Roger Boyes byline goes viral on Twitter

Yesterday morning our head of content pointed out to me a Times Online story titled Vienna Boys’ Choir Caught up in Sex Abuse Scandals - written by Roger Boyes:

Not exactly a case of nominative determinism (Roger Boyes doesn't himself roger boys, as far as I know), but pretty good nonetheless.

Later in the day - and before I'd had a chance to blog - I spotted #timesbylines as a trending topic on Twitter. Tweets included '"It Was Stephen Gately's Lifestyle That Killed Him" by Gabe Asher' - thanks to @TheLakePoets for that one.

Apparently #RogerBoyes trended as well.

Oh, and Boyes' Wikipedia entry has already been updated to read:

In March 2010, an article he wrote for The Times about paedophile priests became a viral hit on Twitter because of the apparent appropriateness of his name for the subject matter; "to roger" being a British slang term for having sexual intercourse.

So The Engine Room is slower than both Twitter and Wikipedia. Sorry about that.

Cockney cash machines in East London

I was amused to read a news story today about cash machines in East London programmed to display messages in Cockney rhyming slang.

It's disappointing, though, that the cash machines give the entire rhyming phrase rather than just the first part of it: 'sausage and mash' for 'cash', for example, rather than just 'sausage'.

Photo from Flickr

Mind you, dropping the first part of the phrase would make some of the messages indecipherable to the uninitiated. But isn't that part of the point?

The company behind the initiative, Bank Machine, "hopes to follow the Cockney cash machines with Brummie, Geordie, Scouse and Scots ATMs" and "keep these dialects alive in Britain", according to the Times article.

There's a lot more to a dialect than a few hand-picked, money-related phrases...

The Times: coldest temperature on record

I was a little confused when I first saw this advert for The Times – especially by the fourth paragraph, "The coldest temperature on record is -27.1C, in Braemer, in February 1895 and January 1982."

I lived in Russia for a little while and certainly experienced temperatures lower than -27.1.

It was only when I read the fifth paragraph ("The hottest UK temperature recorded...") that I realised that the previous par was referring to the coldest UK temperature on record.

Even then, isn't the name of the Scottish village in question Braemar, not Braemer? (I may be wrong about this – possibly both spellings are acceptable, although my gazetteer only lists the former.)

I also want to know exactly where in February 1963 "enough snow fell to bury a double decker bus in an hour" – again, presumably this par is referring to somewhere in the UK, rather than somewhere in Antarctica...


(Click the image for a larger version.)

Friday roundup: Talula, Giles, Mexico and China

I'm using this week's Friday Roundup to share some of the things that you lot have been emailing in to me.

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First is a BBC News article on a story that has received a lot of media coverage here in the UK: the nine-year old New Zealand girl who wanted to change her name from 'Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii'. The article also includes some other great names that New Zealand parents have chosen for their children. 'Benson' and 'Hedges' for twins made me chuckle.

Thanks for that, Harry.

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Second is something that has been doing the rounds for a while but is worth sharing: a furious letter by journalist Giles Coren to subs on The Times criticising them for a change they had made to one of his restaurant reviews. It reads like a spoof, but isn't, and illustrates what a thankless task it is to be a sub.

Cheers, Andrew.

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Andrew also sent in the following photo for those of you who like spotting stray apostrophes:




And it's up on Andrew's Flickr account.

(Don't forget that this blog also has its own Flickr account...)

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And one more photo, this time from Clutchslip:



Apparently using translation software to translate the name of your restaurant into English is not without its hazards. (NB I'm not sure of the provenance of this snap and it too may have been doing the rounds for a while.)

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Thanks, everyone, for all your contributions. You can find the blog's email address up on the top right, under the section called 'Stay in touch'.

Roget: 'headline writers and journalists'

There was an interesting article on Peter Roget, creator of the thesaurus, in The Times' Books section yesterday. I took a little exception at the following though:

At its worst, [a thesaurus] is a crutch, for crossword enthusiasts, students desperate to imply a little learning in an essay crisis, headline writers, nervous after-dinner speakers and, yes, journalists.

Headline writers and journalists? All the headline writers I've ever met have been journalists. Perhaps Ben Macintyre, who is the author of this piece, means 'headline writers and other journalists'.

In the same way, it bugs me when people (including some of my colleagues) refer to 'production staff and journalists'. Sub editors and designers can be journalists too!

Wikipedia agrees with me on this.