has appeared elsewhere but I see no sign of it. In earlier books it states that George Formby was around until his assassination, See Chapter 27 LIAGB header. In SR he dies in his sleep. Am I missing something or is this a mistake ?? It seems so obvious so I am sure I am missing something.

Lara

Fair point. The most probable reason is that Mr Fforde found out that an assassination did not fit in the plot of SR. It's not easy to conceive an acceptable explanatory counterpart of this in Nextian universe, but here we go:
1) A correction by the Chronoguard occurred between the publishing of LIAGB and the writing of SR. They thought it would be better if Formby died of natural causes.
2) The same but by the French Revisionists, who didn't want the English President to attain a JFK-like martyr status.
3) Some weeks/months after the death of Formby it was decided (e.g. by fans, political followers or nationalists) that his death be attributed to assassination, in order to achive a "Martyr for Freedom" status or the like; in particular this decision fell after the close of the narrative of SR. In this case LIAGB chapter 27 could look ahead to TN5.

These are the easy ones and you find them probably as unsatisfactory as I do. To get somewhat more sophisticated, let's have a look at the texts. The chapter 27 intro (LIAGB) ends the description of Formby's life and presidency with the clause "a post he held until his assassination". Just that - it doesn't state he actually died of the assassination, just that his presidency ended then. The counterpart of this text in SR (chapter 27 intro as well) is a subset of the one in LIAGB, leaving out the assassination clause in particular - but neither contradicting such a fact. As you say, SR describes a natural death, but it does feature a "would-be" assasination: The President is missing, and if Thursday and Spike wouldn't have rescued him, his corpse would obviously have been found somewhere after passing away definitively, giving rise to speculations on an unnatural death in general and an assassination in specific. And maybe SO-6 were not as discreet as they should have been and rumours spread all the same, especially as Formby did die - a few days after.

On the basis of this, one could come up with the following:
4) The rescue of the President from the near-dead stirred powers so great that even Chronoguard and the French Revisionists could not stop them. History was changed. And in LIAGB, Mr Fforde just didn't know yet.
5) In LIAGB, Mr Fforde quoted an earlier or proof version of John Williams' description of Formby's life, containing a lapsus concerning the cause of his death (mr Willliams apparently was fuzzed by the rumours). In SR, a later and improved edition is quoted in which this error is corrected. May sound good, but on the contra side Mr Fforde could have been so sportive as to refer the "2nd ed." of John Wlliams' work in SR.
6) Some time after the death of the President, the story on his short near-deathness became public, and then someone found an old incomprehensible English law (possibly dating from the time of William the Conqueror) seemingly stating "That the Ruler of the Reign Shall Be no Longer after Having been Dead, Even if Only for a Short Time" [*]. After a long legal dispute the High Court ruled that the presidency of George Formby formally ended on the moment he nearly died, the latter fact being referred to as an assassination by that time (because surely no one would believe he was accidently half dead at Dauntsey Services). As a consequence of the judgement, in retrospective he occupied his post illegally for his remaining days, and a special permanent committee was subsequently installed to see that never ever a President rule Post Mortem. Mr Fforde left out the assassination clause in SR just to mystify. And he left out the real explanation in order to have something to write TN5 (or plus) on.

Personally I like the last one best, but you make pick whichever suits you, or think of something better.

[*] These kind of things do happen in England. I read something comparable in "Eats, shoots and leaves", a book on punctuation, where it is described how someone was "hung on a comma" not so long ago, based on Normandian law.



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President Formby died performing to Lancastrian veterans, not in his sleep

Indeed he did. Thanks for the correction.
I spent a bewildered evening trying to find out how this lapsus could have originated, but nope, no easy excuses. I must have been carried away by my own fantasy.



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