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A quick word to say goodbye and good luck to Simon. Who, apart from being a genius in the copywriting department, regularly updated our blog with his witty and wise words. You will be sadly missed, especially by the cleaner…

After a rather lazy 30-second search on Google I found The Times’ Top Ten Gifts for Men, 2009. They are, in reverse order:

10. A sonic scrubber

9. A wall storage cycle rack

8. A laser spirit level

7. A toaster made of glass

6. A DIY book

5. A lager brewing kit

4. Some comfy shoes

3. A survival course

2. A computer game

1. A tweed jacket

Amazingly, nowhere on that list is an Account Director, which is exactly what our MD Chris Conlan would like for Christmas, to work on one of our key clients*.

Last year Chris got a lighthouse and tugboat set for his bath.

There are many types of Account Director, but the one Chris is looking for is the deluxe, upgraded version. Not the old 2.0 model. The 2.7, 3.6, or even 8.4 version. Full spec includes:

- Over 5 years’ experience in design/advertising.

- Fully compatible with TV, print, & digital.

- Experience with international clients**.

- Appreciates the importance of media neutral thinking, but doesn’t use twatty phrases like media neutral thinking.

- Knows the difference between an idea and an execution.

- Good with money.

- Good knowledge of design & designers.

- Takes 4x AA Batteries. (Not included)

All this plus all the benefits you’d expect as standard: hard working, team player, fun to be around, good with people, addiction to some basic drugs, blah blah blah. Please send interest and CVs to info@lovecreative.com with “All I want for Christmas Is You” or “Account Director Job”. Probably the latter one, actually.

NOTE: If you’re sat there (or stood there, leaning there or even lying there) reading this thinking  “That sounds just like me, but I’m more suited to a Account Manager role”, then please send us your CV too. Just adjust the subject line and cover note accordingly.

* That’s a major client, not a client who’s a locksmith.

** That’s a client for an international business, not a client who’s from Belgium.

Whether you care about RATM and  X-Factor doesn’t really matter; this is still funny. I probably wouldn’t go so far as to title it “Funniest Video Ever”, probably something more like “This is quite funny”.

Thanks Dorothy, who got it from Dave, who got it from Tim. Merry Christmas.

One or two of you will have noticed that Christmas is coming. If you missed the geese rapidly putting on weight, then you may well have spotted other tell-tale signs such as the shops being heated to tropical temperatures, people in novelty ties being sick in the street, and your bank account being empty. And, if you were in the LOVE offices, you’d also have noticed our annual Christmas cards being delivered. Except ‘delivered’ is probably the wrong word to use, and so is ‘card’, making that last sentence almost entirely pointless. ‘Gifts’ were sort of ‘dumped’ in the office and needed packing.

It was a Herculean task to get them all done, but fortunately we had our very own Herculette in charge, Miss Dani Hawley. That’s her on the left below, telling Johnny his glasses are stupid.

Then I cracked this really funny joke, but only Helen found it funny. And Tom found a small bit of fluff on his jumper. It’s not his favourite jumper. The blue one is his favourite.

And then they were all packed up and ready to go. They’re being posted out today, so we’ll show you what they are in a later post. If you haven’t already received one by then. Previous years’ cards can be found here, and here.

[I'm not entirely sure of the relevance of the title for this post - it just popped into my head and I couldn't be bothered to change it. Sorry. I don't think they were listening to Coldplay when they were packing everything. Which is unusual for us because we are partial to a spot of Coldplay at least once a day. Sometimes even twice.]

Ever since those three guys turned up at the birth of Christ the world has been shaped by wise guys. (Wise girls, too. But for the sake of this post we’re focusing on wise guys.) Other wise guys of note from history include Genghis Khan, Oliver Cromwell, Wyatt Earp, Jean-Gaspard Deburau, Bill Gates, Daley Thompson, and let’s not forget the wisest guy of all, Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gualtiere. Well if you head over to Umbro’s blog you’ll get your chance to prove you too are a genuine, bona fide wise guy (or girl) with their caption competition.

