Sherry

We were invited by Poet in the City to collaborate with them on an exciting advertising competition run by CBS Outdoors. Poet in the City is one of the UK’s leading poetry charities and most dynamic and innovative arts organisations. They run regular events on a diverse range of themes. Poet in the City is for absolutely anyone who’s interested in exploring poetry.

The creative brief was that the entry had to be London-centric, perfect for the orginisation and their audience. Londoners spend a portion of their day standing waiting for a train on a busy London Underground platform. We wanted our design to help fellow Londoners escape from their daily commute, and see London in a more poetic way – literally. Each of us as individuals could benefit from being reminded of this awe-inspiring city continually swirling around us. The words of the poem create a hypnotic architectural landscape, to be swallowed up and lost in, for those idle few minutes between trains.

As it is National Poetry Day tomorrow we thought we would share with you our entry. Fingers crossed we make the shortlist!

I’ve noticed my blogs seem to be about tv. It was just as I was about to launch into one about my love for Deadliest Catch that I realised and stopped myself. Instead, I’ll tell you all about our cocktail evening last Friday.

In true Sherry cocktail party-style, where the dress-code was nothing fancier than jeans, we each made a round of cocktails for attendees. Which was ten. Which is actually quite a lot. Ingredients were varied – gin, vodka, rum, Cointreau, elderflower, cava, Chambord… not forgetting the 9 month out-of-date orange juice somebody hadn’t thrown away which accidentally found its way into a round of drinks. Hint: if orange juice is mud brown, don’t drink it. To wash all that down, we were treated to shots of Goldschlager from our bookkeeper Victoria – thanks V, though I think we may have appreciated it less on Saturday morning!

Right, duty done – who wants to talk about Deadliest Catch?!

Last night I stumbled upon a TV show that was worth putting up with the irritating, gurning faces of Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins for… The Great British Bake-Off.

This week the amateur bakers competed in beautiful pastel-coloured pop-up kitchens at Scone Palace near Perth, and tasks included creating towers of meringues, macaroons and choux pastry buns. A true feast for the eyes in every way.

I felt Mary Berry’s pain as she had to sample 24 baked items, as memories of the sugar-overloaded-bake-off we had last year came screaming back, pounding heart and all – oh who am i kidding, she has the best job – the pounding heart must have been the food-envy as I sat eating my low-fat yoghurt. To watch last night’s episode, click here.

With such an awesome prize on offer (A sherry hot mug and keyring) it was no surprise we had such a great response to the sherry hot photography competition. The rules were simple, take a photo inspired by the word hot and send them to us. The winner, and our top 5, are shown below. Congratulations to Alex Markham on winning. Your prize will be with you shortly.

Winner – Alex Markham

Runners Up

Athletics, Boxing, Rowing. These are not the true sports of Olympians. Building a tower of marshmallows, blowing a ping pong ball through a cardboard tube and eating a picnic (whilst sporting orange sweat bands), on the other hand… now we’re talking. We had an amazing time in Shoreditch Park yesterday evening displaying our skills in these ‘sports’ and winning medals and trophies to boot. Roll on London 2012, we can’t wait to see if our events have been included in the line up…