The Clog

We’re feeling all festive today. We’ve been listening to The Snowman, singing carols and having a Christmas cookie decorating competition. Let us know what you think - and Merry Christmas.

It’s Grace’s dad’s 60^th birthday this weekend.   She is organising a posh dinner party for him with loads of lovely food.

 And of course, no birthday party is complete without a birthday cake. Trouble is, Grace’s Dad isn’t really interested in birthday cake. He’d much rather have something savory, like some tasty cheese.

 Cue brainwave from Grace     - a birthday cake . .  made of cheese.

 After getting really excited about this concept, we soon discovered that this isn’t quite an original idea – as demonstrated by House of Cheese.

 
Still, Grace spent yesterday running around Tesco like a mad woman buying random round cheeses. She even tasked MD Mark with getting up at 7am to gather a load of ivy from his garden to decorate the

 All she needs to do now is create the structure. Check back next week to see how she got on.

Our lovely office Manager Hazel is expecting a baby in March. And this afternoon – baby wants custard!!!

Hazel spent all morning dreaming about a custard filled sponge from our local bakers, Mannings. She dashed out at lunch time to buy one – only to find that “some ******* has just bought the last one”.

After discovering that the next best thing would be a Cherry Bakewell, Martin and Deana made a mercy dash to the Co-Op. After all, we couldn’t let a lady in her delicate condition go without.

An hour later, we are all feeling like we have lead weights in our stomachs and ready for a snooze.

We love our Craig. He’s really in touch with his feminine side and is always up for a girly chat with the ladies of Clock.

So, today Grace thought nothing of asking out loud. “Has anyone got any lip balm?”

As usual, Craig was straight there with words of wisdom:

“Save your money. Simply use the grease from the corner of your nose to lubricate your lips”

After we picked ourselves back up off the floor we enquired where he had heard such rubbish.

Apparently it was on Oprah. There was a whole show about money saving beauty tips. And this was one of them.

So now we know what you do when you are playing Dad on Fridays. For more beauty tips email craig.challinor@clockcreative.co.uk

        It was always going to be the event of the summer. Grace and Kate decided to brave their first music festival and last weekend they experienced the mud, mayhem and music that was V 2008.

 They wore wellies in the mud, camped in the rain and drank knock-off Rose from a box. They made lots of new friends and sang their hearts out to  Kings of Leon, Muse, Estelle, Shed Seven and Chemical Brothers  - oh – and Will Young. They even managed to get a picture of the lovely Cheryl Cole for the boys in the office.

They are still a little ropey today and we are drip-feeding them tea and cake in a feeble attempt to bring them round.

Hazel has had a fright this afternoon.

She has been called three times by a very odd sounding chap. His name is Robert - and he is from Canada (although he sounds more like he is from Bolton).

He is apparently very chubby and has a fat problem.

When he got to the point where he told her he had chubby cheeks she hung up. The glamerous life of the Office Manager . .

If anyone knows who this man is, please let us know.

Ann’s not happy. She has just made herself an afternoon brew and opened up the box of Maltesers that she foolishly left on her desk on Thursday night.

There were 480 at 5pm on Thursday. Now there’s 3 left. And no one is admitting scoffing them.

It’s not Scott - he’s on Slimming World and its weigh in on Wednesday (and the scales don’t lie). It’s not Grace or Kate either - they were in a field in Stafford drinking cheap cider and dancing to Kings of Leon.  Which leaves just a few contenders - and we reckon its Mark.

Time to plan your defence Mr MD . . .

We are all a bit hung-over and silly today, after a night out in China Town. In Grace’s case, it was actually a Chinese in her friend’s living room, but the fumes from the others are making her feel like she was out boozing too.

To stimulate our creative juices, we have had a creative writing competition. At the moment, Martin is winning, although the competition isn’t up to much. Here is his latest effort:

Mart who was good at art did a fart,

it shot out like a dart and even powered his go kart!

grace who’s laugh was a disgrace,

couldn’t stop the noise coming from her face,

it squealed and lacked some bass,

but all in all her laugh was ace!

kate’s my mate, we even have a similar plate,

i once took her on a rubbish date, i wasn’t late it was just fate,

she didn’t take my bait, maybe I’m just punching above my weight?

scott makes me laugh a lot, I think because maybe he smokes pot,

he likes grunting at big botts, he pinched mine once,

I said, “I’d rather not” he said “what!”

i think it’s best forgot

At Clock, we’re a hands on team. We get stuck into every brief that comes in and throw ourselves into the job. We like to think that we always go the extra mile for our clients.

This gung ho attitude doesn’t stop when we leave work either. So, none of us were surprised to see Founder and Group Account Director Ann and Managing Director Mark getting stuck right in to their son Gabriel’s pirate themed birthday party.

Its good to see that they both know who the real boss is!

T

We were out last night celebrating Clock’s 9^th Birthday – and we ended up at our new favorite burger bar, Gormet Burger Kitchen http://www.gbkinfo.com

Quote of the evening has to go to Karen on seeing the specials board: “Oh look, buffalo burger. I saw a buffalo once at Knowsley Safari Park”!!

We are going to miss her . . .

