We’d heard a rumour that personnel from various COMPETING agencies had arranged to meet for a drink and a chat, but we didn’t believe it. As we all know, this behaviour is BANNED by the management of every advertising, design and digital creative agency in Manchester. So imagine our SURPRISE and SHOCK when we received PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE of Mick from TBWA having a beer with Alistair from LOVE at the Marble Arch. There’s a rumour that the Marble Arch has been chosen as the secret location for illicit Thursday night get togethers of creative agencies every few weeks. But don’t tell your boss. They’ll ban you from attending as it’s not the done thing in this city.

BY POPULAR REQUEST : THIS IS THE NEW CAPTION COMPETITION TO WIN ALL THE PRIZES THAT WEREN’T CLAIMED LAST TIME.

We were recently invited to the McNaughton Review in Gleneagles. Previous years had seen the review take place in Marbella, Venice and Monte Carlo, but 2008 saw us fly to Scotland on the same weekend that the UK was due its biggest storms in twenty years. Yes, it was wet, and yes, England lost to Scotland in the rugby, but no, it didn’t stop us having a good time. Activities laid on by McNaughton included clay pigeon shooting, and scurry driving, which I imagined as some sort of 4×4 scrambling. When I was told it involved horses, I figured it was something like the chariot scene from Ben Hur. As the clip below shows, I wasn’t disappointed.

That’s me, top speed. Think my horse was called fudge or spodge or puzzle or something. As Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax once said, you’ve should try everything once except incest and Morris dancing. (Although Arnie should have probably added suicide to that list.) Anyway, it was a successful weekend, crowned by not only winning the Direct Mail/ Promotional category for Chavs & Scallies, but also joint overall winners of the Design section.

Thanks to everyone who helped organise it – Tony, Phil, Mick, and apologies that it’s taken 2 weeks to post about it. Hope to see you all again next year. Somewhere hot would be nice.

We recently ran a very popular online vote amongst young people asking them to help choose a name for a new website we’re developing about careers in science for The Science Council.It was a close vote, but eventually Futuremorph won through.They’re smart kids, you know - cos they rightly identified that studying science and maths has a reputation for narrowing career options, when in fact it opens up a world of possibilities for young people (i.e) in the future you can become (morph into) anything.So, a good choice of name in our view.The website will go fully live in September. In the meantime, if you want to stay abreast of developments on the site, register here.We’ll be looking for more help from young people in designing the content for the site soon.

Having spent too many hours travelling on trains and planes and sitting in airport waiting lounges and hotels, we consider ourselves to be connoisseurs of the snack products category.

Dave is a “two bags of Dry Roasted peanuts” kind of guy, whilst others prefer the Walkers Cheese & Onion grab bag and collectively I reckon LOVE have eaten their way through a catering-cars-worth of snacks in our time.

So, what a pleasant surprise to receive a sample box of buff snacks, a new brand start-up created by Paula Quazi, our old Unilever client and her business partner Reb.

It’s taken a while for her to send them because the new brand is selling well and stock levels have taken a recent hit (so I guess Paula and Reb are not complaining).

Anyway, in return for the free samples, here’s a quick plug - buff is here to fill a gap in the market for “healthy snacks that are fun and delicious”.

Having sampled the range, the wasapeas (green peas in a jacket of hot natural wasabi….all in the buff) are our favourites though the corn alone (roasted corn with a lick of salt) and mango & more (mangoes, peaches, apricots & apple) were also very popular.

If you want to know more, email reb&paula@buffsnacks.com

And good luck to Paula & Reb with their new venture.

So, it would appear that lovely little Ollie is already famous.

An intrepid team of LOVE folk are attempting the 3 Peaks Challenge in June. An audacious - some would say foolhardy - attempt to climb the highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales, all within 24 hours. Now, you wouldn’t get many of us up one mountain, let alone three, unless it was for a very good cause so we’re going to be climbing in support of Christian Aid. Dig deep and sponsor us here: http://www.justgiving.com/love3peaks

We began our training in earnest last weekend, with a planned ascent of Helvellyn…

…which sadly had to be curtailed due to truly horrendous weather.

To add to our woes a navigational blunder on the descent saw us take a wrong turn and find ourselves stranded in the Travellers Rest, Grasmere. A predicament three of LOVE’s greatest minds weren’t able to extricate us from for a good few hours.

When we finally dried out we realized that to attempt the 3 Peaks Challenge we might need some better kit than the paraphernalia we had rummagged from previous photoshoots. So if any friendly outdoor clothing brands happen to be reading this and could help us stay alive we would welcome any help. We will repay the favour by doing something special for you and creating as much publicity as we can muster.

After being absolutely (ahem) inundated with responses to our recent caption competition, Kat has chosen a winner. Blame her if you think she’s made a bad/controversial choice - but she went for entry no.11 from Mike.

As promised, we’ve scoured the office and pulled together a prize box including a monopoly mousemat, a coaster, some sun tan cream, a memory stick, a can of Carling, a bottle of Casteel Cru, a piece of cake (with knife), some Umbro aftershave, eraser, 2 balls, a bottle opener, a badge, wristband, chocolate, some of the pieman’s amazingly original incognito glasses, 2 postcards, a mug, some Playdoh, a tin of soup and some Kendall Mint Cake. Please contact LOVE with your address and we’ll stick it all in a box and dispatch.

Please be quick - we think the soup is almost out of date.

Tuesday night was the 2008 Design Week Awards Ceremony. We had all our eggs in one basket with our 2 nominations in the ‘Promotional Brochures’ category. We were chuffed to bits that we got a commendation for our London College of Arts set of Prospectuses for Chelsea, Wimbledon & Camberwell. We were chuffed even more when we won the category with our Umbro Control Book… so congratulations to all involved.It was a pretty good night for Manchester, with Mark Studio, Thoughtful and The Chase all picking up awards - so nice work guys!However, perhaps the biggest achievement of the night goes to Dave Palmer, our creative director, for being described by the compere as looking like a Toni & Guy hairdresser. That’s what you get for dressing like Jean Paul Gaultier without the hat. Dave’s hair straighteners have also sadly broken this morning, so if anyone cares to donate a good pair of GHDs, he’d be really grateful.

This is a long(ish) read but it’s worth it. Thanks to Stu for passing it on.
Cargo ship the Cougar Ace is in big trouble and Mazda are sweating because there are $103million worth of brand new cars on board.

Time to call in a crack team of deep sea divers, computer modellers, underwater welders and big engine repairers - plus their leader Rich Habib, Senior Salvage Master.

They spend their lives travelling round the world saving ships.

Save this one and they’ll get a massive pay-off. But is it worth risking your life for the bounty?

What makes this story great is that it’s true. I bet the Hollywood execs are all over it.

Here’s a test film put together by Anna from LOVE which we think is genius in its simplicity. It’s also all about chicken which is a bonus in anyone’s books.