Again, please don’t read this if you don’t like reading about awards’ ceremonies.

A week after the Roses was the Fresh Grand Prix. Phil said he wasn’t sure, Alistair said he was hopeful, and the compere said “Gold goes to LOVE for D&AD poster”, and then a little later he said “Gold goes to LOVE for Grossology portacabin”, and then after that he said “Gold goes to LOVE for Christmas Tree”. And so Adam said “I hope we get the Grand Prix”, and the compere said “The Grand Prix goes to McCann Erickson, Manchester for Pins and 2B Pencils”.

“That’s ok,” said Phil. “There’s always next year.”

Please don’t read this if you don’t like reading about awards’ ceremonies.

At the Roses Advertising Awards – at Manchester’s Hilton on 20th April - Love picked up two Golds for Chavs and Scallies, Gold for the Umbro book, and Bronze for A Less Ordinary Book. Dave, Adam, Chris and Dani took it in turns to go and collect the awards, but Simon just sat at the table being miserable and mumbling about how he didn’t get the recognition he deserved.

How it was:

How it should have been:

Note - Dave and Adam did not actually kiss.

Because we’ve been a bit on the busy side, we forgot to mention last week that the LOVE designed James album ‘fresh as a daisy - the singles’ had been released.

According to the official UK album chart, it’s now at number 12. The basic concept for the design is a 16pp perforated insert, which features 13 takes on the new flower design. The idea is you can tear out your favourite flower and create your own cover. To record this, we’re now trying to get people to send in a picture of themselves holding their chosen cover - if we get enough, we’re going to make something out of them all. So if you’ve bought the album - send a pic to a.rix@lovecreative.com. Just make the album a reasonable size in the shot, and send it at a reasonable resolution in case it ends up being printed. Easy! Here’s some so far:

When we started working with Yorkshire Tea, we picked up on a brilliant little initiative that they’d been quietly undertaking for years.  Tucked inside the box is a little token, and every time you clip it and send it to Harrogate (the home of YT), they donate a tree to be planted with Oxfam.  Neat.   

We produced this little website for them where tree donaters can see a virtual version of their tree and keep count of the number of trees donated since the start of the campaign.

It’s great to see that nearly 30,000 trees have been donated in the few weeks since the campaign broke and the site was launched.

This is in addition to the 3 million trees that Yorkshire Tea have donated since 1990.

Saw these stuck over several 6-sheets on Oldham Street this morning. Underneath the tree there’s a line that says: “Trees breathe adverts suck”. I like it. Particularly the irony that presumably it’s an advert itself promoting greener living.

Last night was the Planners meeting, which threw up some interesting points of discussion. Threw up is probably the wrong word to use as I eventually snuck into bed at 2am. Needless to say, today is a bit of a struggle so far, but it’s given me the opportunity to blog about something I really care about – sausage and egg sandwiches. On toast. With ketchup.

I have no idea who this man is, but he looks happy

There are four places that I’ve sampled recently in the Northern Quarter: Soup Kitchen, Koffee Pot, Rustica and Inhabito. I’m sure there are many more places to go, but I just haven’t got around to it yet. So here are the results so far. Please feel free to let me know of any other good NQ sandwich shops.

Soup Kitchen:
Price: ♥
Time: ♥
Sausage: ♥♥♥♥♥
Egg: ♥♥♥
Toast: ♥
Ketchup: ♥♥♥♥
Notes: Toast was freshly cut, but about an inch thick. Had to resort to using a knife and fork. Waited at least 20 minutes.
Overall: ♥♥

Inhabito:
Price: ♥♥♥
Time: ♥♥♥♥
Sausage: ♥♥
Egg: ♥♥
Toast: ♥♥♥
Ketchup: ♥♥
Notes: Close proximity to work means this will always be a default butty. But mainly because I’m too sick to walk anywhere else.
Overall: ♥♥♥

Koffee Pot:
Price: ♥♥
Time: ♥♥
Sausage: ♥♥♥♥
Egg: ♥♥♥
Toast: ♥♥♥
Ketchup: ♥♥♥♥
Notes: Served in a large, polystyrene burger box, which I suspect is not biodegradable. I think I fancied the waitress.
Overall: ♥♥♥♥

Rustica:
Price: ♥♥♥♥
Time: ♥♥♥♥♥
Sausage: ♥♥
Egg: ♥♥♥
Toast: ♥♥♥
Ketchup: ♥
Notes: An average performance, definitely not great. Cheap ketchup lets it down.
Overall: ♥♥♥

Conclusion: I’ve concluded very little from this, apart from that I don’t really care where I get a sandwich from when I’m hungover. That, and I should probably spend less time blogging about sandwiches, and more time writing copy for clients.