Is This The World's Worst Tea Pot

It's a bit like school time 'show and tell' here at PharmaBarma sometimes. People get over excited and bring in silly little things to show their friends. And then it ends up getting dumped in the kitchen or the toilet. Like this tea pot.



Lordy Lordy. Surely this must be the biggest load of tat ever found anywhere. If someone wants it for their crap tea pot collection please let your friendly, new age and harder working comms agency know and we'll pack it right off to you. Sad person that you are.

Karmarama: Now 'Market Town Club' Size

Golly, we've grown a bit.

A few months ago when our last phone list came out (listen, stop it, that's big news down KarmaKountry way) we talked about how, only a wee bit back when we were in Great Titchfield St we were garden shed sized (22 of us had a Christmas bash in a shed - honestly).



And then suddenly we were church hall sized with 55 of us out here in W14.



Well, the glourious phone list has been updated again and look how many of us there are now:



Yes



After a bit of spatial awareness calculation, a couple of floor mapping exercises and a cup of tea, planning has worked out that we are now officially the perfect size to fit into a market town club.



Now the important point to make here, before anyone says we're bragging or we've got ideas above our station, planning insists that it's a bit of a shit market town club, on the fringes of the town, probably somewhere you have to drive to, maybe need to wear shoes but definitely not jeans to get into, will have a ladies night on a Thursday, definitely have bouncers on the door and in the bogs and has always got lots and lots of bother going on. And it has VERY sticky dance floors.

We hope to grow a little bit bigger quickly before we get glassed as it's all about to kick off in here

Meet Arjun (by Arjun)

Arj was born in London but moved to the tiny island of Tobago at the tender age of 1. During the next 16 years he perfected the arts and tricks associated with the yo yo, finally managing to conquer all on the island and earn a place at the Caribbean regional finals in Barbados which would have given him a shot of a finals place in Miami. He unfortunately failed to qualify. The shame of not making these finals drove him away from the Caribbean and back to London where he sold posh suits to rich people in Selfridges, tried becoming an accountant but got bored, moved into a finance department at a small advertising agency and got bitten by the creative bug. He then moved through some of London’s bigger more established agencies producing some great work along the way, also during this time he tried multiple times to get a job at Karmarama but Dave thought he was a call centre worker and never took his calls. Despite this knock back he really admired the founding principles of Karmarama in particular the ‘no wanker policy’ and managed to impress the partners a few years later with his perfection of the Queens english and the hardest yo yo trick of all time, the ‘Three Leaf Clover’.

We've been growing! (and here comes the proof!)

We've banged on a lot about the number of empty seats that have slowly been filled with the good bums of great new people here at Kramarama. Back in the good old days when new joiners arrived we used to stop work for 4 straight days, lock up the agency and all cycle to a small town just outside Abersoch in North Wales to plant a tree to celebrate their arrival. However, times have changed and we're busy people nowadays which has meant we have got a little slack about welcoming all the nice new people that are brave enough to make the trek on a daily basis to W14 (sorry). Sadly there's no tree anymore but there are the bright lights of the blog! So get ready to meet some new Karmacrew all this week...

Pete Fowler at the Truman Brewery

Pete's a good friend of the agency and has helped us on all sorts of things from designing our Ping Pong mascot, DJing at agency events to looking after Hattie when she had her poorly back. Here's some pictures of the brilliant mural he finished up yesterday at the Truman Brewery, it looks amazing and is well worth going down to see it in all it's glory. 10 out of 10!

Dave's Birthday, A Hog Roast For The Agency, And A Very Poor Picture

Last week was Dave's 65th birthday.

To go with his Freedom Pass we decided to buy him a pair of dodgey old NHS specs, a shirt from Oxfam, but most excitingly of all, a proper full on hog roast.

Said hog arrived in a metal spit and pit, ready charred.



The agency dutifully queued and feasted on what supposedly can feed over 100 people. Strangely, we finished most of it. Could be because we have a lot of wasters here who spend all their pennies on beer and fill their bellies at such events. The combined crew of Steve, Craig and Jono (the usual offenders) managed to slam down 15 portions between them.

Damn fine hog, damn fine agency.

Happy pension Dave.
(sorry about the rubbish photo)

Feast For a King: No.2 In A Very Irregular Series

So there I was in Exmouth Market wondering where to eat when I remembers that there is a very nice little pie & mash shop there. As I passed trendy young things buying falafels and mung bean whatnots from stalls and so-hip-I-could-just-die types sipping their smoothies outside overpriced cafes, I went to Cookes where, apart from a couple of low life geezers (bless 'em), I was the only punter.

And this is what fast, cheap food really is all about.



£3.20 for pie, mash and liquour.
Served in 23 seconds flat.



Finished in 3 minutes 43 seconds flat.

Nice work.

Next week, The Ivy. Maybe

Karmarama Summer Sports Day

A day full of triumphant joy, laughter, bruises, sunshine, lovely food, cold beers, grubby feet and many grass burnt knees.

Why I Love Karmarama

Well there's lots of reasons, too many to mention.
But, working out in the garden today and looking in at the agency, it just struck me what a brilliant feeling the place has, with nice and decent people doing good work.
So I drew a picture of it. Not a great picture, but a picture all the same.
Have a look, then close your eyes and imagine it, and then you'll be here with us.
Nice.

As one sadly departs another is born...

Bye bye...
Last Wednesday, a day I now refer to as 'Dark Grey Wednesday' my lovely bike was stolen from deepest darkest Shoreditch. As you can imagine only a few words can explain how I have been feeling over these past few days and unfortunately none which Nicola will allow me to write on this blog. So, as I struggle to adapt to my new life without my beloved, self built pedal machine apart from a little bit of pity directed towards me I ask you to do only one thing-

Please keep your eyes peeled for anyone riding around on my bike and if you see them leave a comment below with full facial descriptions, height, weight and preferably an address of where they live or work. Even better, if between reading creative advertising agencies blogs you are also a thieving pikey that steals bikes, can I have mine back please?

Helloooo...
Making my loss even harder to stomach Dave has gone and built himself what can only be described as a sex machine with pedals. He has also got the lipstick to match but may I suggest if you are that 'thieving pikey' that also likes to read advertising blogs this is one bike you don't try and steal.