Avoid consuming odorous cuisine at Barclays

An Engine Room regular (and Barclays Bank employee) has e-mailed us with the following:

I was amused by a weekly work email that asks us to "be mindful of your fellow colleagues and avoid consuming odorous cuisine at your desks". What's wrong with 'avoid eating smelly food'?

I also enjoyed the last line of the email: "Please show consideration to colleagues with disabilities and use the general toilet facilities whenever they are available." I'm getting fed up with using the toilet constantly and I'm not sure it's helping my disabled colleagues much anyway!

Trademarks: hole in the wall

Seeing as we have been talking about trademarks...

Back in June, I wrote on this blog about the number of different terms there are for ATMs. One of the ones I mentioned was 'hole in the wall' - and I've just found out that 'hole in the wall' is a trademark of Barclays Bank. Or rather, 'Hole in the Wall' as Barclays would have it.

Interestingly, 'hole in the wall' is listed in the OED – but as 'informal, British', not as a trademark. I wonder when Barclays trademarked it? The bank only started consistently using the term 'hole in the wall' instead of 'ATM' last year – but then it did install the world's first 'hole in the wall', in Enfield, North London, 40 years ago.