We Can Rebuild Him

Now we know poor old Ben is a bit of recurring theme on Karmarama Stories, but he creates such great ... copy. The latest is a growing realisation that, slowly but surely, Ben is rebuilding himself. Whether it's a mid-life crises, a middle-class crises, or he's watched too many episode of 10 Years Younger, were not sure. But in the last month Ben has:
Had his teeth done.
Is having his eyes lazered.
Has had his back seen to.
Has had his colon evacuated (a rumour, as yet without evidence - we're checking stool samples as we write).
Has had extensive physio.
Has had acupuncture.
Has started swimming.
Has started cycling to work.
Is wearing jeans with expensive holes in them.
So, it's either that the poor lad is coming apart at the seams like a Cabbage Patch Doll, or the US have started their Universal Soldier program and our Ben is somewhere between Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren. If you see him around town, chances are he'll either be moving very fast indeed, or will be on his way to some strange alternative therapist. Wave when you see him, he may look a bit different next time.

Welcome to Hell 4: Robots in Disguise!

It's been a while since we treated you, happy reader, to an update on our living situation here. As you'll recall we appear to have fallen into a rather large demolition site and are surrounded on all sides by men, machines and discarded Pot Noodles. The noise continues to keep us on the edge of insanity, the rumbling keeps us shaken AND stirred and the eyesore that we see everyday fills us with despair.


We've still got no idea what they're doing out there other than really, REALLY hacking us off. You'll see a group of men at the top of the photo spraying some liquid into what we assume are the steel rods of the foundations. Or have they simply chosen something as noisy and as annoying as they can find to keep them, and us, fully occupied?
The bloke in the big crane just looks down on us each day, picking hi nose, rolling it in big balls and flicking them on our roof. Nice.
So it goes on. Lots of drilling, squirting stuff, banging and smashing. Oh joy.

Bikes - Serious Stuff 3

No gallery of gallant cyclists can be complete without the bearded wonder, Rob, man of the sea, the land and the pedal. Here he is in full cycling gear, none of this lycra nonsense, it's all stolen from Albanian refugees and re-purposed. Great calves mate.

Rusty Rob

French Topiary

Two of our boys, will and Az, are heading off to find themselves in the French countryside for their hols. It's a tradition with them to adopt an interesting bit of facial topiary for wherever they journey. So behold: interesting and philosophical facial hair. Expect Anglo-French diplomatic relations to take a bit of a knock

Bikes - Serious Stuff 2

The next installment of men and their machines. Marvel at the design, the rudeness, the downright sexiness. Who ever said that a man needed four wheels to be a sex symbol.

Big Boss Dave


Philth

Bikes - Serious Stuff

A lot of agencies keep banging on about saving the planet, sending low-voltage lightbulbs to Rwanda, all that old cough-drop. But have a look how they get into work and around town. Guarantee most of them will have a little motor nicely parked in their reserved space, chugging away so the air-con keeps their can of Red Bull cool.
Now at Karmapopsical it's all a bit different. This is a biking agency. A proper biking agency.
Here's the first of a selection of our boys and their machines. Sleek, light-weight, beautifully designed. And the bikes are pretty good too. Parp parp oops!
So, behold man, machine and magnificence. More to follow.

Benjy

Digi Craig

Azzer

Rot Blog 7: Zombie Dawn

Zombies. A bit like people on Friends Reunited. They just won't go away, keep bouncing back, keep vying for attention. And keep trying to eat your brain (I went to a very rough school). Anyway, point is, just look at these Zombie specimens right here - they just won't die. We're into week 13 or 14 now and both the digestive and satsuma appear to be entering into a new state of permanence. Any putrefaction has stopped, the smell has gone and, in a Tutankhamen-esqe way, they've sort of gone all hard and gnarly. Now I'm not saying they are actually about to do a Lazarus-like resurrection, but they seem to be looking a bit healthier, a bit more perky. We've now put a couple of placements on permanent watch to make sure nothing too creepy happens. Check in next week to see if they've turned into diamonds or something.

And Then There Were Two

We don't get many pregnancies round here. Apart from Ben who keeps breeding like a rampant rabbit because he loves the idea of the Government being forced to give him child benefit that he can spend on beer, fags and airfix models. He's currently up to 3 little ones but somehow I don't think it will stop there. The sheer fertility of the ginger still astounds many. Anyway, we're not talking about Ben today, we're here to pay tribute to lovely Lou Turner, who heads up our creative services, is rather heavily pregnant and will unfortunately be leaving us soon. Now we don't think Lou's proper married but we hope her fella will do the decent thing and at least hang around until she drops the sprog. Lou has been wonderful, firm, good humoured, firm, happy, firm and great fun. She's also been quite firm with us. We'll miss you Lou. Come back soon when the breast feeding has started so we can all take some piccies.

