Emails like this make Fridays, Fridays.

That's right it is that day again and and we shall name it- Meat Friday XII 'The second serving'. Literally as I type, a herd of pigs have been crammed into the back of our convertible mini drenched in barbecue sauce and bound for Hungyrarama.

It's All Gone a Bit Karma Kristmas

Liam, a man with endless energy and an abundance of festive decorations has been treating us to a little bit of seaonal spirit every day.

First we had a nice little green thingy on the entrance



Then reception got a makeover



Then the Wii



Then the stairway



And now Barmarama has been transformed into a warm and cosy fireside



And apparently we're only half way there.

Check later in the week for stables, stars and a few wise men.

Get the mince pies on Mum, Kristmas is now here for sure

Robin sets a new world record

I have come under a bit of pressure this week after my last two posts failed to capture the atmosphere and enthusiasm that has surrounded the agency due to the arrival of both our skateboard and our new snowboarding game. Given such great content and killing it in such a way with just a lazy one sentence is not acceptable. Rather than just erase it and forget it ever happened I am instead apologizing. I'm sorry (Sid) and I'm sorry to our seven readers for boring, boring posts.

So, in return for said boring posts this week I offer you Karmobama's finest ever blog post yet.

Last Sunday whilst sitting down to a traditional English Sunday roast dinner, Robin, our gentleman creative and traditional worldwide explorer decided it was time to go once again where no man had gone before. Having eyed up the current Guinness world record of Ferrero Rochers unwrapped and eaten in 1 minute for many years (it being 5 for your reference) Robin felt it was time to rewrite some records.



And time it certainly was. On that very Sunday evening Robin smashed the record. As I type we are currently sending off the footage to Guinness in return for a little certificate and hopefully some Guinness. Unfortunately it seems he is not the only one who has managed this, but watch this space as it seems the Christmas Party would be an ideal venue to rewrite the record books once again!

Our new deck

Ben bought us a company skateboard to make the trips to the printer more extreme.

Shaun White snowboarding arrives!

The Wii fully comes to life again in the office as Shaun White snowboarding arrives and we hit the mountains! Robin (pictured) is leading the way in the points at the moment...

Olympia smells of sex

Erotica 2008 has arrived in little old innocent Olympia and we don't know where to look. From Mirabell to Best Mengall 2 the stench of rubber and fluff fills the air. Ben and Sid have donned the safety overalls and are heading down to see what all the fuss is about.

New Faces

Gosh it's been a while on the new faces front, hasn't it?
The revolving doors of Karmapia have been ... revolving and fresh faces have come and gone, come and gone and come again.
So, in a completely irregular feature, please say hello to the following fantabulous people:

Calli Sharpe.



Cripes, Calli has been here yonks but we just never got around to saying a proper hello. Calli was previously a fitness instructor and an Algerian assassin before moving into the wacky world of advertising. Calli is top notch and knows her mind and has a dream to free all the young children from bondage and ensure the fish of the sea have enough to eat. Calli is an Account Director and, as Cheryl Cole would say 'We loooooove you'.

Angie Adams.



Angie was only born in March but since then has been outstanding in her general growth and maturity to adulthood. If you youtube Angie's name you can watch an amazing video of her swallowing her own foot. And then the foot of an unsuspecting male bystander. In her spare time Angie is a professional golfer and a deep sea diver. She is an Account Manager and as plastic-fantatic Danni would say 'We loooooooove you sooooo much.'

Liam 'The Tyrant' Stratton.



Liam has killed brick walls just by staring at them and in a former life was a gunslinger in India. We don't quite know how he found us, but Liam just sort of comes in every day, scares us and makes our rather bonkers building work. We haven't actually paid him yet, but he doesn't seem to mind as he lives in the cellar with the ping pong teams' smelly pants. Liam is our Operations Manager and as Louie Walsh would say 'Liam you remind us so much of West Life, but you're better! We love you'.

Hilary Cootes.



Finally, but in no way finally, It's Hilary! Hilary is great although she speaks in a way that none of us actually understand. Hilary's claim to fame is that she is the hair double for the entire cast of Desperate Housewives, both male and female. Hilary is also double jointed and can stand on her head. Literally, stand with her feet on her head, it's incredible. Hilary is an Account Director and as Simon scowlling Cowell would say 'You know Hilary, you've really impressed us, and we think we love you too'.

Oh welcome welcome welcome.

But we're still hiring, and really want a couple of trapeze artists, preferably with some digital planning skills. Let us know if you fit the bill.

The Day Liam Went Stir Fried Bonkers

Well it's been building up for some time.

