LOVE

Lick The Lid Of Life

As the new Muller website says, "Muller Rice is tasty, healthy and satisfying.  And with less than 3% fat, it's the perfect snack".  Clearly the crew handing them out to Manchester commuters this morning couldn't agree more.  Here they are heartily tucking into their bacon barms instead.

Trees Breathe Adverts Suck

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.

Sausage and Egg

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.

Scorchio In Manchester

So when the rest of the UK is knee deep in snow, Manchester doesn't get a single flake.  Sometimes living in the UK's sunniest, hottest and driest english city is just no fun at all.

Manchester Kids

We haven't done a great deal of work with Manchester Kids since Dave P developed their identity, so it was a pleasure to join them at their Jingle Ball, a massive fundraising event to help underprivileged and disadvantaged children living in the Greater Manchester area.  Dave S and I were guests of Matt, our client from Man City.  It was a fairly typical Wednesday lunchtime in Manchester really as we ate our dinner whilst being entertained by the cast of Coronation Street, a load of up and coming bands, stars from X-Factor, Liz McClaron from Atomic Kitten and Tony Christie.

Posted By Jonathan Rigby

Unhappy? Sing About It

The new way to complain is through the medium of song.  More specifically choir-complaints.  In case you haven't seen it, here's the Complaints Choir Of Birmingham voicing their grievances about the changes in Birmingham in recent years. (Thanks to Anthony Mayfield for posting about it).  It's nearly 9 minutes long, so they clearly had a lot to get off their chest.  It's also received 350,000 hits, so a lot of people are interested in hearing their gripes.  According to YouTube, the complaints choirs have now spread to Helsinki and Hamburg.  So where do we start..."manchester, manchester so much to answer for...".

UPDATE - I've just watched this video through again. What a boring bunch of moaners.  They had the opportunity to do something really witty, controversial and insightful and all they manage to moan about is people pinching their biscuits, dog poo, bus drivers that don't speak (would you?) and having to work for a living.  Get a life guys, or alternatively write something really brilliant.  Come on Manchester, maybe we should show them how to really complain.

Posted by Jonathan Rigby

Friendly Traffic Wardens

This guy spends his days hiding his little car in back streets and then filming people who drive or park where they shouldn't. Someone's gotta do it, and he seemed pretty happy with his lot when I chatted to him. I think his favourite bit is working the camera on the roof with a joystick. I wonder whether Manchester City Council have put them in cute little Smart cars to make them seem more friendly when they fine you?

Icebreaker

Adam and I managed to get an invite to the Manchester launch of Icebreaker at Tiger Tiger.  After completing our free online registration earlier in the day (employed and stressed, straight, cuddly build, looking for a laugh and, erm, 38) we hit the bar.    Basically you send Play to 89665 and you're in the game.  For some reason, I found myself waving my phone around the room hoping to catch the phone rays of a 'Match'.  But before long, you get a message asking if you want to see the details of a potential 'suitor'.  "Emma, 23, single, fun-loving, likes reading books" seemed a good start (had she received word that I was married and 38?) so I started drafting my first text.  So what the hell do you say?  I've always been crap at chatting to strangers and I dried up, only managing a rather limp "Hi.  What books do you like?".  Well at least it was asking for a response.  Clearly 'Emma' was wanting to push things forward more quickly based on her "anything that's really saucy" response.  I gulped.  You see, it becomes a bit of a pride thing.  At any time your Match can DUMP you and move on, so true achievement involves keeping the text conversation going for a long as possible.  Emma hadn't asked me a question, it was a closed response, so it forced me to try and keep things going.   Was "me too, the saucier the better" really that crap?  Had I closed things down?  Had I failed to move things on by simply pretending to share her taste in books?   I waited.  And waited.  I checked my signal.  I waved my phone around a little bit more.  And then it happened.  "Sorry, you've been DUMPED."  I have to admit, Icebreaker is strangely addictive and loads of fun.  Within seconds, "Emily, 24, bi-curious and into wet and wild" made text contact.  This time...

Posted by Jonathan Rigby

Manchester - The Perfect Test Market

Of course us LOVE-sters have never had problems flirting with the opposite sex (honest), but we're keen to have a look (just out of curiosity) at Icebreaker.  It's a "new interactive mobile phone game that allows you to chat, flirt and meet your kind of people wherever you are just by texting PLAY and icebreaker 89665."  We've always been convinced of the massive market opportunity in location-based mobile games and it's great that Icebreaker have chosen to launch in Manchester. Why more companies don't choose Manchester is beyond us considering the demographics, vibrancy, size and contained geography of the city.  We're going to try and blag an invite to the launch party at Tiger Tiger next week, so we'll report back.

Posted by Jonathan Rigby

Dedication

It's absolutely chucking it down.  So we were particularly impressed with the dedication of two bus-spotters seen pursuing their passion near Piccadilly. (Sorry about the crap picture, by the way.  We only had a camera phone with us and as I said, the weather conditions were typically Mancunian.)  It made us wonder whether people could make money from doing something they love.  These two hardy souls could provide a useful role in tracking bus movements for the bus companies, for example.  We didn't manage to pluck up the courage to suggest this to them.  They looked too busy as it was rush hour.