At last, the first pictures of baby Venice. Mark came to see us this week, grinning from ear to ear . . and we can see why. Both Mum and baby are doing well, and Gabriel is doing a great job  in his new role of big brother.

Stop Press, Stop Press . .

 We are delighted to announce the safe arrival of baby Venice Taylor-Rimmer, born yesterday at a healthy 8lbs 8oz.

 Mum Ann is doing well and Dad Mark describes their new daughter as “absolutely beautiful”. We reckon she is the best Christmas present they could ask for.

 We’ll get some pictures uploaded as soon as possible.

Mum-to-be-Ann is growing by the day and making the most of the ever present supply of cakes at Clock.

Meanwhile, Scott is wasting away before our eyes. He joined Slimming World three weeks ago and has lost shed loads of weight already – he was even crowned “Slimmer of the Week”.

Our Founding Director, Ann is expecting a delivery on or around 14 December and bets are open on what it is. Some think it may be a girl or a boy – others feel it may be a much larger object given the sheer enormity of Ann’s bump!

The parents to be are struggling for names for the expected baby (particularly boys names), so any suggestions would be welcome!

Send them on to ann.rimmer@clockcreative.co.uk

Wandering into the Clock offices on Monday morning, upon viewing Craig’s, new and interesting, weekend purchase, I was instantly transported back to the mid 70’s; an era of flares, male perms and Addidas Kick training shoes. In what was clearly a moment of drooling senility, Mr Challinor took the plunge and parted with “actual cash” in exchange for a piece of knitwear (or should that be “twitwear”) that hadn’t seen the light of day since the very last episode of Starsky and Hutch.

Under the delusion that his Zara cardigan was just the right side of cool, Craig minced into the office with genuine swagger and an air of sophistication that said “I am fashion”. For a short while it was a case of “King’s new clothes”, but the second someone said “what the hell are you wearing?”, the spell was broken.

Wee inducing laughter erupted around the office, swiftly followed by 20 questions as to why, where from, was he wearing it for “Children in Need” or was he about to become the figurehead for a new “Fisherman’s Friend” sub-brand? The thought of Mr Challinor actually stood in front of a mirror, checking himself out and then deciding that this was indeed a garment he just had to own, has been the catalyst for hours of genuine office merriment and for that we are truly thankful.

I must admit that I did myself once have a similar piece of knitwear, but that was over 30 years ago and Starsky and Hutch had just arrived in the UK.

So there we have it! A David Starsky cardigan. Cool or uncool? American Police Officer or the old bloke from the Werther’s Originals commercial? You decide.

AL

It has been announced by Clock’s independent judging panel that our Office Manager, Karen, is looking “Well Fit” today. (more…)

We all know that amazing things happen at Clock everyday of the week but they also happen to us when we go home!

Kate, who moved up from Cornwall in January, began renting a room from Sarah, who she barely knew, back in March.

During a random conversation with Sarah’s Dad they discovered that both families grew up in Chesterfield… (more…)

http://www.creativeclock.com/

We have a crisis in the office today – one of our office fish (Diesel) is looking a little peaky. Well, it has been for a couple of days actually. Our resident Pet Specialist, Scott, has spent the morning observing the fish and its progress and he has just made a rather smug diagnosis.

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The Clock Kitten is growing at a rate of knots. Grace and Scott went to check on her progress last night and were amazed at how big she has got. It’s almost as though she has been on the Quick-Sol!

We’ve had loads of suggestions for names so far – Mittens, Mimi, Shelley, Saffy, Lulu and Mitzi have all been suggested this week.

Keep your ideas coming through to grace.grieve@clockcreative.co.uk – remember, we are offering a great prize for the best name!

Its baby mania at Clock at the moment. We’ve had three new bundles of joy in the past year – and there’s another on the way. (more…)

The latest addition to the Clock team:

Two weeks ago we saw the long awaited arrival of the latest mini Clocker. Annie Rachael Challinor was born on 16th of September to designer Craig and his partner Rebecca. Congratulations to them all!

As you probably know, Clock Creative is based in what was once the Working Men’s Club in Ramsbottom. There’s obviously been extensive renovations to the property since then, but we’ve recently turned our creative minds to inhouse decorating, and the board room has had a very relevant face lift…

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Martin, the proud new father, shows off Thomas Dickson his new born son who was born on May 9th - his best design job yet we think! He even brought Thomas in proudly wearing the new T-Shirt that everyone at Clock bought him to say congratulations; however we’re not sure he’s quite got the joke yet!

In preparation of the monthly managers meeting Adrian gets to grips with the requested ’spread sheet’ for his presentation. Eat your heart out Bill Gates.
NB: Adrian Bentley owns all copyright of the Markersoft Office System.

“Would anyone like a brew”, were the last words we heard the once sane Adrian Bentley mutter. Shortly afterwards we saw him sprint out of the front door shouting “There’s a real Whippet outside, has anyone got a pen, quick it’s a real Whippet, it’s gorgeous!”.
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News Flash!
Darth ‘Tata head and Buzz Lightyears have settled their differences once and for all, and it looks like the dark side has won this time.

Rumors are they were engaged in a long heated debate about strategic positioning before the vicious outbreak on Martin’s desk!

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