On the 25th of May, Inferno’s strongest and bravest will tackle the dizzy heights of Scafell Pike – over 3,209ft of sheer mountain, to raise money and awareness for the NSPCC.
To do this, we really do need your help, because we’re letting YOU decide how far we get.
Every pound you donate is worth 1ft of mountain, and if we haven’t raised enough, we stop climbing. That means we need to raise £6,418 if we’re going to get to the top and down again for tea. And if we fail? Well, we’ll be stuck on the mountain with goats for pillows and our colleagues’ body warmth to get us through the cold and lonely night.
So please head over to our Just Giving page, dig deep, don’t leave us on the mountain, and help us raise money and awareness for the NSPCC’s latest campaign, ‘Don’t Wait Until You’re Certain’.
Oh, and to thank you for helping us share this important message we’ll be sharing your messages too. So when you donate, don’t leave us a ‘good luck’, leave us something more interesting. We’re talking quotes, lyrics, ponderings, facts and rants. Our 32 climbers will be picking their favourites to take with them up the Pike – so make yours a good ‘un, it might be coming with us to England’s highest point.
On a gloriously depressing and wet April afternoon, Manny and I decided to head down to the Hayward gallery to have a look at the David Shrigley and Jeremy Deller exhibitions. Here are my thoughts on the all too subtle and fantastically absurd.
It’s fair to say that Deller is not your conventional artist, and a somewhat unlikely pairing for the all guns blazing, surrealist work of David Shrigley. With subjects ranging from the war in Iraq, wrestling, coal mining and Northern music in the UK – linking seemingly unrelated genres, ‘Acid house’ and ‘Brass Band’, through an examination of civil unrest, his work tackles humanism, in a blunt and literal fashion. He’s a curator and a collector, wanting to share his insight and fascinations with what would otherwise be an uninterested audience. But the problem was, I remained uninterested.
It became clear that his work requires participation and the experience of witnessing it ‘live’, and in a gallery his work fails to translate. Walking around, it felt more like a poorly thought out museum, filled with documentaries and archive material, than a gallery filled with art. Ironically, there was also little Joy at ‘Joy in People’. It felt like it was put together for his fans, those who already knew his performance art, and aside from the contrasting instillation ‘Valerie’s snack bar’ – a replica of a greasy-spoon café in Bury, plonked in the middle of the gallery – there were rare treats to excite the eyes, or satisfy the taste buds, of the average wandering spectator.
We then ventured upstairs to enjoy the mind-fuck that is David Shrigley. Shrigley comes from a class of 90’s surrealists that broke away from the conventions and expectations of art, which may not be seen as all that original anymore, but remain as enjoyable as ever. It’s not often that you walk into a gallery space and openly laugh, but it’s what I found myself unwittingly doing. With a combination of bleak deadpan and black comedy, his themes stand up and take on a whole new meaning. Death, tackled using a taxidermy Jack Russell holding a sign that reads ‘I’m dead’, and a tombstone inscribed with a shopping list, are two memorable show stoppers.
With his varied executions, Shrigley drives you deep into his mind-set allowing you to come away with a real insight and understanding of the man. From rough sketches to taxidermied animals, animations to peepholes in the gallery space, he constantly surprises and keeps you on your toes. The gallery smoothly moves between childlike, incoherent and silly thoughts, executed with minimal, amateurish fashion, to elaborate grandeur, that all seemingly flow straight from his mindgrapes. But with 240 of his pieces in the exhibition, it’s inevitable that sometimes his pieces simply don’t work, and all too often we’re confronted by uncomfortable, crafted prose that feels out of place, trying so hard to be ‘art’, an inspirational quote or clever pun.
The man is funny, profound and surprising, he just needs to cut back a couple of pieces and it’d be a five star show. As with Deller, there are parts which many critics will struggle to label ‘art’ – but you know what, it really doesn’t matter. I liked it, and I think that’s all that matters?
Did someone say Easter!? Oh yeah that’s right, they did. Did someone say long weekend? Oh yeah, they did that too. How egg-citing eh? And on top of that horrendous pun things are about to get a whole lot eggy-er round in the office too. Just look at the haul of eggs currently living in reception. Happy Easter to all of you, have a bloody nice (and relaxing) break. Smashing.
Monday night saw a few Mad Men mad Infernoistas don their best 60s garb and head over to Kettners in Soho, where Sky Atlantic played host to the official Season 5 premiere.
True to the show, cocktails were flowing on arrival and as we settled into our third Old Fashioned and a popcorn dinner, the curtain went up.
**SPOILER ALERT**
Season five leaves you with no confusion of the era. Skirts are shorter, music is swingier and design is… oranger!? We’ve entered a time where equality is hot and Sterling Cooper Draper Price is more successful than ever.
Don’s 40th birthday proves to be a perfect platform for highlighting the hang ups between him and his latest wife, Megan. And with her recent promotion to creative, tension starts to build as Peggy makes no secret of her frustrations.
