We'll Grow Sweet Ipomea...

I was a little startled to see this news report from MassivelyOP, when it popped up in my feed this evening. It's all about "a selection of officially licensed GW2 flower seeds based on some of the plants found within Tyria". The MOP piece doesn't specifically say they're for sale but that's the impression I got and it made me think.

I have a garden. I don't like gardening but I have one anyway. It came with the house. It's not small, either. 

When we first moved in, thirty years ago, we used it a lot. Then the kids left home and we mostly forgot about it for a while. When we remembered it was there it took me several years to hack it back into a manageable state. 

It's not at all bad now although it's fortunate fashion has moved on from the manicured perfection of the aughts to a looser, wildlife-friendly feel. Our massive pile of brushwood isn't evidence of neglect any more - it's a hedgehog sanctuary. To prove it we have actual hedgehogs. I've seen them.

I grew up in a home where gardening was a serious enterprise. We had two very large vegetable gardens, an orchard, a couple of lawns and plenty of decorative flowerbeds and shrubs. My main interest in gardening as a child was avoiding it.

About all I'm prepared to do now is trim the hedges, tidy the paths and keep the grass short but I did go so far as to scatter some wildflower seeds a while back. I even watered them occasionally. They grew quite nicely and weren't any trouble so I thought I might get some of these amusing GW2 seeds and have a go with those. It would amuse Mrs. Bhagpuss, at least.

There's a link in the piece so I clicked on that. If I was startled by the news item, I was floored by the website itself. 

For a start, it's so glaring and harsh. Neon on a field of black. It reminds me of a GeoCities home page from the 'nineties. What really set me back, though, was the means through which the various seeds can be acquired.

They aren't for sale after all. They're free but only to selected applicants and when I say "selected" I'm being quite literal. For a chance at the "rare" seeds you need to "Tell us (in a few sentences) why you think you should be sent a rare seed pack and we'll contact you if you've been selected"

I did briefly consider it. I was going to cite my decade playing the game and the hundreds of thousands of words I've written about it. Then I thought I wouldn't after all. There's free and there's free. I'd have happily paid a small sum plus postage for the flax and the passiflora but I'm not writing a begging letter or taking an exam.

It did pique my interest, though, so I did a little digging through the rest of the site to see what the deal was. The affair is backed by The Agency for Nature, an organization comprising creative teams from five UK advertising agencies, each of which is leading a project intended, according to a report in industry journal Creative Review, to get people to "go out and spend more time in nature".

The team behind the GW2 seed packets comes from Wieden+Kennedy, where Aleks Atanasovski and Hannah Young are apparently only "beginning with Guild Wars 2". Since gathering seems to be a part of most games these days, I imagine they'll be spoilt for choice on which MMORPG to tap for inspiration next. 

Behind all of this sit "two non profits - Purpose Disruptors and Glimpse". Purpose Disruptors is on a mission "to catalyse the advertising industry’s climate transition to align with the IPCC’s 1.5 degree global warming target". 

Glimpse is - or perhaps was - "a new collective for creative people who want to use their skills for good." New eight years ago, that is. Its founder, James Turner, posted a valedictory letter last month in which, among other things, he said "I don’t plan on using the Glimpse name or brand in the future."

Whatever the current status of any or all of these, what's unequivocally clear is that all of them work in advertising or closely-related trades. I worked in marketing for a couple of years back in the 'eighties and I had quite a few friends and contacts in advertising. It would be tempting to say the business must have changed a lot since then but honestly, there was plenty of earnestness on display even back in the age of Greed is Good. I don't find it as surprising as all that.

Neither do I find the queasy garishness of the website particularly out of keeping with the profession. We sell graphic design books and journals where I work and if you want to see some really jarring, abrasive visuals, those are always a good place to start.

Anyway, that's how I've been spending my evening. It's dark so I can't do much gardening anyway. That's my excuse. (I have a million excuses for not doing the gardening. This year, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand of them involve rain.)

If you fancy growing some Tyrian flowers and you live in the UK, which is as far as Seed Saga is prepared to send them, I suggest you get started on your essay right away. 

Good luck. I'm sure the competition will be fierce.