This is Jo.

Jo doesn’t work for LOVE, but for the last six and a half years she’s provided all the love and support her husband needs. He works for LOVE, so in a way, Jo does too. Jo’s also a great cook. Jo likes Jamie (who she once met when she was really drunk at a party), Jo likes Nigel, Jo likes Nigella, Jo likes Bill, and Jo sort of likes Gordon. (She met him once too, but wasn’t drunk and didn’t know what to say to him.)

In the interests of sharing Jo’s love, kindness and culinary genius, we’re experimenting with giving her her very own recipe section on our blog. These aren’t Jo’s own recipes, we must stress, just what she’d recommend from her wealth of cookbook knowledge. We’re calling this section “Jo’s Kitchen” for the simple reason that her name’s Jo and it’s a Kitchen-related blog.

We decided there was no better way to start Jo’s Kitchen than with the recipe for her (ok, it’s Bill Granger’s) infamous chocolate and banana cake that periodically turns up at LOVE. It’s superb, and we’d recommend serving it with plenty of tea at about half past three in the afternoon. Definitely no later than four pm.

You will need:
250g PLAIN FLOUR
250g CASTER SUGAR
125g BUTTER
2x EGGS
2x TEASPOONS BAKING POWDER
1x TEASPOON VANILLA ESSENCE
100-175g CHOCOLATE CHIPS (depending on how fat you are)
3-4x RIPE BANANAS (depending on size)
1x EMPTY STOMACH

Soften butter & mix with sugar. Lightly beat eggs and add. Now add the mashed bananas, chocolate chips and vanilla essence. Sieve the flour & baking powder into a separate bowl, then mix with the banana mixture. Don’t over mix it though, or your cake will be tough. Pour mixture into a greased & floured loaf tin & cook for one hour at 180oC/ gas mark 4. Leave for ten minutes then turn out onto a wire rack. Stuff into face as required.

As a token of appreciation for all the hard work and advice Russell’s given us setting up the blog, Jo’ll be making a special C&B cake for him, and November 22nd (when Russell’s next up in Manchester) will become LOVE’s official Chocolate and Banana cake day. Providing he doesn’t have some unfortunately chocolate, banana or cake allergy. In which case we’ll have to have a rethink…

Doing creative work for a football club is really interesting.  Dave, Susie and I really enjoy the projects we do for Man City.  Our clients Matt, Ian and Karen are a real pleasure to spend time with.  They’ve also got a really clear feel for their ‘brand’. Many years ago, Man City were one of the first football clubs to launch a young supporters club.  (We’ve just re-launched it as Live4City). 

They’ve been active in the community (through CITC) for 20 years.  This season they’re the first Premiership club to sign up to a scheme to attract more gay fans and staff. 

In other words, they are really in touch with their fans and their community which is something to be really admired.  Marketing a football club is a real challenge.  The ‘product’ is extremely inconsistent and always changing (and as any hardened supporter knows, no club has more of a rollercoaster season than City!). 

You’re selling intangibles - dreams, hope, escapism, passion, joy.  Fans can’t ask for their money back if the team fail to deliver, but they can choose not to go again, or stop buying the merchandise, or support another club.  But City know what they’re doing. 

Recently they were the first football club to win an IPA Effectiveness Award for
their extremely popular and controversial ‘This Is Our City’ campaign.  We’re now working with them on bringing a consistent creative style and voice to their internal and external communications.

We were over there today planning a shoot at the City.v.Newcastle match tomorrow. (Here’s Dave Black taking a few test shots). 

The stadium  is really awesome even when it is empty and it was good to see the view that the Sky TV pundits get when they’re covering a game there.

Posted by Jonathan Rigby (a Liverpool fan)

We’re doing quite a lot of digital content, mobile download and web work with comedians at the moment (more of that over the coming months), so we were keen to have a look at this link to Demetri Martin’s website (thanks, dan for the link).  The whole site is great, but the ‘episodes’ particularly appealed to our sense of humour.  Comedians like Demetri (Dom Joly, Paul Whitehouse, Ricky Gervais) just get it.  They’re portable commercial content machines at a time when mobile networks, brands, channels etc are screaming out for exclusive content to sell to their customers.  The web, mobile etc is their route to riches. Great comedy doesn’t cost the earth to capture.  A camera and a mic is often all that is needed.  All these talented artists need to do is stay funny and work with people who can bring their creations to the world.

Expect to see any irresponsible food manufacturers whoop with joy at this months copy of New Scientist (subscription only, or pop out and buy Nov 4th Edition).  According to research, piling on the pounds is NOT

the result of eating too much crap food.  The top 10 "scientifically proven" factors to blame for being a bit porky are :-
1) not enough sleep
2) global warming
3) people smoking LESS
4) your parents
5) your parents having you when they were too old
6) your children
7) your spouse
living until you’re too old
9) pharmaceuticals
10) pollution
I just knew it wasn’t the weekly LOVE chicken korma lunch that was making me lardy.

Posted by Jonathan "5 Bellies" Rigby

As all of you will know, tomorrow (9th November) is Standinaqueue Day, so we’ll be dilligently capturing our queueing experiences in Manchester for William Deed.  It also got us thinking about those little ideas that stifle the British need to queue. 

This socially destructive concept is plonked in spitting distance of a perfect potential big queue location.  The picture was taken at one of the busiest times for buying a newspaper and as you can see at the tills behind, it has resulted in a zero-queue situation.  As our little contribution, we’re encouraging all LOVEsters to boycott similar queue-busters as a mark of respect for Britain’s favourite pastime. 

It’s absolutely chucking it down.  So we were particularly impressed with the dedication of two bus-spotters seen pursuing their passion near Piccadilly. (Sorry about the crap picture, by the way.  We only had a camera phone with us and as I said, the weather conditions were typically Mancunian.)  It made us wonder whether people could make money from doing something they love.  These two hardy souls could provide a useful role in tracking bus movements for the bus companies, for example.  We didn’t manage to pluck up the courage to suggest this to them.  They looked too busy as it was rush hour.

The Friday night stragglers spent a very pleasant evening in Common.  The interiors have all been done by local artists such as Matt Sewell (who has done a commission for us in our reception).  We talked to Suzie’s friend Sarah about becoming a resident daily weather-girl on our blog site.  She seemed quite receptive to the idea. Would this be a first?

After working through several important topics including lying about yourself on dating sites, Sarah Beeny’s hair, ginger people and spraying motorbikes we all enjoyed a wicked fish finger sandwich at Bluu.  It also gave us the opportunity to discuss the most important subject of the year - the LOVE Xmas Party.  Looks like we’re going to go for the "magical mystery tour bus taking in as many pub venues as possible across the Peak Disctrict before settling at a friends hotel in Sheffield" option.  If you’re around on December 14th, tag along.

Alistair’s trip to the dentist had no discernible side effects as far as we can tell.

As this could go either spectacularly well or spectacularly badly, we’re going to watch it evolve for a few days before passing further comment.  Anyone out there feeling brave enough to make a prediction at this early stage?

Posted By Adam Rix