Homeless

Now I don't want to unsettle anyone, but very soon your favourite bunch of ad entrepreneurs are going to be battling the freegans for scraps round the back of the Oxford Street M&S as we come to terms with living on the streets.
Very soon our lease here at Karma Pavilions will be up and we'll have to move on.
But, unfortunately, with a few too many people like this geezer around spending his city bonus...

... it's making life a bit tough for us to find digs. It's all gone a bit expensive loopy nonsense on the rents and we're struggling to find anywhere half decent.
So we're on the hunt, everywhere from here to there to, dare I say it, the place that your dedicated Karmarama blogger spent has his bleedin' life trying to get out of, the home of Den and Ang, yes, the East bloody End.


Now you might think it's quaint, exciting, adventurous, a bit wee and a bit woo, but I think it's pants. Full of annoying people being really quite annoying.
So, if there's anyone out there who can save me and your Karma chums from a fate worse than a dustman's gor blimey trousers, please get in contact.

THAT CCTV FOOTAGE

Our friends at Windsor Police Station have kindly supplied the above still from the CCTV film.
If you've just eaten you might want to look away.

Hunk Joins Agency

It's not often you find such a strapping hunk of manliness as Jono, so when we glimpsed him, we just had to have him. So welcome Jono, who did a short stint for us last year and now returns in full graduate glory as an Account Manager with looks, brains and, rumour has it, a nice line in shoes. Any fanmail, usual address please.

You Couldn't Make It Up

So, there we all were, the good and the not so great of Karmarama, out with our new Nintendo clients, celebrating summer down in Windsor. Drinks were consumed aplenty, chat was had, and we stayed over in a hotel for the night. All very posh. And then it happened.
You know the stuff of urban legend when sozzled people walk out of their hotel room naked and lock themselves out. Nonsense you think, no one could be that stupid.
So meet Ben, our Managing Partner, who is, it seems, that stupid.
At 4am, a little worse for wear and minus contact lenses, Ben staggered to the loo, but left his room instead, locking himself out.
Now ye olde hotels in Windsor are a bit random and it turns out Ben's room is more a little house and a good 100 metre run to the hotel reception.



So Ben finds himself in this courtyard. Thankfully he had the foresight to put a t-shirt on before retiring to bed but it was a wee bit skimpy only just covering his belly button let alone his impressive management assets.
For 5 minutes Ben heaved and shoved the door only to realise the only option was a 100 metre dash. No worry though, surely no one will be about at this hour? At that moment, a rowdy bunch of locals rounds the corner, singing and staggering, meaning Ben has to hide behind a plant pot for a full 20 minutes.
Then comes the 100 metre dash.



Ben, with out-stretched limbs, legs it down the road to the hotel reception, only to find that it too is locked. Following some bashing of the door and general screaming, the hotel porter opens up, takes one look at Ben and runs even faster than the great man himself to open up his room, thus sparing any further embarrassment.
Ben, we salute you, your skimpy t-shirt, and your 100 metre prowess.

Gilgamess

This month, we waved a tearful goodbye to two of our favourite Karmaramians with real class - complete with pink limousines, fruity asian cocktails and some quality Yacht Rockin. Goodbye Dan and Ali. We will not forget you (although we might try to forget the trouser swapping incident, some of our more outlandish dancefloor moves and the fact that someone might well have left his/my hat on after he bootycalled...).

Ping Pong Story

We share a surname and much else besides, but we're not actually related. He'd be a top uncle though.

The reason Howard Jacobson is on the blog is that he may have topped our very own 'We're shit and we know we are' as the greatest ping pong story ever told. The Mighty Waltzer's been dubbed 'one of the greatest sporting novels ever' and is also savagely funny.

It's a growing up story which includes uncle Howie's own experience as a rising star of the table and his heart-breakingly comic quest to 'lift the cup, and fuck the girl.' His words not mine, but familiar ambitions for many I dare to say. Strongly recommended holiday reading for those yet to venture out of our soggy summer.

It's a summer break for the ping pong team, but there's been some hand-eye coordination practice on the Wii baseball, so The Mighty Karmarama glory shots should be in good shape for the early fixtures.

Back From Our Hols

We're back from the annual Karmarama holiday to Southend pleasure beach feeling refreshed, frisky and slightly perma-tanned. Lots to talk about and post so bear with us whilst we shake the sand out of our flip flops and change out of our mankinis. There's new business wins, office moves, updates on living in a building site, the status of our rotting chums and, coming this Friday, an agency debate on the best sweet ever. Will post soon. Kiss me quick.