Saturday saw Part 2 of our 3 Peaks training regime, this time in Snowdonia. Over 8.75 hours we managed to get lost, fall over a few times, have a snowball fight, eat 3 picnics (check out Picnkr on our Warburtons website) on 3 different 3000ft peaks, get an unwelcome football result and have a religious experience (see below). Please support our considerable efforts and sponsor us here: http://www.justgiving.com/love3peaks

With over 12,000 entries for the contest last year, DM Boot Design returns this week and this time we’re looking for designs for both the 1460 (8 hole) and the 1914 (14 hole) boots.

There’s a judging panel who will choose from a shortlist of the top rated designs (so get voting) plus lots of new features on the site including design of the week, a new and improved “love it or hate it” voting system and loads of new drawing tools.

We’ve had some good news. Our University of the Arts London Prospectuses have made it into this years D&AD Annual.

This is quite hard to do - like being able to do 60 press-ups in a row, so we’re very pleased.

Now the clocks have gone forward and we’re feeling the first pangs of optimism that spring is round the corner, why don’t we make this year the year we all go picnicking again?

Picnics are great. Kids love them. Grown-ups love them. Dogs love them. The frisbee gets it’s annual bit of fresh air. It’s the perfect excuse to buy some strawberries. And fizzy wine somehow tastes perfect from a plastic cup. There’s not a bad thing to say about a picnic.

So we were very, very chuffed to be asked by Warburtons to build a microsite for National Bread Week 2008 and the central theme is – yep, picnics.

You can upload pictures of your picnics, vote for the nation’s favourite picnic spot, download a picnic scene screensaver and lots more. To expand the picnic concept, LOVE are going to embark on a Summers-worth of office picnics and we’re going to invite complete strangers from other companies to share a sandwich or a sausage roll on picnic blankets near our desks. Bliss.

Chris entered a Freitag design a truck contest.Chris won.Chris will see his design on a real truck real soon. Chris thinks he might win some money too. Beers are on Chris, so everyone’s a winner.Hurrah. The End.

Good to see that Gre’s Afflecks t shirts have been well received by everyone they have been given to.

Here’s Gre modelling his own, joining the lucky few such as Mr Scruff, Clint Boon, The Courteeners, The Long Blondes and John Robb, who have all managed to get their mitts on one of the limited editions t shirts, produced to promote Afflecks Day on 12th April.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1044916_afflecks_salutes_new_era_

We’re big fans of Gre city Fox, that is also making an appearance in Tom Judd’s new illustrations on the outside of the building.

Radiohead’s latest initiative to make their former paymasters squirm uncomfortably is the remixable version of Nude, released last week on iTunes. Here’s our effort. Well, Adam P - aka Juan Trick Pony’s - effort really. Have a listen; vote if you like it. I do, but must admit I was taken by surprise a few times…

Whilst wandering through the world of blog I came across In My Atmosphere: the thoughts and observations of a nameless 26 year-old planner in Australia. The only other information I could find is that he’s a Taurus who likes guitars, but can’t play too good. But that doesn’t stop his blog from being well worth a read. Two excellent things I found there were this video promoting Charles Leadbetter’s book We Think (which I also found on Stan Lee’s blog)

And this, which is really rather good.

Thank you for those.

There’s been a lot of press recently about Affleck’s Palace closing down. We can assure you it’s all lies. See you there on the 12th. (Please spread the word.)

Unfortunately, due to filming commitments, Ben Affleck will not be attending.

A few of us had a tour round one of the Warburtons bread factories recently (news about why we were there to follow).

Jono forgot to shave so he had to wear a beard snood as well as a hair net.

Chris had read up extensively about bread so he could show off his knowledge to the Warburtons client. However, she laughed him off as a girly swot which made the rest of us snigger.

Darren discovered there’s nothing better than really, really freshly baked bread.

Warburtons is the 2nd biggest grocery brand in the UK behind Coca Cola, but it’s still family owned and everyone there is really genuine, passionate and pleasant, which is a very nice thing for such a huge, successful company.

We’ll be back to talk to you about National Bread Week 2008 very soon, so dust off your picnic blanket as we need your help to get the nation picnicking again.