And now I appear to work in IT

I may not have mentioned, but I was promoted a few weeks back from 'senior layout sub editor' to 'assistant web editor'. Fear not: I still spend a goodly proportion of my day subbing, for both print and web.

Anyway, I was stopped at lunchtime today by a couple of middle-aged female market researchers, who wanted to know whether I could help them with their survey.

"Um, maybe," I said.

"First we have to check that you don't work in any of these professions," market researcher A told me, handing me a list.

I looked at the list and there at the top was 'journalist'.

"Sorry, I'm a journalist," I ventured.

"What's your exact job title?" market researcher A asked me.

"Assistant web editor," I replied.

"Oh, that'll be OK, it's only IT," market researcher B told market researcher A.

I didn't stick around to complete the survey...

Did Joe ride a Harley?

As an insular pensioner I'm denied the stream of solecisms that keep JD amused in the engine room we used to share, but now and again new (to me) words do enliven my retirement.

For example, while spending an enjoyable day labouring for a pal who's a plumber last week I learned the true meaning of 'noggin' (which I'd previously known only as archiac slang for head). Noggins, it transpires, are the horizontal strips of wood nailed between the uprights in stud walls. Unless you're a Scot, in which case they're known as 'dwangs'.

From one of Mrs Apus's TV programmes on antiques I learned that a sliding piece of wood that supports a drop-down flap is a 'loper', while a TV panel show revealed that nicotine is named after Monsieur Nicot, who introduced tobacco to France.

And, in a documentary about the invention of the printing press, I learned that 'striking a matrix' is the term that described hammering a hand-carved steel letter into softer metal to make a mould, while these steel originals were held over candle flame to make them sooty and pressed onto scrap paper to make a 'smoke proof'. It's a good thing that the advent of computer technology did away with all those obscure terms...

By the way, while hunting down a pic of Johannes Gutenberg I came across this sculpture of the great man, which seems to prove he rode a Harley.

Nominative determinism: Ed Roper

I've been reading Pierrepoint - A Family of Executioners, by Steve Fielding. This book traces the career of Albert Pierrepoint, "the most prolific and efficient hangman this country has ever known", as well as those of his father and his uncle – who were both hangmen before him.

Albert Pierrepoint carried out a number of executions in Germany in the years immediately following the Second World War, and on several occasions was assisted by a certain Edwin James Roper.

Ed Roper – what an appropriate name for a hangman! A clear example of nominative determinism...

Field Stile Road / Fieldstile Road

While one English city has banned apostrophes from its street names "to avoid confusion", it seems that not everywhere in the UK is so worried about consistency in naming:






Sorry about the awful picture quality, I took the photos in the dark with my camera phone.

The road is in Southwold, Suffolk, by the way.

Gordon Brown sorry over assault arrest. Really?

Headline four in this BBC News widget left me wondering who Prime Minister Gordon Brown might have assaulted:



It turns out that the story was about R&B star Chris Brown... but how was I supposed to know that? I imagine that most UK readers would think of 'Gordon' if they saw the name 'Brown' in a web headline.

I may have to add this to my knol on web print versus headlines to illustrate the point the web headlines are often seen out of context.

Word of the day: bustitution

I've made another serendipitous discovery on Wikipedia!

The noun 'bustitution' is a portmanteau of 'bus' and 'substitution', and can be used to refer to the temporary or permanent replacement of train services with bus services.

It has given rise to a transitive verb, 'to bustitute', and an adjective, 'bustituted'.

• Macmillan English Dictionary: Bustitution

While we're on this topic, I have to say that the phrase 'rail replacement bus' annoys me. Why not 'train replacement bus'?

Is it a bus? Is it a train? Er, yes, it's a train

Don't forget to make sure you don't miss...

The BBC's between-programme voice-over man came up with the following a couple of days ago:

Don’t forget to make sure you don’t miss Mistresses on BBC One tomorrow

Whatever happened to a simple 'don't miss' or 'remember to watch'? Or the even more laconic 'catch'?

Caffeine and the production desk

Tea and coffee are big deals on my production desk, and among the editorial staff as a whole. I suspect that this is one of those trends that runs right through journalism.

In my workplace, the coffee drinkers take it in turns to pop downstairs to Starbucks and get the coffee, while the tea drinkers take it in turns to go over to the 'breakout area' and make the tea. Some people take more turns than others, but I'm not going to name names here.

I'm one of the tea crowd - and I have to admit to drinking mostly red (rooibos) tea rather than black tea. This is simply because I can drink six, seven, eight mugs of rooibos with no ill effects whereas too many caffeinated drinks can make me over-excitable. And an over-excitable sub is no fun for anyone.

So while I do sometimes drink coffee (after a meal in a restaurant, or sometimes at home), when Fuelmyblog gave me the opportunity to review some coffee from CoffeeBeanShop.co.uk, I thought I'd better get the opinion of a coffee-loving colleague. And who better than our web editor? After all, much like a caffeine addict (and New York), the internet never sleeps.

Also, he has a cafetiere at work and I don't.

Anyway, I was sent a packet of 'Mocha Guatemala Espresso Blend' coffee beans and we duly put them to the test. My colleague described the coffee as "almost floral" with a "chocolatey aftertaste", and remarked that it didn't exactly match the description provided by CoffeeBeanShop. A little unfair, perhaps, as this talked of "floral and rustic tones" and a "mixed chocolatey and earthy body".

The long coffee we made worked better than the espresso, but we put this down to the coffee-making equipment we were using and our inability to grind the beans fine enough (or something). You can see I've got this product review lark off to a tee!

One thing that did impress my colleague was the fact that the coffee beans arrived in the post two days after they were roasted. The packet even had a 'roasted on' date printed on the side to prove it. Apparently coffee connoisseurs consider this a Very Good Thing - although in the interests of fairness I should point out that CoffeeBeanShop isn't the only retailer to ship freshly roasted beans. Our web editor recommends Has Bean Coffee as an alternative.

Right, I think it's time for a hot drink...

Falling Off A Blog: The Web Production Desk

One of my senior colleagues has written an interesting blog post on the web production desk and how production staff can make the transition from print to web.

This is a transition I've been going through myself in the past 18 months or so, and the post outlines many of the skills I'm having to learn.

Falling Off A Blog: The Web Production Desk