OK, by now it’s 359 days. But who’s counting.

Despite economic dominoes, an onslaught of winter vomiting disease (wash your hands, people!), and other myriad woes plaguing our nation, we’re feeling pretty optimistic about 2009. We’ve successfully surpassed the most stressful day of the year, so things are looking up already.

The Workhouse Diaries blog is going to be dedicated to what gets us buzzing here at Splendid. From compelling voices to new music talent to emerging media to clever ideas to things that make us laugh to cultural events around the world to what’s happening down the road, you’ll find a little bit of everything — and hopefully, a lot of inspiration. (You probably won’t find many lengthy cerebral commentaries, but we can point you in the right direction if that’s what you’re after.)

So, here goes diary entry numero uno: Music. It’s what we eat / sleep / breathe. In 2008, we worked with mammoth music talent, including the world’s biggest DJ (Tiesto), some hot producers (Mark Ronson and Pharrell Williams) and some legends (Grandmaster Flash, Guitar Shorty, Duran Duran). Inspired by music’s past and present, we decided to invest in music’s future — kids who rock.

Instead of lining your recycling bin, we spent our Chrismas card budget on some brand spanking new equipment for Haringey Shed, a charity that provides music and theatre workshops for children and young people with learning disabilities in London.

Thanks very much to Youth Music, UK’s largest children’s music charity, for hooking us up. We’ll be sure to blog about Haringey Shed’s progress. (Fingers crossed someday they’ll need a cracking communications agency to launch their first single.)

Happy New Year, all.

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