World’s worst pun

What's this in the Dec. issue of Dermatological Review? A bound-in sheet of 180GSM stock with photos of various red skin complaints. Why? It's an eczemas card!

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Frequency asked questions

'Quarterly Transactions in Periotology' seems to be doing well. Everybody calls it Q-TIP. In fact it's getting so many accepted submissions that we're increasing its frequency to five issues a year. Doesn't that mean we'll have to rename it? Er... Oh, balls.

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Be sure always to call it please, ‘research’

Seb, here's the new company ethics policy. Can you put it up on the website? Let's see. Coo, this is pretty good. Who wrote it? I don't know, I just copied it off the Batley University Press site and changed the names.

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Bee serious

This afternoon I'll be meeting with B.D. Klein, the editor of Apiarist Review, to discuss possible strategies for reversing the fall in subscribers. New features to make it more exciting and engaging. Anyone have any ideas? "Readers' Hives"? You do know you said that out loud?

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Air a grievance

Where did the wormhole take you when you were accidentally sucked through the I.T. Portal? To the new offices on Titan. What are they like? They look cool, but the atmosphere stinks. You mean there's no banter or camaraderie? No, I mean the air smells of hydrogen sulphide.

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Silent as the reviewers board

Message from the editorial office at 'Tumour Research': we're to take Professor Hu off the ed board page. Why so? Apparently he's been dead for two years. I've still got two other reviewers with a worse response rate. I'm getting a message through from the spirit world ... it says ... revise and resubmit.

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At the printers

Where are you lot off to? The printers. Wanna come? Nah. I've got three-year forecasting figures to calculate. Okay. Twenty minutes later– Do you think we should've elaborated? Er... Naaah! THE PRINTERS ARMS PUBLIC HOUSE

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The pen is mightier …

PWI_62

Lunatics will be lunatics.

Some of them attach themselves to a religion as a cause.

Their religion is not the source of their lunacy.

If religion didn’t exist they would attach themselves to some other cause.

It is the job of the non-lunatic to investigate the psychological origins of their lunacy, to clean up after them, and (sorry about this) to keep calm and carry on.

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Published!

Read all about it…

The People With Issues book is now published, ready and waiting for your orders!

See the “Shop” page or head straight to www.skirwingle.co.uk.

PWI book cover

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Forthcoming attractions

Okay – a brief break from the cartoons to say:

Coming soon: People With Issues … the book!

Yes, you read that right: PWI can now be read offline, no batteries required. Snigger at the exploits of Jenny, Phil, Ramala et al. even where there’s no web access at all. What could possibly be a better remedy for Internet withdrawal, than sitting down with your favourite hot beverage and a selection of silly cartoons impressed with ink onto thin slices of dead tree? Of course, if you happen to laugh so hard that you spill your drink on it and have to buy another, well…

A perfect gift for the one you love just enough to spend about a fiver on, the PWI book features 64 pages of the cartoons from this site (plus a couple of little bonus ones that haven’t been uploaded here), glued together between a pair of gloriously colourful covers, garnished with text in my lovingly hand-crafted font Susino (used for the title banner here), all for the not-altogether-unreasonable price of £4.50 (+p&p).

Interested? Head over to our publisher www.skirwingle.co.uk to pre-order your copy (they’re currently at the printers and will ship as soon as we receive them)!

PWI book

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Match of the day

You join us here at a tense moment in the departmental finals of "LinkedIn Endorsement Chicken." *PING!* Paige Rankin endorsed you for "squid wrangling". *PING!* Seb White endorsed you for "playing minesweeper". *PING!* Paige Rankin endorsed you for "exotic dancing". Twitch. You flinched! We have a winner!

 

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The importance of being honest

I had an author this week, who wrote in her biography section, "Professor Lee's articles have been published in journals like Nature, Science, and PLoS One." Uh-huh. Which Zork copy-edited to "...journals SUCH AS Nature, Science, and PLoS One. Fair enough. Then on her proof she re-instates the original wording ... apparently she hasn't published in ANY of those three journals ... just in journals LIKE them. Eesh.

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Mind games

From Group IT Services. To All employees. Subject Viruses. Many of you will have received a communication from a sender "I.M. Dodgy", with the message header "Do not read this email". This email contains a virus, so please DO NOT open it. If you do open it, DO NOT launch the attachment, a ZIP file called "do_not_open_this_file.zip". I don't like the psychological turn these spam emails are taking ...

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Error … does not commute (Part II)

Um, Zork has little secret. We be cloned: there three of Zork. One work here while second commute. And the third? ... Other job at Batley University Press. You not think this wage support three?

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Error … does not commute (Part I)

Zork, how long do yuo spend commuting from Titan every day? Nine hour. Yikes – four and a half hours each way? No, no. Nine hour in, nine hour back. But you do an eight-hour work day ... that makes twenty-six hours! ... which is impossible? ...

To be continued…

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Stupid shit authors say

"I've supplied my proof corrections as a revised version of my manuscript, TO MAKE THINGS EASIER" "Can you send me my proof as a Word file, so I can edit it?" "Thank you for the printed copy of my published article. I have spotted a couple of things that need amending" "That editorial I sent you a fortnight ago wasn't the final version. Here's an updated version."

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Relocation, relocation, relocation

Your job roles are all to be outsourced to Merlock Production Services, Inc. Wah! So we ARE being made redundant! Well ... No, because our entire department has been bought up by Merlock ... So you all have the opportunity to carry on with your existing roles, just working for them instead. ... of course you would have to work from their regional office ... And where is that? Um ... Titan!

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Portal-oo!

Here – tech support have got a new system for logging calls – you just type "I.T.Portal" into your browser. Ha! *click* What are they like with their nerdy sci-fi terminology? Sounds like it'd open a stargate to another dimension! AAIEEE!

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On the occasion of the Scottish independence referendum

Carzy old man's lost the vote. Haven't you had that clue before? Ah! – "Salmond" Oh, very topical

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Value added publishing

Okay, team. We're launching a new online-only journal. What's the subject matter? Oh, it'll be INTERDISCIPLINARY. Okay, what's the issue frequency? Individual articles will just publish as and when they're ready – that's the beauty of online-only. Sounds to me like it's only the peer-review process that's making this a journal at all, and not a BLOG. ... Which brings me neatly to item two on the agenda ...

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