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.

The present inebriated

Carl Jackson has written in to say:

I just thought your readers might appreciate this passage on grammar and usage from an SAT parody book called The BSAT: http://www.bsatworld.com/lookInside/grammarUsage

Thanks, Carl. I especially liked this par:

Compare "I drank too much" to "I have drunk too much." Drank is the simple past tense; drunk is the past participle. Don't confuse the two. (Also don't confuse with "I am drunk too much," the present inebriated.)

Workplace outing

Recently I overheard this piece of office humour:

Colleague A: "We need a workplace outing."
Colleague B: "OK - your magazine's gay!"

(For those who don't get the joke - 'outing' can mean either "an excursion" or "the disclosure of the undeclared homosexuality" (both OED). I'm not sure whether the former meaning is widely used outside British English...)

Live Italian singer

Yet another out-of-focus photo taken in a pub, although this time there's a difference - the pub was in Huntington.

Anyway: this place has a "live Italian singer" in on Monday. I suppose that's better than getting a dead one in.

Customer refreshment logistics technicians

Yes, I'm still on holiday, so here's another picture from my collection. There's no mistake to spot this time, just some amusing language use:



If you haven't worked it out yet, this is an advert for bar staff. And yes, I took the photo in a pub using my camera phone. And no, I can't remember which pub it was. One in London, I can tell you that much...