Your Zone Friday: Roar! It's the Year of the Dragon
Things we’ve done and things we like this week
January is never fun. Packed gyms, recent non-smokers dragging around dark clouds of a different sort. So, give thanks for the return of the Year of the Dragon – by far the most fun and exciting of all the mythical beasts! With that extra coil providing a spring in our step, here’s what we’ve been up to this week at Zone.
Three things we've done
Baked up a storm
Nothing warms the insides on a January evening like a piping hot pie. Our Channel 4Food team nipped down to the West Country to film the Fabulous Baker Brothers fashioning steak and vegetables in a delicious pastry sleeping bag. They call it a ‘Cornish pasty’.
Talked white horses
Our Relentless Energy Drink brigade popped on matching luminous wetsuits and paddled out to grill big wave surfer Tom Lowe. Insights into how to behave correctly in surfing situations, and bouncing back from near-death experiences, ensued.
Got the skinny on dating shows
The keyboard warriors in our BT Vision crew took time away from their seats to enjoy some face time with the new Cilla Black, Paddy McGuinness. He lifted the curtain on Take Me Out, and revealed where those intriguing catchphrases come from. Here’s one we made up: “Let the BT see the Vision!”
Beardstrokable infogram
This week’s data makeover
Wondering why there are rabbits, sheep, oxen and monkeys sauntering around the Zone office this week? Don’t worry, we haven’t hatched a fiendish plan to get animals to do the work, these are just the most popular Chinese Zodiac signs of the (human) staff members.
Zone hero of the week
Talk about a red letter day: Master chief sub, Jo Woodthorpe-Smith, has been spreading happiness this week with the news that she gave birth to a baby girl. And cat lover Jo hopes to pass on her feline feelings to little Iris by giving her the middle name Kitty.
Tea or coffee?
Tea, but decaffeinated please, don’t want little Iris staying up all night.
Zonecontent.com stat of the week
Not that we're competitive, but this week we've delved into Google Analytics to discover who the most viewed members of the Zone team are.
The results are:
1. Lauren Bravo
2. Charlie Cottrell
3. Alessandro Basso
4. Jon Davie
5. Marc Parnell
‘I made this’
Zone staff share their creative moments
In the spirit of Chinese New Year, Zone’s Origami Lunch Club made and sent a lovingly crafted stork with basket to little Iris Kitty Woodthorpe-Smith to wish her happiness, wealth and longevity. Let’s hope they weren’t sent flatpack, Ikea style. Bit much for a five-day-old, eh?
NEWSFLASH!
Still wandering back to that desk where everything was safe and familiar? Get over it – WE’VE ALL MOVED. With Chinese New Year in the air, we feng shui’d the office in a precision reshuffle, that left one stubbed toe and a keyboard that wouldn’t type ‘e’ as the only collateral damage. A big xie xie goes out to Du Li and Dominic Humphry-Arewa for making it happen.
Three things we like
YouTube makeovers
Dragons were famous for their sense of humour, and became extinct when they all died laughing at the joke about the dragon with knightmares. They’d have loved this almost genuine MasterChef video from last year, so funny it’s worth another look.
Art
We all love art, and, let’s face it, without streets, Google Street View would just be Google View, an embarrassment to everyone concerned. So here’s a mash-up of TWO things we love.
Irina Werning
Chinese New Year got us thinking about the passage of time, and the effect it would have on random strangers, obviously. Luckily, someone else was thinking the same thing.
