The blokes at the London outpost of Mountain View-based Google may have plenty of PhDs, but can't seem to master the basic art of starting a fire.
A barbecue grill on the roof patio of the buildings which hosts Google's London office caught on fire, triggering an evacuation of the building and the arrival of fire trucks and police helicopters and the closure of a block on Buckingham Palace Road.
Thankfully for Google shareholders, no nerds were burned.
First-hand reports, photos and quips were quick to flood Twitter with the hash tag #googlefire.
"[B]ecause internet geeks are great at instantly broadcasting images of flames, globally. If only they were as good at igniting grills," quipped Valleywag.
Frankly, it's the best excuse given to Google executives yet to cut back on the company's famous perks -- like rooftop patios with barbecues and mid-afternoon grill breaks.
It's one thing to be lazy and entitled, it's rather another to nearly burn down an office full of employees.
Meanwhile, Florida-based LendingTree is suing a company named Mortech alleging that the latter company is infringing on an exclusivity agreement by working with Google to develop new loan pricing technology, suggesting that Google might be getting into banking.
Maybe their engineers can light a fire under the credit market? Because that ended so well last time.
Jackson West wonders if it was because they were Googlers, or because they were Brits.
