Headline: Diligent Bankers' present in Budapest

One of the news stories on our intranet has a highly ambiguous headline:

Diligent Bankers' present in Budapest

Before you read on, I invite you to guess the main thrust of the story using only the headline as guidance. If it helps (which it doesn't), the headline was accompanied by a picture of a smiling woman.


Ready? OK, here are my own wrong guesses and then the correct answer:

At first I thought the headline might be referring to a gift given to or by a group of bankers. But why are they diligent? And why do they deserve a capped-up 'B'? Perhaps there is an organisation called 'Diligent Bankers'...

My second interpretation was that the same group of bankers (or organisation) is simply present in Budapest, for some unknown reason. And of course, that would fail to explain the apostrophe.

Only upon reading the story did I learn that the headline referred to a presentation given in Budapest by employees of a banking publication – the title of which could, at a push, be shortened to Bankers'. Why were these non-bankers diligent? Because their presentation was on due diligence, of course.

Anyone guess that?!

Webcams in the workplace

Slightly off-topic, perhaps, but here goes:

Today I discovered that the company Apus and I work for has set up two webcams in our building: one in the staff restaurant, and one in the coffee shop franchise on the ground floor.

The feed can be viewed live via the company intranet, although is only by chance that I came across the link to do this: it hasn't been advertised at all. And it is intranet only, I'm afraid, so I can't give you the link.

But in effect this means I can sit at my desk, subbing copy, and spy on my workmates as they buy a latte or eat a sandwich. The truth of this has already been brought home to me: as I returned to my desk this lunchtime after buying a cup of soup in the staff restaurant, a colleague whom I had earlier told about the webcams remarked that I had been a "bit heavy on the croutons".

Trivial stuff, but slightly disturbing nonetheless. If nothing else, it lets my line manager see whether I really am 'just popping downstairs to get some more milk'. Again.

And being mature, sensible journalists, we already have a bet going to see who will be first to moon at one of the webcams...

Journalists eat pan-fried cat

A permanent feature of our workplace intranet is a 'restaurant menu' page outlining the dishes available that week in our office canteen. One of today's dishes made me laugh:

Pan fried cat
fish finished
with crushed
potatoes with
fine herb &
garlic

Quite apart from the haiku-like quality of the description, that first line break is rather unfortunate. It's a hard life being a journalist, but surely it hasn't come to this.

Oh, and I was pleased to see the return of my old friend fine herb(s).

Bean and gone

A message on our work intranet 'swap shop' reads:

Runner beans. Runner beans 50p each. Just a few available

I assume the person who posted the message is selling plants, not just beans - otherwise even a small meal would work out as quite expensive...