We all went to an awards ‘do’ last night.  Everyone made it in this morning by 11.21.  A new record.

Neon signs are brilliant.  A friend of ours wants one for her tree-house, so we said we’d find a good supplier.  signbuyer.co.uk clearly know how to sell their signs.
The blurb with this one ?

"perfect for any shop.  let’s the customer no when you’re open for business"

And this one ?

"this would be great in a burger bar"

And finally

"this would be great in a kebab shop or turkish restaurant"

I hope that signbuyer.co.uk are the number one neon sign sellers in the world and that they’ve never had to employ any outside "comms specialists" to get to the top spot.  Simple.  Effective.  Tells it as it is.  Genius.

We’ve been tracking Last.fm for the last couple of years.  You can tell that they’re growing - moving to new offices, hiring more staff, getting a new ‘endline’. But for such a brilliant idea, why isn’t it bigger, more talked about and better known than it seems to be? (I know it’s pretty big, but why isn’t it a MASSIVE phenomenon?)  Some ideas define the power and brilliance of the internet and this is one of them. By the way, if you don’t know about last.fm (a) point made (b) wikipedia it and (c) try it out at www.lastfm.com.  But in summary, it’s an internet radio station and online new music recommendation system that learns your musical tastes and introduces you to similar stuff that you might not have yet discovered.  It does this by matching your playlist to the playlists of people with similar tastes, so there’s a social networking benefit as well. (Having read that back, maybe their new endline ‘the social music revolution’ is too obscure or maybe I’m making it sound too complicated?).
Anyway, we’re not posting this because we’re on some kind of commission.  LOVE’s interest is far more lucrative.  If the technology and thinking behind Last.fm can be proven to ‘revolutionise’ the music industry, then maybe it’ll work for loads of other things - travel, for example (i.e) share your taste in holiday experiences, tell us your favourite places and we’ll match you to ‘like-minded’ travellers who may have discovered somewhere you haven’t.  Wine is another one.  The wine industry is such a closed shop, protected by the impenetrable language used to describe different varieties.  You could debunk all of the wine language bollocks by match-making people who like similar wine and enabling them to recommend their current quaffable favourites to each other using more useful terms like "this Pinot Noir tastes brill and it didn’t give me a headache" or "I took this £2.39 bottle to a dinner party and got away with it"
Music, travel and booze - now that would be a good company to work for.

Congratulations must go to our copywriter Simon Griffin, whose tin foil ball has just passed the 500g mark. Griffin’s been collecting the tin foil he uses to wrap his sandwiches in for the last two years, and carefully rolling them together to create one big ball. When asked to comment on his achievement, Griffin modestly said: “It’s by no means the best tin foil ball in the world – but it is probably better than anything in the UK or Europe. I once read that Roald Dahl had a tin foil ball in his study made from chocolate bar foils, but his was only the size of a tennis ball. There’s no evidence to suggest that the size of your tin foil ball is directly related to your writing ability, but if it is then I can look forward to being loads more famous than Dahl.

The foil ball pictured next to a navy blue Range Rover

Griffin was unsure about exactly how many foil coatings his ball has, but based on an average sandwich wrap weighing approximately four grams, then over 125 foils have gone into his creation. These sandwiches have mainly been for lunch, but Griffin admitted to us that he has used the odd foil from a breakfast sandwich: “It’s true. From time to time I might make a bacon sandwich in the morning, but not have time to eat it, so I’ll just wrap it in foil and eat it once I get into work. I don’t think this in any way soils the purity of what is essentially a magnificent achievement.”

The sandwiches eaten have generally been on malted bread, with a ham salad filling, but other favourites have been tuna/ sweetcorn/ mayo/ cheese, chicken/ salad, BLT and cheese/ tomato. One major obstacle halting the progress of the ball has been an inconsistent lunchtime diet, with leftovers often leaving Griffin with no choice but to use tupperware. Griffin also admitted that on occasions he wakes up late and doesn’t have the time to make a sandwich – and local stores don’t pack their sandwiches in tin foil!

Griffin’s boss, MD Alistair Sim had this to say on the matter: “I haven’t seen the ball, but if it’s true then it’s really a great achievement, both for Simon and the agency. We’ve always been aware of Simon’s talent, and it was only going to be a matter of time before something like this confirmed what a skilled writer he is.”

Griffin hopes to reach the 1kg mark some time in the next year, before taking the ball on a nationwide tour.

It’s been a week since I started this trog and in that time one thing’s occurred to me: 90% of my train journeys are pretty dull, and a blog/trog that reads: “Tuesday 3rd October: 0738 train to Piccadilly: man sat opposite reads book, lady falls asleep, suited man spills overpriced coffee on table” isn’t really that interesting. At least to anyone apart from our anorak-wearing, thermos-loving railway friends. (My God – is that it? Am I the first in a new generation of 21st century trainspotter? I’ve got a thermos flask filled with tea, I’ve got my blog/trog of train journeys and times, and I’ve got an anorak. I don’t wear it, but I still own one. In twenty years time will you find me standing on the end of platforms with notebook and camera? I’ve noticed how trainspotters hang around in groups, but there’s always one or two they won’t let in the group – like he’s too weird or he hasn’t passed his spotter’s exam yet. Maybe that’ll be me.)

