Our friends at Spitalfields Music kindly arranged a performance at the agency this afternoon by the Gainsborough Quartet, who played a selection of festive and familiar pieces, while we scoffed mince pies and mulled wine. Very civilised.

Check out the eclectic line-up at the Spitalfields Music winter festival – including Monstrous Meoldies and a Spitalfields Christmas Carol – which starts next week at their website here.

Roll up! Roll up, for the Christmas Card Making Machine, a festive phantasmagoria brought to you by Wieden + Kennedy London and designer Joel Gethin Lewis. The magical Machine is to be found in our Hanbury Street window, delighting crowds and astonishing the crowned heads of Europe.

The Machine will permit anyone who so chooses, to fashion a pictorial likeness of themselves, which it will then, using the wonders of science, conjoin with a seasonal tableau. Said tableau can then be viewed via that marvel of the modern age: The Interweb. It is situated here:  christmascardmakingmachine.com

The pictures can then be printed in cardular form, affording glad tidings of great joy to all.