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As well as a dance off, the first floor had a cheese off last week on the barge.

Each person on the floor brought in one of their favourite cheeses. It was a wonderful varied selection of cheeses – from a supermarket Cheese String to a very smelly top notch Madame La Forge.

We each had to present our cheese and big it up. Then give a mark out of 10 for each cheese.

The winner was a joint effort from Yvonne & Toni for their ‘Creamy Dream’ and they won a wonderfully cheesy ‘Best of Barry Manilow’ CD. Steve came a very close second with a cheese that was actually made by Pixies! He won the much loved ‘ Michael Parkinson Collection’.

It was such a good laugh smelling out the barge and just chilling over cheese,wine and nibbles.

To many more Cheese board Thursdays!

I tried to upload this weeks ago as one of my favourite worthy and worthwhile recent projects. But the blog rejected it saying the file size was too great.

Various shenanigans in the interim have culminated in us setting up a viddler account. (Although I need to figure out how we present the whole agency not as a 33 year old girl…) So courtesy of them - and courtesy of Chris’ gentlemanly response to my late night despair - enjoy the elephant…

Still trying to post the bags ad to our blog. Weeks on. Chris??!!!

By the way, I would be seriously neglecting my professional responsibility if I failed to draw your attention to the fact that a luscious 2 second preview of the new BRU ad is available to view on facebook.

Check it (as Ahmad would say) here. Or if you’re a twitterer, here. Enjoy.

Absolut launched a new ad last week that showcases people around the world being kind to each other. ‘Kindness as currency’ they’re calling the campaign. Do have a look for yourself. Their campaign website is here.

I don’t quite know what I think of it. It feels a bit hippyish to really be the stuff of Absolut. What I’ve historically liked about their brand communications is the impossibly perfect glamour of it all. I guess they’re maybe trying to make the brand appealing to a wider audience. But does that not risk losing those like superficial me who want to see perfect people in perfect places rather than well-meaning people shambling around in the dust..?

However, I could just be bitter because I’m not in London so can’t roam the streets in the hopes of finding someone somewhere that lets me redeem some small act of kindness for a vodka shot…

I started today interviewing a guy who headed up a sports association. He’d been 17 years in the RAF flying a helicopter. He started running distances at school and ended up at the Victoria Commonwealth Games as an amateur competing athlete. “It was quite fun” he said, rather self-effacingly.

He left the RAF, ended up working in sports, coached the Manchester Commonwealth Games athletic team and he now runs a running club on the side. All that before we’d ever started the interview. One of those people you wish you’d got sat next to at a long drawn out dinner.

This afternoon, I spoke to a lady head of a very nice private school in Edinburgh. She ‘resided’ in a beautiful mahogony’d room, furnished as you’d dream with plump brown leather armchairs. A good comprehensive girl, I’ve always been a bit sceptical about private education but I’m almost a convert. Particularly when she bid me farewell telling me she thought I’d be a brilliant teacher. I would be a terrible teacher. But anyway.

I wound up the day talking to clients about injecting drug user habits. Of which more later. From sports to schools to shooting up. Lovely.

It’s IPA paper deadline time of the year again. It’s been looming and lurking over me for weeks, as these things have wont to do. And I come in this morning to an email from my most obliging client (sent at 21:46 last night - how is that for commitment?) saying he’s pretty much happy with it. What a delightful start to the week.

I’m trying and failing to post TV ads up here at the moment. ‘Til the situation is resolved, please be directed to the Know The Score website where you shall find (if you haven’t already seen it on TV) our rather nice campaign targeting parents.

We ran the first incarnation of the parents campaign a couple of years back based on research that showed that parents were desperate to speak to their kids about drugs but didn’t quite know how to broach the subject.

This time around, we needed to create a bit of urgency around the subject. A follow-up piece of research suggested that parents knew they should speak to their kids but lacked confidence when it came to a subject that feels ever-changing and fraught with risks. Moreover, they needed a nudge to take action. This was the brief for the TV. As to how well we answered that, you may judge for yourselves.

Worse still, I spied at the weekend that they are now using some kind of slippy shiny plastic for their labels. No more faithful artisanal paper for them.

Oh innocent…..

True to my profession, I’ve always been a great fan of innocent.

But they have let me down in two ways recently.

I saw to my sorrow that they are distributing price-marked packs in certain establishments. Interestingly, I think it may only be establishments with price-conscious positionings. Somerfield had them (along with a very beautiful dump bin of IRN-BRU. I’d have taken a photo if I’d had a camera on me). Sainsbury’s did not. Anyway, the point is that in certain establishments, you can buy a little innocent for £1.49. A sad admission of defeat I felt, as their sales sink through the floor in these cost-conscious times.

To make things worse, they have now started (dirtily to my mind) cross-selling their ranges. I always look forward to my moment of copy on the innocent 250ml bottle. Usually a little inane but charmingly written. So a recent pomegranate, blueberry and acai bottle immediately warmed my heart by talking about moles. “Bearers of poor eyesight” (which immediately struck a chord), “dab hands at burrowing” (which is just cute). (Please don’t think I’ve memorised it. I’m reading from the pack here…)

Anyway, snatching up a guava, mango and goji superfruit smoothie recently, I was aghast to see the pack copy extolling the virtues of their veg pots. Oh my. My heart sank with disappointment. “We wanted veg with a bit more edge, a bit more bite.” They should have settled for the 6 sheets. As some kind of divine retribution, the label for the first time I’ve ever seen featured a typo: “nowehere near the mung beans”. That’ll teach them.