Please don’t leave a caption on here. This isn’t our caption competition. Leave your wise-guy comment on their blog.

I’ll say it again, don’t leave your caption here. If you want to comment, perhaps you could just suggest other wise guys from history.

Thank you.

After a week of admiring the genuine hilarity of the polls, now really feels like the time to move on. And so my thanks goes out to Mr John Goddard for sending me this short film about rolls. B Rolls to be precise. Expect further posts in the coming weeks involving molls, dolls, tolls, and possibly even voles, holes and soles.

And there’s also this link to a game about what to do if you’re a professional golfer with several  millions in the bank and you get caught cheating on your wife with several million waitresses.

Every year ends with a tedious collection of lists to find the best thing from the last 365 days. But this year is special. Special because it’s the end of the decade and everyone wants to know what the best thing is from the last 3650 days. Not being ones who like to miss out on a good bandwagon to jump on, we’ve created our own collection of polls for you to vote on.

The joke probably starts to wear a bit thin after the fourth or fifth poll, but I felt i was on a roll: a roll of polls. DO YOU LIKE THAT? YES MY SON I DO.

There comes a point in everyone’s sad and lonely life when you realise you’ve inadvertently just had…

[dramatic pause]

…a dinner party.

It might not be as grand or as fancy the ones you see on television, you may not have your own special cutlery set that you only use for special occasions, you may not have served coffee out of a cafetiere, but you had a dinner party alright, and by God was it civilised.

Other tell tale signs that you’ve just had a dinner party include:

You had dinner.

You all sat at a table.

No one was sick.

There’s no urine on your toilet seat.

There are no cigarette butts in wine glasses.

You cleaned up after everyone left.

Anyway, the point of all this is on Saturday night we had friends round for dinner. I won’t tell you their names, because it’s of no consequence to this story, but I will tell you that for starters we had butternut squash and blue cheese risotto, for main course we had monkfish wrapped in parma ham, and I forget what we had for dessert because I’d drunk too much by that point. No one cares about dessert anyway, everyone knows it was the easy bit on Masterchef. We’d all had a fair bit to drink when a one of them (we’ll call them K) asked me if I’d heard of Shredding.

My initial excitement that I was about to partake in some depraved and twisted communal sexual act with our guests soon faded as K continued to explain that Shredding involved taking an existing piece of film and putting a new audio track to it. Still, it was quite funny I suppose. Here are two of my favourites:

KISS Shreds

John Williams Shreds

(Note to northerners – the dinner party is a prime example of why lunch is called lunch, and not dinner. Dinner is a meal you have in the evening. The sooner you accept this, the better for everyone involved.)

Your alarm clock rings.

It’s morning and you’re about to start your day as an American Post-Graffiti Abstract Expressionist.

Armed with a collection of spray cans, poster paints, a balaclava and a step ladder, you set out to challenge the way people see the world.

And no one’s going to stop you. No, Sir.

Here’s some of the mischief that American Post-Graffiti Abstract Expressionist Rene Gagnon has been up to recently.

Anyone spot where Rene went wrong?

Anyone?

Anyone?

That’s right, children: Rene forgot to check his American Post-Graffiti Abstract Expressionist work for typos. I know, I know, we’ve all made typos and the idea’s still good, but… but… well I’m not the one that’s trying to be an American Post-Graffiti Abstract Expressionist. If you can spell that correctly, then surely you can work out how to use apostrophes?

(Rene – if for some unknown reason you ever happen to read this drivel – I am sorry. It’s just that after working with designers for five years you start to get a little grouchy about people’s lack of respect for the English language.)

I’ve also just discovered that Rene Gagnon shares his name with one of the U.S. Marines immortalised in by Joe Rosenthal’s famous WWII photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.

Stupid pictures of sharks.

Via totalleh.