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At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office. Here’s something for all you Dr Who fans out there!

Dr Who desktop Dalek

Fans of the Doctor Who series will definitely be pleased to have all things Doctor Who around them, even at work.  Now imagine having a Dalek patroller who faithfully reports for duty every day, whether you turn up at the office or not. It features ground sensors that help it avoid falling off the table and actually shouts out “exterminate!” whenever it makes a turn (however this function can optionally be turned off, if you prefer it to patrol in silence!)

It will patrol your desktop for hours, never falling off or bumping into anything.

Dr Who Desktop Dalek

Image credit: http://forbiddenplanet.com

 The McLaren Technology Centre is the headquarters of the McLaren Group, located on a 500,000 m² site in Woking.  

The large, roughly semi-circular, glass-walled building was short-listed for the 2005 Stirling Prize. About 1,000 people work at the sleek McLaren Technology Centre; it functions as an office and factory for the Formula One racing-car company. It is home to the McLaren Racing Formula One constructor and McLaren Automotive, the makers of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, as well as other companies of the McLaren Group.

An artificial lake helps to cool the building and its beating heart- a 475ft wind tunnel used to test Formula One cars!

McLaren technology centre Surrey

Image credit: McLaren

Skywalker Ranch is a 4,000 acre working ranch that is the workplace of film director and producer George Lucas. It also houses his headquarters for Lucasfilm and Skywalker Sound.  Access to the main house is strictly prohibited unless permission is gained from Mr Lucas himself and no one apart from him and fellow director Steven Spielberg may enter the first floor offices!

The Ranch contains a barn with animals, its own vineyard, a garden with fruits and vegetables used in the restaurant on-site, an outdoor swimming pool and a fitness centre. Skywalker Ranch even has its own fire station!

Star Wars fans will be delighted to hear there is a man-made “Lake Ewok”, in addition to a hilltop observatory, a 300-seat theatre as well as multiple theatre screening rooms and parking that is mostly concealed underground to preserve the natural landscape.

Although used for business, the Skywalker Ranch is intended to be more of a “filmmaker’s retreat” than a headquarters for Lucas’s business operations.

Skywalker Ranch

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The main house at Skywalker Ranch

Image credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com

At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office. A day in the office can sometimes get stressful, here is our favourite stress buster. 

Bluw 80s stress ball

Feel at ease with a squeeze of one of these 1980s inspired stress balls. Each one is designed after an iconic image from the decade that brought us spandex, big hair and leg-warmers. It’s the retro way to relax!

Bluw 80s stress ball

Bluw 80s stress ball

Image credit: Iwantoneofthose.com

Green denotes harmony, blue inspires innovation and bright orange promotes creativity- especially if you ask the bright orange coloured news corporation Bloomberg.

In terms of design the London Bloomberg office probably tops many of its rivals; almost entirely made out of glass, filled with enormous fish tanks, bright coloured lights and meeting rooms without walls or door. All done in the name of transparency, creativity and sustainable performance.

Michael Bloomberg’s idea is pretty clear; the sales floor is green floor to ceiling inspires harmony, the research floor is blue to conjure innovation Bloomberg’s own brand colour, bright orange, acts as a  source of creativity and is on everything from lifts to coffee cups in the cafeteria.

Bloomberg is big on sustainability: the meeting area tables and chairs are made from recycled monitors and keyboards. The office even employs its own marine biologist to look after the aquariums housing over 4,000 species of fish!

Bloomberg, London

Image credit: Michael Edwards 

Lord’s Cricket Ground is widely referred to as the “home of cricket” and is home to the world’s oldest sporting museum. The Lord’s Media Centre is a building at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London which has been awarded the “Best Press Box View” by the Professional Cricketers’ Association.

The centre stands 15 metres above the ground and its sole support comes from the structure around its two lift shafts – it is approximately the same height as the Pavilion directly opposite it on the other side of the ground. The lower tier of the centre provides accommodation for over 100 journalists and the top tier has radio and television commentary boxes. The Building was awarded the RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture in 1999.

Originally sponsored by NatWest, in 2007 sponsorship was taken over by Investec. Since 31 May 2011, the media centre has been sponsored by J.P Morgan.

Lord's Cricket Ground

Image credit: Jonny Wood

At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office. Here’s our favourite music themed desktop accessory this month.

Drumstick pencils

There’s a person in every office who thinks they’re a drumming rock god. They’ll usually illustrate this by tapping out rhythms using a pair of pens. If you are that desk-bound drummer, splash out on a pair of dedicated pencils for your inner Ringo.

The Googleplex is the corporate headquarters complex of Google. What’s not to like about this place!

Staff can move from floor to floor via a slide…there are also poles available, similar to the ones used in fire stations.

Staff can eat and drink from a vast choice of food three times a day for free, pool tables and video games are available in many areas and employees can work out in one of two high current “swim-in-place” pools under the watchful eye of a lifeguard.

For relaxing, employees can chill out in soundproofed stress capsule rooms, get subsidised massages or use the massage chair room with a view of aquariums. On each floor, there are private miniature ski cabins where employees can attend to personal affairs.

They must get some work done as well! To ensure maximum creativity, large white boards are available just about everywhere to capture any ideas that are generated away from the desk.

Staff can move from floor to floor via a slide

Rongbuk Valley and the Rongbuk Glacier are located in the Himalaya of southern Tibet. Climbing expeditions and trekking parties use this glacier to reach the Advanced Base Camp of Mount Everest at the upper end of the East Rongbuk Glacier. From there, climbing expeditions try to summit Everest by the North Col and the northeast ridge.
At 17,000 feet the Rongbuk Valley post office is claimed to be the world’s highest located post office. It opens at 11am every day from April to August and costs 3 Yuan (£0.28) to send a letter to Beijing and 9 Yuan (£0.85) to send a letter to England.

Rongbuk Valley post office, Mt Everest base camp

Image Credit: info.tibet.cn

At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office. Here are two of our favourite animal themed desktop accessories this month.

Desktop aquarium

They don’t require allergy shots, expensive pet sitters, or diamond-studded collars. Desktop fish are the perfect pets and will always be there to entertain you, even if you forget to feed them for months on end! Following the popularity of virtual pets, this desktop aquarium will be a fun addition to the workplace. It also makes a great gift for animal lovers!

Doggy Bank

The best office kitty solution we’ve seen!
These silly Hungry Hound Doggy Banks bring a whole new meaning to putting your money where your mouth is. More accurately, if you put your money where their mouth is, they’ll gobble it all up and keep it safe for you until you need it.

Their lolloping tongues and bouncy nature are quite charming, so much so that you’ll want to keep on feeding them until you run out of shrapnel.

All you have to do is drop a coin in the dog’s dinner bowl and watch him hungrily devour it. It will end up in the box upon which the Hungry Hound happily hunches, ready for you to take out again if you need it.

Saving money never tasted so good.