Poor old Liam has been fighting a losing battle trying to keep the Karma Kitchen spic and span, but without success.
Despite threats of violence, our hard working krew just didn't want to get their mitts mucky washing and tidying up after themselves.

Liam started with some good natured posters 'encouraging' people to do the right thing.



Then, the posters got a bit more aggressive and the threat of 'something drastic' was floated.



But still, no knives were washed, no forks were cleaned, no bowls emptied and no surfaces wiped.

And then, Liam just ... broke!

We came in on Tuesday morning to discover...the cupboards were bare. Quite literally.




Liam had removed every single cup, plate, bowl and piece of cutlery as well as tossing out all the food.

The challenge was to live without for one day, and all would be returned on Wednesday, but if we were naughty again they'd be taken away again, this time for two days, then the next time for three days etc.

So obviously we rallied around, tried not to upset Liam and kept the place clean.

Obviously being an enterprising bunch, we soon found a way around these draconian measures, as Dave and Tom's tea jars show, which were later available for hire at 10p a cuppa.

Breaking News: The Karmacrew Support Rossy

At KarmaKarmaNarna we fight for injustice wherever we find it.
And we think it's unjust what the public, the trash press, and those terrifying old ladies who read the Daily Mail are doing to our beloved Jonathan Ross.
He's a mate of the agency right. We love him. And he lives just round the corner from one of Nicola's 17 mansions.
So just leave it out right!
And never ones to take things lying down, we ram-raided BBC Centre with placards, badges and vitriol campaigning for our boy Ross.
Or as our soon-to-be world-famous slogan put it:
SOLIDAWITY FOR WOSSY.
If you care and want to get involved, pop by and grab some placards and badges and join the movement.
This one's going all the way to the Court of Human Rights. Or at the very least to the Hammersmith High Road and back again.

Val D'Olympia

We went along on Friday like an excited bunch of school kids willing to enjoy any activity but school. (Thanks to Dino for the tickets). In a tiny way it felt like you were in a ski resort for about 3 minutes- the fake snow, the ice rink, the trees, the pixies, the ice bar, the faux chalet, the toffee vodka and the warm cider. However, even after a couple of ciders we could not quite escape the reality of being in just a massive ski shop.

Still it was nice to get out the office for a bit.

Lookalikes II: The Return

(Mindy)


(Siobhann)

Happy Lunchtimes at Karmarama

We got tagged innit.

Its rubbish.

It's Been A While: We've Dressed Up A Dog Again!

In the good old days, when we didn't have many clients and played with our hair a lot, we used to dress up dogs every Friday. It sort of got us through the week and prepared us for the weekend.

Well, we decided to do it again.

We sent new boy Josh out to find a victim, and he found this little fella walking his master along Hammersmith High Road.

Quicker than you could say 'Inbreeding is pretty cruel, but kinda cool too', we'd dressed the little critter up as the Dark Knight.

Next week, we're thinking of dressing a dog as that Dita Von Tesse lady and then getting it to strip, real slow.

Tune in to see what happens.

The Second Coming

It's been a while coming but, from the end of today, there's every chance that our new super-pucker website will be up. Apparently it's all because we are so amazingly advanced that our web 7.0 site kept getting icky and sticky. So we've dumped the poor little thing and, with the help of our friends from Clusta and a little bit of loving from Digi Craig, we're about to get something truly special.
Finger's crossed - sees ya at 5pm today

Will Anyone Ever Eat This Apple?

Some years ago, when I was a nipper, my school took the class on holiday to Italy.
The hotel was well dodge and we suspected that the rank bread rolls were being recycled from one meal time to another.
To test this out, I hollowed out one of the rolls, put a little message inside saying 'hello it's me again' and sealed it up.
Suffice to say, the manky roll turned up every day that week, and is probably gracing a table somewhere to this very day.
Now, bringing you right up to date, I want to talk to you about our fruit bowl and the case of the funny looking apple.
Fruit has a short life span here at KarmaKrackers.
The hungry hoards descend on it as soon as the bowl appears.
But one piece has survived. A little old red apple.
But it's a red apple with a difference, for it appears to have a mutation that has put its bum in the middle of its tummy.




Do you remember Cyril from 'That's Life'?
Are you old enough?
If so, imagine him giving one of his funny gurns right now.
I'll keep you updated on this strange bum-chested piece of unnaturalness and see exactly how hungry someone has to be to sink their gnashers into it.