Roger’s character continues to evolve with comedy touches that at one point, prompted a whoop from a few seats forward, but we’re still left wondering if the truth will out about Joan’s new baby.
And will Pete eventually become partner? It looks like this could be his season.
Our football team is back in action with a new badge, a new kit and a fresh line-up.
We’re training and playing weekly in a 5-a-side league. Then we learned about ‘The Pitch‘. The advertising students from UCA Farnham are preparing for their grad exhibition and in their words: “Our university isn’t helping with funding, so we need to raise as much as possible off our own backs. But that isn’t a problem, because with constraint, comes creativity! Our main fundraising event is a huge football tournament between Advertising Agencies, Students and Graduates.” We signed up and made our way down to Wembley Goals on Friday night.
On arrival, we found out we’d be playing four games during the group stage, the top two teams then going through to the knock-out stage. Our first game was against a student team named Gareth’s Gazelles. It ended as a 1-1 draw, our main concern, Prad picking up a knock after only 5 minutes of action. Not a great start. We re-grouped and took to the pitch against BD Network, comfortably beating them 4-0. That was quickly followed by the biggest test of the group stage against The Marketing Store, our lads dug deep and earned a 1-1 draw. Three games down and 5 points on the board things were looking pretty good.
The only downside to a great tournament were prolonged gaps in-between games and later in-between rounds. To keep warm and kill the time we relied on aerobics (Martin) Coward style. The final group game arrived and we comfortably earned another 3 points beating Aquaduct 2-0, finishing 2nd in our league with 8 points and remaining unbeaten. We awaited news of the identity of our opponents in the knock-out stage. During the break in the competition we attempted to walk Prad back to the bar area, it wasn’t happening and he was carried instead. Paramedics were available and Prad was carted of to hospital for a full diagnosis (BIG thanks to Rosie for accompanying him for 5 hours in A&E). We’re assured that it isn’t broken but you can see the bruising below, ouch.
Back to the competition, the lads had to compose themselves for a knock out quarter final game against….wait for it….The Marketing Store!? But how was that? We’d just played each other in the group stages. After both teams questioned the decision, we were told that nothing could be done and that the decision was final. We headed out to the pitch for the return fixture. This time with much more at stake. It was never going to be easy going up against the team that had ended up top of our league and despite the efforts of our players we were beaten by the most slender of margins, 1-0. There was obvious disappointment, but also pride in our team. By the time all of our players were deservedly relaxing with beverages in hand we put our support behind our defeaters The Marketing Store. As they marched on to the final to take on one of the two AKQA teams the tiredness was certainly showing. After taking a 1-0 lead The Marketing Store lost their rhythm as AKQA stormed back and buried 2 decisive efforts. Final score 2-1 to AKQA ’The Pitch’ champions of 2012.
We’d like to say a big congratulations to all of the students at UCA Farnham responsible for the event, we thoroughly enjoyed our Friday night out West (well most of us). To everyone else please take a look at The Orchard for more info on the Farnham grad show. Thanks for having us, see you next year. Any agencies looking to challenge us in the meantime please leave a comment below.
After proving that we like to party in Company Magazine during the Christmas 2011 party season, some of our staffers are gracing the pages once again.
The Spring/Summer ‘High-Street Edit’ which is on shelves now, features an all female line-up from our various intern schemes. Here are Lucy K, Lucy B, Elisabeth & Liyana doing us proud in their sporty gear.
As they prepare to join the good ship Inferno, the staff at Farm have been popping the champagne celebrating. Here’s to the past and new, bright futures.
They’ll be taking up residence from 1st March here at our home on Great Queen Street. The word excited doesn’t come close to our elation in anticipation of their arrival. And what a picture of them enjoying their last supper. Let’s look forward to the sound of many popping corks during 2012.
Be sure to click the image to see the team (and champagne) in their full glory.
Brussels may not be the home of culinary excellence (although a year-long food festival titled Brusselicious may prove me wrong), but it is the home of our Electrolux clients and their Electrolux and AEG showrooms.
While visiting the Electrolux team for an annual wash-up session, we were treated to a cooking workshop to give us a taste of AEG’s appliances and do a little team bonding along the way.
We were greeted by the ebullient “my-AEG-oven-is-so-great-it’s-orgasmic” Gabi, who put us to work chopping and dicing like professionals.
On Friday night a record number of our staff turned out to take part in ‘Big Bowls’, an evening of drinking and bowling at All Star Lanes, Bloomsbury. Everyone in attendance to prove beyond all doubt who was the king (or queen) of the pins.
We split out into 9 teams, each with 6 people. Taking to the lanes two by two, our objective was to aim for the highest cumulative team score. Another award was to be handed out to the highest individual scorer.
We’re back! And most of us have thoroughly enjoyed a full week (and a bit) off. Oh how relaxing. Now that we are back, here’s what some of us have been up to whilst out-of-office.
Here’s (head of strategy) Bambos sitting in a seafood restaurant in Padstow preparing to tuck into the rather large ‘Fruits De Mer’ special.