Anyway, my point is that it’s probably best just to do an overview of the week, or pick up days when something interesting happens. Like last Tuesday on the 2242 train to York. I’d been out at the D&AD book launch and had a few beers, so I started a trog on the way home.

This was the man who was sat opposite me. This was the man who watched me fall asleep mid-trog. This was the man who got off the train at Leeds and left me fast asleep on the train. This is the man who watched the train pull out of Leeds towards York with me on it. I don’t blame him – how was he to know I live in Leeds? Still I should be grateful I didn’t end up in Scarborough, Hull, Newcastle or Middlesbrough.

A few people have asked us whether we’re selling copies of our new book.  It showcases some of our favourite LOVE work from the last 5 years.  We’ll probably be putting some copies on sale in Magma in Manchester or you can buy direct from us.  Cover price - £20 (plus postage which is about £2 for 2nd class and £3 for 1st Class).

Dave, Nic and Adam have (finally) completed the 07/08 prospectus for Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon Colleges of Art and Design. It feels like years have gone by since Dave went down and sold the idea - but hey, ‘great things come to those…’ and all that. Pretty much all prospectuses look predictable and ’samey’, so we were chuffed when our clients asked us to create something a little less ordinary. You can’t beat a good book…

Yipee!!

Iliotibial Band Syndrome causes pain.
Iliotibial Band Syndrome is thigh gristle running over the bony prominence on the side of the knee.
Iliotibial Band Syndrome only hurts when the knee is moving.
Afflicted knees hurt when you run.
Running is often a pre-requisite for the Great North Run.
Completing the Great North Run is often a pre-requisite for receiving the money pledged by your work colleagues.
Adam got Iliotobial Band Syndrome.
Adam didn’t run the Great North Run.
Adam now has to do a forfeit to get his cash.
LOVE are yet to choose the forfeit.
All forfeit suggestions are welcome.

Unless you happen to live pretty much on the doorstep of your office, then the chances are at eight in the morning you’re crammed onto a train, bus or tram on the way into work with the rest of the world. And shame on you if you drive into work – unless you’re part of an organised car-share scheme.

Anyway, I’m guessing that the average commute is about 30 minutes, which means that in a single year the average commuter spends two hundred and forty hours sat or stood with a bunch of strangers. Me? I take the train over the Pennines from Leeds every day, which pushes my yearly tally up to more than twice that. Bearing in mind I’ve worked at LOVE for nearly two years now, that means I’ve spent about nine hundred and sixty hours on the train. That’s forty days.

Forty precious days of my life spent with a bunch of total strangers.

Or are they strangers? Maybe I know more about these people than I let on. I know the guy with the suit and beard who gets the 1825 train from Piccadilly to Newcastle. He’s always reading some stiff financial magazine and gets his wife to pick him up at Huddersfield. Then there’s the tall girl who gets on at Stalybridge in the mornings who sometimes wears a red hoody; the old guy who’s always snoring when I get on at Leeds; the woman with the fold-up bike and purple jacket with a tear in the back; the other suited guy who listens to his mp3 player too loudly and likes Kasabian even though he’s too old; and let’s not forget the old man with the mouldy moustache who runs the service trolley. He annoys me actually, ever since he barged his fat arse into my head when the train rocked and didn’t apologise.

Have I ever spoken to these people? Of course not. Have they ever spoken to me? Nope. Do they see me? Maybe – we spend enough time together after all. Maybe they see me as the tired, pale looking guy who gets on at Leeds and always brings a thermos flask of tea with him. Or maybe they see me as the person who always waits for the train at the far end of the platform (fewer people in this carriage, so there’s more chance of getting a seat.) Or maybe they see me as a rugged, sex-pot who they’re desperate to take home and have ravish them, if only they weren’t married to some fat, suited monkey who stinks of fags and likes Kasabian cos it’s wot tha kids are into.

I spend a huge portion of my life with these people, so I’ve made the decision to start a train blog, or ‘trog’ if you will. I’m not going to talk to these people, you must understand – just sit, watch, listen, smell and observe. Ok, maybe not too much smelling. It’ll be a record of their conversations, their habits and my thoughts.

Maybe it’ll become the latest fad, creating a huge online community for commuters, and millions of pounds for me in the process. There could be a website ‘trainsreunited.co.uk’ where commuters could log in their train details and read about themselves and other passengers; trendy Soho types with mild delusions of grandeur would all scramble to set up their own trogs before the wave fades:
MD: “What’s the latest on the Austin Reed account?”
CD: “The media agency’s bought cross-tracks at Euston, Victoria and Liverpool Street, and plasmas at King’s Cross and Waterloo.”
MD: “Dammit man, what happened to the trog? If we’re gonna capture the minds of commuters we need trogs. Even fucking Burton have their own trog…”

Here’s the guy with the beard and suit with one of his magazines on the 1825 to Newcastle. He kept on trying to look at the titties in the lad’s mag who was sat next to him.