New Kit Sponsor

T-shirts are very important here at KarmaSutara.
They make us look nice, soak up our sweat from our long cycles in, and make our ping pong heroes look dead professional.
Each year at least 47 non-chargeable man-hours goes into their creation, making the agency t-shirts our third largest client.
Something not quite right there, but still.
Anyway, in these times of change, desperation and financial despair, we decided to turn down the generous sponsorship offer from The Bank Of Bangalore and instead plump for the rock-solid, recession proof and terribly successful company Nintendo.
The fact that they are also very important clients of ours is immaterial.



Anyways, if you fancy getting your mitts on one of our 08/09 season T's, (black, grey or vibrant orange reminiscent of Ajax circa 1978) simply do one of the following:
1. Be very good at ping pong and join the team
2. Be very good at all that advertising malarky and join the agency
3. Explain in less than 50 words exactly what the point of 'it' is
4. Be a client looking for Asia Pacific's fastest growing independent agency and get redirected to us instead
5. Have lots of cash
6. Tell each and everyone of us how nice our hair is.

Choose wisely my friend.

Come Watch Us At Play

Now this is good.
Really really good.
Richard, our IT guru and friend to the occasional pint of 1664 has rigged up a webcam in our new ping pong room.

pingpong.karmarama.com:8080

We'll post up what date and time the various ping pong matches are so you can sneak a peak.
Perhaps more importantly, you can also dip in every now and then to see what nonsense is taking place down there as we also use the area as a meeting room, film studio, book club, flashing area and occasional massage parlour.



Enjoy, as they say in Tooting's 'Afternoon Delight Tanning Studio'.

Oh Now That Looks Goooood

Well we've been quite underwhelmed by the response to our post about Dave's subterranean ping pong den that it feels only right to give you an update.
As you can see, adland's best paid painter and decorator has made rapid progress, giving the room its final touches of intimidating branding.



Latest news is that a webcam is being rigged up to allow a live stream of all the ping pong matches.
And of course all the dodgey goings on from the Friday Night Crew who frequent the basement for their nefarious activities (boys, who so know who you are).
We'll also try and get the cam on the blog for all our zillions of happy readers to watch too.

Making the most of your weekend!

Some of us like to have a beer on Friday evening, stagger home in the early hours of Saturday morning and then proceed to sleep through the rest of the weekend, rising only occasionally for food, water and possibly more beer. Others make sure they make the most out of their free time, grab a copy of Timeout and pack the 2 days full of culture and goodness in this great city that is London.

This weekend Craig decided it looked like a good time for an expedition across the Peak District with his mate Nick. So the two of them packed their waterproofs left W14 and headed for the hills.

Weekend accommodation for two



As the wind picked up a bit the boys began to question whether it was a good idea after all. Still, it beats watching the X factor!

Come Play In The Theatre Of Tears

So we've got this big building right.
Out somewhere west where your normal trads of advertising don't venture.
And this building it's SO BIG right.
But it just 'aint big enough.
So Big Dave, recently paroled from Acton's Young Offenders Institute for a crime he didn't commit, has only gone and built another bloody room!



Dave, frustrated by the inability to swing a ping pong bat in elegant fury and realising that KarmaKramps is growing a bit too quickly to find the requisite space for a ping pong table, has gone under ground, near as dammit dug a new room out of the basement with his own bare knuckles, and decorated it right pretty.



So now, not only does our des-commercial-res boast another room (try it at home - Phil and Kirsty will love it and you can beat the Crunch your own way - but we also have a state-of-the-art-attack ping pong room to play league games a-plenty, ensuring that your favourite indefinable agency can continue to fail miserably in The London Table Tennis (sic) League.

It's titled 'The Theatre Of Tears'

All hail Dave. He's everso slightly bonkers, but lovely with it. Next stop? The roof and London's third runway.

I Am Going To Get Sooooo Told Off For This

But look, what can I say? It really happened.

There was Hattie, sitting alone in one of our meeting rooms, when along comes a rather peculiar shadow that got us tittering.
I won't say any more than that

Swedish Shopping Trip

We went to visit our favourite Swedish hardware/ homewares/ technology/ hobby and garden store and we bought...

A bicycle horn for Robin's bike
A red wine stain remover for Ann's parties
A dashboard mat for our untidy mini
A battery tester for all of Hattie's special electronic musical instruments

A special tattooing pen for Craig and Jono to draw on each other with
Not to mention a couple of special over-sink-vegetable-peeling-sieves, some non stick baking silicone tray stuff, some special velcro car seat bins and some eyebrow tweezers with a torch and a magnifying glass built into them. and we still got on the plane home handluggage only.