But even better than that was when I got to mark the answers. Vague answers like "that young guy, something to do with a tiger" would show up here and there, and make me smile. But the best one was the answer to our question:

One response that came back was "Susan". (??)

Another team's answer was very nearly correct but at the same time wrong in many, many ways.

The correct answer: Deep Thought.
The team's answer: Deep Throat.

I don't know what edition of the Hitch Hiker's Guide they were looking at, but I'd be interested to see a copy.

I shared this anecdote with a colleague, who promptly one-upped us with an anecdote of the Books O'Reilly marketing department. Our schools division had some fun new product for young schoolchildren, called Jumbo Dice. The assistant mistyped this on the promotional material, so that in large letters it read: JUMBO DICK.

This reminded me of another Books O'Reilly story in which the executive assistant, the cheeky and charismatic sixtysomething walking that fine line between "hip" and "hip replacement", muddled her words (as she sometimes does) in a company email. She was trying to ask people not to park in spaces when the bollards were up as it meant they were reserved. What she typed, however, went along the lines of: "Please do not park in spaces when the bollocks are up".

I suppose I should find it a little concerning that we are a publishing house and these are the kinds of typos we're getting, or that when I went out for lunch with colleagues they were convinced that the menu had misspelt the word vinaigrette ("no no, the 'a' is in the wrong place - it should be 'vinegarette'"), but I maintain that not everybody in a publishing house is an editor, and Art does remind us often that one must never ask a designer to type out copy, because it will contain abominations of the English language.

Sadly I have no real plans for the weekend, but a lot of invitations. Will I be social for a change? Stay tuned for my next update.